petting party

Noun

petting party (plural petting parties)

1. (US, historical) A type of sex party in 1920s flapper culture.
   • On the Triangle trip Amory had come into constant contact with that great current American phenomenon, the “petting party.” None of the Victorian mothers—and most of the mothers were Victorian—had any idea how casually their daughters were accustomed to be kissed.1920 April, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 2, in This Side of Paradise, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, book I (The Romantic Egotist), page 64
   • This last is a little private mission of Mrs. Du Puy and she is making a nationwide appeal for justice for the young thing who wears not much of anything in the way of clothes, paints her cheeks, powders her nose and plays her share in petting parties.1921 October 15, “Let Girls Smoke, Mrs. Dupuy's Plea”, in The New York Times, →ISSN