sexual intercourse

Noun

sexual intercourse (countable and uncountable, plural sexual intercourses)

1. Coitus or genital-genital sexual contact.
   • The yogi hopes to gain the universal feminine of Shakti by giving up sexual intercourse; he offers up his phallus in celibacy.1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 129
   • Sexual intercourse can be compared to a quarrel, on account of the contrarieties of love and its tendency to dispute.1883, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, Karma Sutra

   Synonyms:

   sexual congress, aphrodisia, carnal knowledge, coitus, coition, commerce, commixtion, congress, conjunction, connection

2. Sexual interaction, usually involving vaginal, anal, or oral penetration, between at least two organisms.
   • Dating and courtship provide many examples of indirect communications. The young man may want sexual intercourse. The young woman may want marriage. In the initial stages of the dating game neither knows just what the other wants. Hence, they do not know precisely what game they are going to play....1974, Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., chapter 8, in The Myth of Mental Illness, →ISBN, page 139
   • Mosher et al (2005), from the NSFG for 2002, reported on the percentage of each age group who had experienced oral sex but not sexual intercourse.2009, John Bancroft, Human Sexuality and Its Problems, page 197

   Synonyms:

   lovemaking