To believe we can retire the word "shagging"?

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I was a teenager in the 90s, and the word for casual, semi casual, or run of the mill sexual congress was "shag", as in "shagging" "have a shag", "quick shag", and "shagged em".

I just think, this word has had its day. It has connotations with vintage rugs, thick carpets, unruly beards, and perhaps panting sheepdogs, that are uncomfortable. Other words exist. I don't want to be the self declared Word Police, and appreciate there will be other points of view on this very important topic, but please can we all consider never using it again?

Did you differentiate between 'nice ones' and 'nasty ones', like we do with tubs of Quality Street - the former being things like strawberry or orange creams, and the latter obviously being the coconut monstrosities that feel and taste like chewing on wodges of wet bog roll?

On the antique mahogany banquette, of course.

actually this thread has reminded me of more early 1970’s phrases!
” going all the way”
” are you two screwing”
2 phrases used by the “ boys” at my mixed grammar school.
The early 70’s had moved on from the free love of the hippy years to being terrified of either getting pregnant unmarried ( a terrible disgrace still ) or getting the dreaded VD - no aids concerns in that era.

😆 😆. Brilliant. Yes a bad shag would be some choc ruined by dessicated coconut. Shame , because the potential was there....

Some of us enjoy dessicated coconut though 🥳

I would like to start using "rumpy pumpy"

There was a whole thread on this recently, featuring many women who seem to think that being in love is attention seeking. If I kiss my partner when we are <gasp> outdoors it’s for our own reasons and fuck all to do with whoever might watch.

You thinking “shagging” is bad… I heard someone refer to it as “porking”. 🤢

Glad to see the thread's still going. Further research (with MLA referencing!) gives us roll in the hay, shtup, and possibly nookie. The latter sounds English to me, but I would not have used it. Anyone?

ass, nookie, nooky, piece of ass, piece of tail, roll in the hay, screw, shag, shtup
type of:
carnal knowledge, coition, coitus, congress, copulation, intercourse, relation, sex act, sexual congress, sexual intercourse, sexual relation
the act of engaging in sexual intercourse

REF: "Screwing." Vocabulary.com Dictionary, Vocabulary.com, www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/screwing. Accessed 14 Oct. 2025.

Don't want to derail the thread, plus I'm not a PR marketeer, but here's a vote for Raffaello's coconut and white chocolate! My local Tesco's sells it.

But can you shag while you are eating it? Just asking!

Goodness, I wish I was in position to test this out. Sigh...

If Jilly Cooper was still with us, I'd sk her too - she should have been on this thread. 😃

Oh that’s hideous. My Scottish friend uses it and it makes my toes curl.

Let’s not forget the Australian “rooting”.

in the 60s I went to a girls’ grammar school which had a boarding section, I was sent there as my parents lived abroad.
Naturally sex was much discussed, albeit from a viewpoint of almost total ignorance. But what I remember most vividly what the term we used for having sex — we called it ‘going up the creek’ .
No idea why or how it came about. Perhaps it was just to disguise what we were saying.
By the time we were 14 or 15 some of us were certainly having sex, or as near as dammit, with our (older…) boyfriends. Not that we would admit it.

I think the poshos rut

Ah yeah maaaaate! In my root UHT! 😆

How about:

"Amorous congress" from Victorian times.