69

AARoads

Vive la France! The slang 69 goes back, if you can believe it, to the French Revolution. The term is found in a 1790 French work, The Whore’s Catechisms, attributed the revolutionary figure Théroigne de Méricour, who described a soixante-neuf, or “sixty-nine” in French.

English picked up sixty-nine by the 1880s, with its numerical shorthand, 69, familiar by the 1970s.

As long as there have been humans, though, there probably has been the practice of a 69. It’s described in the ancient Indian Kama Sutra, for instance, as the Congress of a Crow position. The position involves different- or same-sex partners going down on each other—genitals or anus—at the same time, usually achieved by lying on their sides or one on top. That is unless the people involved take to the Standing 69 or Eiffel 69, known variants of the move.

If you’re looking any more detail from us, well, there are other websites for that.

69 is commonly referenced—and snickered about—in popular culture. R&B singer Rick James released “She Blew My Mind (69 Times)” in 1982, for instance, and Bryan Adams 1984 “Summer of ’69,” which puns on the peace-n-lovin’ year 1969. Rapper Daniel Hernandez is better known by his suggestive stage name, 6ix9ine.

In in the 2000s, 69 = inspired something of a meme where internet users comment “nice” on just about any online content that happens to feature the number 69 (e.g., the poll shows that 69% of Americans approve of the new law).

Memebase – Cheezburger

Not that this is new. Pretty much all of us who are familiar with 69 make jokes whenever we encounter 69 in the wild, from phone numbers to jersey numbers to birthdays to license plates.