scissoring

storenvy

The earliest known pair of scissors are 3,000–4,000 years old, dating back to Ancient Mesopotamia. But, we know that’s not why you’re here.

A more academic term for lesbian scissoring, or simply scissoring, is tribadism, shortened to tribbing and documented in the 1800s. It encompasses all forms of genital contact between women … while scissoring specifically refers to a sex position that resembles two pairs of scissors attempting sex, hence the name.

Any movement that looks like the actions of scissors (e.g., kicking one’s legs while swimming) has been called scissoring since the early 1900s, but the sex slang emerges in internet porn and Usenet groups in the 1990s.

The term was popularized by the electroclash band, The Scissor Sisters, who formed in the gay club scene in 2001 in New York City. Scissoring further spread into the mainstream thanks to prominent references on popular TV shows like Glee and South Park. A 2007 episode of South Park featured a scissoring scene with a character, Mr. Garrison, in a bra and lipstick shouting “Scissor me timbers.”

Many people in the lesbian community are adamant that scissoring is #notathing because it’s uncomfortable, difficult, and, well, ineffective. Instead, they maintain scissoring was invented by straight people who can’t understand how two women could possibly have sex. In fact, the hand signal for scissoring, a peace sign inserted into another peace sign and wiggled around, is a gesture used to mock lesbians and lesbian sex.

However, a 2015 Autostraddle poll found that over 40% of the respondents regularly scissor, as its verb form so goes. In 2017, Mal Harrison, sexologist and director of the Center for Erotic Intelligence, told Refinery29: “Fifteen years ago, scissoring just wasn’t something commonly discussed in lesbian circles, nor amongst my lesbian and bisexual clients.” She attributes this new trend to the popularity of scissoring in straight porn.