"B" meaning "hot and heavy"?

Question

In Maison Ikkoku, the title of episode 60 is "見ちゃった！響子{きょうこ}と三鷹{みたか}がいきなりB？！", which is translated to "Caught in the Act! Kyoko and Mitaka-Hot and Heavy!"

My question is, what is "B"? I've literally never heard it before @.@. I know "H" and "BL", but I've never heard just "B" to have any meaning in that way.

For context, this is an 80's/90's anime, and Kyouko and Mitaka are a potential couple that are caught embracing (in a misunderstanding where Mitaka fell on top of Kyouko) by Godai, who's also after Kyouko in a love triangle.

Related: Dating slang question based on a Murakami story Note that this is fairly old slang of the Showa era. I don't think young people use A, B and C this way anymore. — naruto, May 30 '23 at 07:30

score 8 · Answer 1 · answered May 29 '23 at 23:21

8

I assume this is sense 12 in this dictionary, although I haven't heard the term myself as a learner.

俗にペッティングのこと。Aをキス、Cをセックスとして、その間の段階ということから。
Colloquially, (sexual) petting. From the fact that if A is kissing, C is sex, then B is the stage in between.

If this definition is correct, an equivalently colloquial English translation with a pretty much identical meaning would be "second base".

answered May 29 '23 at 23:21

jogloran

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It also appears in "Zakennayo!: The Real Japanese You Were Never Taught in School", where the comparison to first base etc. does appear. So you could also translate it as "heavy petting", potentially. – ConMan May 30 '23 at 03:09
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As a quick follow-up question: is this slang at all commonly-known nowadays? Or is it much more of an 80s/90s thing? Because "getting to second base" is a commonly known expression even nowadays, but I've basically never heard A/B/C used like this – chausies Jun 03 '23 at 01:27

"B" meaning "hot and heavy"?

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