exchange flesh

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exchange flesh (see inflection at exchange)

1. (rare, archaic, idiomatic, euphemistic) To engage in sexual intercourse.
   • 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, act 4, scene 4:

     [I]t was thought she was a woman and was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that loved her.

   • 1977, Jane Lane, A Secret Chronicle: Edward II, →ISBN (2002 House of Stratus reprint), page 140 (Google preview):

     [W]ill-she, nill-she, she must have Roger's company nightly in her bed, to ensure that he lay not with another. . . . To exchange flesh with Roger she would bid all the world defiance.

   • 1997, Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai, →ISBN, page 210 (Google preview):

     She thinks to herself, What crime have I committed? If two people exchange flesh for money, why is it that only the one who contributes the flesh is a criminal and not the one who pays?

• See Thesaurus:copulate

• become one flesh