back-door, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

back-door n.

[pun on SE]

1. (also back avenue, back way) the anus.

1592		T. Kyd Soliman and Perseda D2: Now sir, Cupid seeing you alreadie hurt before, Thinkes it a greater punishment to hurt you behind, Therefore I would wish you to haue an eye to the back dore.
[1604		Dekker Honest Whore Pt 1 II i: A harlot [...] Swallows both English, Spanish, fulsome Dutch, / Back-door’d Italian, last of all the French].
1628		Ford Lover’s Melancholy III i: Keep off, ... Else, if thou touch me, touch me but behind. In palaces, such as pass in before Must be great princes; for at the back-door Tatterdemalions wait, who know not how to get admittance.
c.1642		T. Killigrew Parson’s Wedding (1664) V iv: My lady would have a husband to rejoyce with, no green-tail’d Lecturer, to stand Centry at his bed’s side while his nasty soul scoures through him, sneaking out at the back door.
1650		H. Neville Newes from the New Exchange 12: ’tis known well enough […] how often Mr Villiers hath come the Back way .
1693		T. Brown Salamanca Wedding 1: Aperson of his Constitution, that always expressed, and perhaps inherited an aversion to the Fair Sex [...] besides, had found out a Back door to bestow his [illegible] and Strength elsewhere.
1682		‘New Ballad’ in Lord Poems on Affairs of State (1968) III 368: Learned Doctor T[itus] O[ates], as some relate, / Found a way in at boy’s back gate.
[1693		T. Brown Salamanca Wedding 4: The abovementioned D. shall have full power, liberty and Authority to enter the Westminster-hall of her Body at which door he pleases].
1713		A Dreadful Fire 6: [He] vow’d to keep, in spight of Whores, / His key for to unlock back Doors.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 532: The eel made such a rout, / And in his gut so whisk’d about, / At his back-door he let him out.
1786		C. Morris ‘The Great Plenipotentiary’ Collection of Songs (1788) 46: And the gentle Signiors opened all their Back-doors / To the great Plenipotentiary.
c.1788		‘R. Birch’ ‘Venus School-Mistress’ in Pettit & Spedding 18C British Erotica III (2004) 7: I saw him thrust his instrument into her by the back avenue.
1841		‘Toasts And Sentiments’ in Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 48: The private passage but d--n the back door.
1893		‘Bob Sterling’ Town-Bull 64: Pointing his big prick at my back door, the enormous head stuck in the entrance of my cul.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 159: Huis posterieur (l’), m. The anus; ‘the back-door’.
c.1900		A. Cairene Sixfold Sensuality 73: The holy man entering Ella’s apartment by the back door.
1919		Transcript Dunn Inquiry in L.R. Murphy Perverts by Official Order (1989) 80: He enjoyed ‘the back way’ but ‘not as good as the French way’.
1929		‘Investigator Reports, 1927-1929’ Committee of Fourteen Papers 7 Feb. 45–6: ‘How do you manage through the back way?’ Vaseline was the solution, she informed him, but that her ‘friend was too big.’ She added, ‘I like the small ones for the back way. I get a wonderful kick out of it.’.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 14: back way The buttocks or rectum.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1985		‘Jennifer Blowdryer’ Modern English 70: anal orifice (n): [...] Back Door.
2004		N. Kelley ‘The Code’ in Brooklyn Noir 183: She [...] grabbed a handful of him at his below-the-belt area. ‘Hmmm, I’m gonna like this entering my back door.’.
2009		J. Stahl Pain Killers 171: She’s still a virgin. But she ain’t afraid to use the Devil’s portal [...] Front door’s locked, but the back door’s open.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 11/1: backdoor int. an expression indicating that the speaker has a packet of contraband (usually drugs) hidden in his rectum.
		T. Pluck ‘Story of O Street’ in Life During Wartime (2018) 58: Myra’s expertise [...] led to a shim-loving mobster giving her a job running the back room of his gay bar on Christopher Street [...] The Back Door.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1699		A great & famous scoldling-match 7: Rather than fail the back Door’d Itallian too; and after all the French Man brings up the Rear with Fire and Faggot.
1967		K. Kolb Getting Straight 95: I got so tired of all those fays and gays jammin’ each other [...] Too much back-door integration for me.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] Your show must be pretty extreme [...] They don’t call us the backdoor beauties for nothing.

3. (also back premises) the vagina.

1833		‘The Plumber’s Ball-cock’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 24: The plumber, in her closet, now put a long waste pipe, / And thereby made it leak again, which caused her oft to wipe; / So out again, with all his main / He pull’d it, which caus’d a disaster, / Her back premises o’erflow’d, / And she cried come screw the cock in faster.
1838		‘Cupid’s Battering Ram’ in Rambler’s Flash Songster 22: But tell me the use of the travelling bag, / That every minute continued to wag, / As thought ’twould crack / The door at my back.

4. (US gay) homosexual anal intercourse.

1989–2003		R.O. Scott Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐 anal intercourse: [...] Syn: back door.
2022		(con. late 19C) J. Nevins ‘Western frontier gay slang’ on Twitter 2 Mar. 🌐 ‘backdoor’ = anal sex.

In compounds

backdoor action (n.) (also backdoor job) [-action sfx / job n.² (2)]

1. hetero- or homosexual anal intercourse; sodomy.

1975		J. Roe Same Old Grind 159: ‘I’ll save the money they pay me for backdoor jobs, and one day I’ll be able to afford a cunt’.
2002		(con. 1940s) S. Phillips Walkaway (2003) 287: [He] decided he wanted a little backdoor action with Sonya.
2005		Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz Apr. 49: Thorntons, little bit of Euphemism used when attempting to talk the wife into a bit of backdoor action.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 10: No sayion thit ah’m no partial tae a bit ay back-door action masel.

2. see also SE compounds below.

backdoor bandit (n.) [-bandit sfx (2)]

(N.Z.) a male homosexual.

2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 11/1: back door banditn. a homosexual.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

backdoor kicker (n.)

a male homosexual.

1995–2003

P. Kidd ‘Words for Gay Men’ on Buggery.org 🌐 back-door kicker.

back-door man (n.) (also back-door(s) gentleman, ...merchant, back-doors man) [merchant n.]

1. one who practises anal intercourse, esp. a homosexual; in homosexual anal sex, the active partner.

1728		J. Dalton Narrative of Street-Robberies 35: Sukey still continuing to practice among the Back-door Gentlemen.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 5: Backgammoner, or back-doors man or gentleman — a fellow whose propensities lie out of the natural order of things in England.
1962		(con. WWII) J.O. Killens And Then We Heard The Thunder (1964) 201: I’m not the dentist. I’m strictly a back-door man.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 17: The man who fucks in anal intercourse, as opposed to the one who is fucked [...] back-door man.
1989–2003		R.O. Scott Gay Sl. Dict. 🌐.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 114: While gay has become the accepted mainstream term, the vernacular is still full of other, less positive terms, such as [...] back-door merchant, bum bandit, dip-shit, shirt-lifter, freckle-puncher and pillow-biter.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 11/1: backdoor man n. a homosexual.
2004		Harvard Indep. 14 Oct. 🌐 Jim Morrison, the ultimate Backdoor Man.

2. see also SE compounds below.

backdoor march (n.)

male homosexual anal intercourse.

c.1850

Peeping Tom (London) 9 34/3: [A] syllabus of the names of the chief culls, or letches [...] The Gomorrah Minuet, or Back-door March.

backdoor work (n.)

anal intercourse, sodomy.

1999–2003

Movie Film Fest ‘Molina’s Biography’ at TalkingBlue.com 🌐 Her bodacious back door work in ‘YA #11’ proves her to be one incendiary anal performer.

In phrases

cop it up the back door (v.)

to submit onself to anal intercourse.

1996

(con. 1950s) in P. Doyle Get Rich Quick (2004) 15: He also asked [...] if my brother still copped it up the back door.

go up the back door (v.) (also go in the back door) [pun on SE]

to have heterosexual anal intercourse.

c.1930		‘Mme. Dora in “Strictly Business”’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 75: What do you want honey? Ten for French and five for going up the back door.
1972		C. Bukowski Erections, Ejaculations etc. 228: Ya need a little love? I can go in the back door for you.
1993		B. Moore Lex. of Cadet Lang. 21: You mean you went in the back door? — what’s wrong with the other holes?

SE in slang uses

In derivatives

back-dooring (n.) [the adulterer lit. or fig. uses the back door rather than the front door]

(US) adultery.

1981

B. Hathaway World of Hurt 230: He thought of the other two women, the bored back-dooring [HDAS].

In compounds

backdoor action (n.) [the (lit. or fig.) use of the more private back door + -action sfx]

1. (US) adultery .

1977

(con. 1960s) D. Goines Black Gangster (1991) 86: You mean the man ain’t hep to this back door action.

2. see also sl. compounds above.

back-door man (n.) (also back-door husband, ...merchant, back man) [the (lit. or fig.) use of the more private back door]

1. (orig. US black) an adulterer.

1925		Sara Martin ‘Strange Lovin’ Blues’ 🎵 Every sensible woman should have a back-door man.
1929		Lillian Glinn [song title] I’m a Front Door Woman With a Back Door Man.
c.1939		Blind Boy Fuller ‘I Crave My Pigmeat’ 🎵 Ashes to ashes and sand to sand / Show me a woman ain’t got a back door man.
1942		L. Bennett ‘Registration’ in Jam. Dialect Poems (1949) 56: Lawd a massi, me feel happy / For me glad fe se at las’ / Ooman dah mek up dem mine fe / Serve back man dem sowa sauce!
1948		E. Hellmann Rooiyard 50: She had three ‘back-door-husbands’ each of whom visited her about three times a week and gave her from 10s to 15s per month.
1958		Hughes & Bontemps Book of Negro Folklore 395: You serves beans to your husband, / Cooks chicken for your backdoor man.
1959		L. Longmore Dispossessed 139: The practice of having a ‘back-door husband’, or indulging in prostitution, is a natural outcome of the poverty of urban Africans.
1962		Howlin’ Wolf ‘Back Door Man’ 🎵 I am, a back door man / I am, a back door man / Well, the men don’t know, but the little girls understand.
1989		J. Morton Lowspeak.
1991		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper From The Inside 112: He has a reputation as a [...] backdoor merchant who takes advantage of other men’s wives and girlfriends.
2001		‘Randy Everhard’ Tattoo of a Naked Lady 137: Butterfly and her backdoor man were making with the humpy-pumpy.

2. see also sl. compounds above.

back-door trot (n.) (also back-door trots) [SE back-door that leads to the privy + SE trot/trots n. (1)]

1. diarrhoea.

1801		E. Wright Marvellous Pleasant Love Story I 176: Cooky had for certain put some jalup i’ the pudding, for Master George had gotten the back-door-trot with a witness!
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1908		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:iv 288: back-do(or) trots, n. Diarrhoea.
1909		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III v 384: trots, n. Diarrhea. Also back-door trots.
1912		R.W. Brown ‘Word-List From Western Indiana’ in DN III:viii 571: back door trots, n. Diarrhea.
1926		A.C. Inman diary 2 Mar. in Aaron (1985) 297: Waked by back-door trots, continuous.
1953		Randolph & Wilson Down in the Holler 119: Women of the same type see no harm in a public mention of the back-door trots, which means diarrhea.
1979		S. King Dead Zone (1980) 36: There were rumblings in her lower belly [...] Not the backdoor trots, Lord. Please.
1984–5		Maledicta VIII 97: In central Pennsylvania, where rural sanitation is still outstanding in its field, the term is usually the back-door trots. [...] There is a Philadelphia variant, back-way trots.
2003		Brummagem Dict. 🌐: trots n. diarrhoea; also known as ‘back door trots’.

2. over-frequent urination.

1950		WELS.
1965–70		in DARE.

In phrases

at the back-door (adj.)

(UK und.) in prison.

1935

Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 1: At the back door: In prison.

work the back door (v.)

(US) to act in a deceptive, corrupt manner.

1907

Times Dispatch (Richmond, VA) 10 Mar. 53/2: ‘I’ve an idea we can work the same old “snap” move in more ’n half of them [i.e. electoral districts] [...] work the “back door” the way we did in Bowden county’.