Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?
|
|
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)? is a French phrase. It means "Do you want to sleep with me (this evening)?" and was popularized in the song "Lady Marmalade" by the group LaBelle featuring Patti Labelle, Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash. This phrase also appears in Tennessee Williams's 1947 play, A Streetcar Named Desire, and is implied in the ABBA song and album title Voulez-Vous. The origins of the phrase in English discourse, however, can be traced back to a poem by E. E. Cummings.
The phrase has sometimes been taken as awkward French because of its formality—Voulez-vous... uses the formal pronoun vous, indicating some kind of distance between the protagonists, which may not seem consistent with sexual activity. One would expect lovers to be using the informal pronoun tu, making the phrase "Veux-tu coucher avec moi (ce soir)?". However, the usage of the polite form voulez-vous may be consistent with high-class prostitution. Both "Lady Marmalade" and the poem allude to prostitution.
This phrase can also been seen as a good example for a meme in memetics.