Citation :
4. Douche-bag (1963). I wonder if you guessed that douche-bag was introduced earlier than "dirt-bag." Even the OED has something about douche-bag. The word douche, with this spelling, goes back to the 18th century, but "douche-bag" doesn't occur until the 20th and, at first, in a medical context. For example, in a gynecological handbook for nurses, from 1908, we have the advice to "hang the douche-bag eighteen inches above the level of the patient's hips." By 1967, according to the OED, the term came into its more prominent contemporary usage: "Douche bag, an unattractive co-ed. By extension, any individual whom the speaker desires to deprecate." By the time I made it to the university in 1970, the language of "douche bag" was in the air, but it was almost universally applied to males. Once again, the males take over what properly belongs to women. Isn't that the complaint of the feminists? Well, at least we humanists finally took over a scientific term and used it for our own noble purposes.
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