Over on AZBlogX, three recent postings: “Three couples”, with three images of male couples (all with genital nudity, one with man-man sex); and “Rear views” and “Assclefts”, with images of men’s buttocks (no genital nudity in the first, but the second has some and has two images of anal intercourse).
Here, some words on the compound noun asscleft / ass-cleft / ass cleft ‘depression or groove between the buttocks’.
The word isn’t in any of the reputable dictionaries I consulted (from the OED to slang dictionaries), nor is arse cleft or butt cleft. (Nor, to my surprise, is ass / butt cheek). Of course, asshole, arsehole, and butthole are in the dictionaries, and Green’s Dictionary of Slang has a couple surprises in the domain of the body: assbone ‘buttocks, coccyx’ and arse-cabbage and arse-grapes, both ‘h(a)emorrhoids’.
But on buttock cleavage, Wikipedia provides some genuinely useful information:
Buttock cleavage [or butt cleavage or ass cleavage] is minor exposure of the buttocks and the intergluteal cleft between them, often because of low-slung or loose trousers. The crena is another formal term for the cleft between the buttocks.
… The terms plumber butt (Canadian, Australian and American English) and builder’s bum (British English) refer to the exposure of male buttock cleavage, especially on occasions of careless bending over. The expression “builder’s bum” was first recorded in 1988. The terms are based on the popular impression that these professions are particularly prone to this kind of mishap
The finds here are the technical terms intergluteal cleft and crena (pronounced /ˈkrinə/) for the asscleft. For crina in OED2, with the relevant part bold-faced:
The history of this word is very obscure
Bot., Zool., etc.
1. An indentation, a notch; spec. in Bot. one of the notches on a toothed or crenated leaf; Anat. the depression or groove between the buttocks; the longitudinal groove on the anterior and posterior surface of the heart (New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon).2. A crenated tooth, a scallop; spec. in Bot. a round or convex tooth on the margin of a leaf, etc., = crenature n., crenel n.; Entomol. a rounded raised mark resembling a wrinkle on a surface or margin; Anat. each of the serrations on the edge of the external table of the cranial bones by which these fit together in the sutures (New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon).
The asscleft has a sexual function: it’s one effective site for frottage (aka rubbing), since the asscheeks will provide friction for a thrusting penis. Asscleft rubbing isn’t as intense as penetration, but it can provide considerable pleasure, and it’s safe sex. Intercrural (aka interfemoral) frottage — with the partner’s thighs, rather than asscheeks, serving as the location for the thrusting of the penis — does have the advantage over intergluteal frottage that it can be done face-to-face. But intergluteal frottage has the advantage that the “passive” partner can in fact “hump back” — thrust against the penis.
