3 ms·

Interesting. As a bilingual/fluent but not native English speaker 'piece of ass' always contained at least an element of beauty. not necessarily, but usually.

• ubermonkey 7y ago
  I'm a native speaker of American English. Ismo is not wrong. Referring to someone as a "piece of ass" is probably disrespectful or crude, but it absolutely means "holy crap is that person insanely attractive."
• DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Yes, sex objects are typically superficially attractive. Unless you have some weird fetish, you probably aren't looking for ugly people you barely know to use in bed and discard like they don't matter. The difference being no one wanders through a garden or museum saying "Those flowers are a piece of ass!" or "That painting is a piece of ass!" to mean "These completely nonsexual objects are amazingly beautiful." Beautiful women get treated as nothing but sex objects. That doesn't mean euphemisms for "I'd hit that!" are equally synonyms for "That's got incredible visual appeal." Try explaining to your boss that a website layout is good design in part because "It's a piece of ass!" and see how well that goes.
• dragonwriter 7y ago
  > As a bilingual/fluent but not native English speaker 'piece of ass' always contained at least an element of beauty. As a native English speaker it does not contain that in itself, though it's frequently accompanied by a positive qualitative assessment of utility as a sex object (very often also dehumanizing by using wording traditionally used for objects rather than humans, e.g., “that’s a fine piece of ass!”), which assessment is often based on appearance (and frequently accompanied by nonverbal communication or other context which clearlt—often lewdly—indicates that the qualitative assessment of sexual utility is based on appearance, often quite specific features of appearance.)
  • salawat 7y ago
    I'm a native English speaker as well, and I think you're conflating two different uses. Yes. There is 'fine piece of ass' as one might hear one utter of an uninvolved person to a friend that matches what you are describing. That changes significantly when the subject to whom the "fine piece of ass" belongs is a direct recipient of the comment. I.e. "Girl, you have/are one fine piece of ass." In that case there is communicated the sense of appreciation of beauty between the speaker and receiver. There is the also the not necessarily explicit "that I'd like to try," which clearly distinguishes the "appreciative" form from the "sex objectification form." Be aware this is not license to use the phrase carelessly. Aware of the norms of the company you're keeping must be taken into account. On the American side of the pond, careless banding about of that sort of thing has been growing increasingly problematic in any business casual up, or official social context. It is a solidly informal comment not intended for "polite company". I'm a blast at parties. For the curious. (I'm really not.)
    • DoreenMichele 7y ago
      Fine is the part of that sentence that expresses appreciation for beauty, not piece of ass.