Slang dictionary
pillow princess
[pil-oh prin-ses]
What does pillow princess mean?
A pillow princess is a slang phrase that describes someone, usually an LGBTQ woman, who prefers to receive sexual stimulation more than giving it.
Where does pillow princess come from?
Evidence for pillow princess appears as early as the 1990s in LGBTQ media about lesbian dating. Pillow, in some media mentions, implies passive, while princess — in addition to suggesting special treatment — has been a slang term for a gay or lesbian person since the 1960s. Afrekete, a 1995 anthology of short stories focusing on the black lesbian experience, contains a short story also notably featuring the phrase.
Into the 2010s, media outlets began to use pillow princess in heterosexual contexts, helping bring the phrase further into the mainstream. Publications and websites catering to both men and women, such as Maxim, Marie Claire, YourTango, and Elite Daily, wrote about the phrase. Website XOJane featured columns with titles such as “It Happened to Me: I’m a Lesbian Pillow Princess.”
Examples of pillow princess
Who uses pillow princess?
Traditionally used within the LGBTQ community and especially among queer women, being a pillow princess can carry a positive or negative connotation.
Some queer women are attracted to a pillow princess partner for reasons of kink and dominance. Others use pillow princess to disparage an inattentive partner. Yet others will humorously or shameless self-identify as a pillow princess.
Among LGBTQ persons, pillow princess is particularly applied to bisexual women or women experimenting with their sexuality. It implies the woman, in her exploratory phase, is hesitant to reciprocate sexual acts in general or with some partners.
Online magazines catering to men have used pillow princess to talk about heterosexual women who are perceived as passive or less active in bed, illustrating the spread of the term outside the LGBTQ community. Such a woman is also sometimes called a starfish. The term also crops up in popular women’s articles about sexual positions.
Although pillow prince is sometimes used as a male equivalent, it is not as widely used, and pillow princess remains a term mostly used for women.
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of pillow princess like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of pillow princess that will help our users expand their word mastery.