Was 'douchebag' used in its metaphorical sense already in the '80s?

Stranger Things is a '80s period piece TV series that was written in 2016. In the first episode, I noticed some characters using the word 'douchebag' to mean not the vaginal cleaning aid, but 'asshole'. Is this usage (by average, mainstream, small town US characters) period-correct for the '80s, or is this an anachronism?

Solution 1:

Yes, the slang usage of "douchebag" was known before the '80s. The following interesting piece from dialect blog traces douchebag usage as a slang term from its earliest documented usage in 1951. Though there are usage instances during the following decades it was only around the years 2.000s that the term actually became common.

I must admit that douchebag (as an insult applied to people) didn’t enter my lexicon until the 2000’s. For many years, in fact, I assumed that the term was a 21st-Century coinage. After doing several searches using Google Books, however, it’s clear this isn’t the case. The first usage of douchebag/douche bag that I could find in the pejorative sense dates back to at least 1951, in the classic novel From Here to Eternity (here an adjective):

• “The trouble with you, Pete,” the voice that did not seem to come with him but from that cigaret said savagely, “is that you can’t see further than that douchebag nose of yours.”

So douchebag seems to have been used in a vulgar context as far back as World War II or thereabouts. It’s worth noting, however, that this is the ONLY usage of the type found in 1950’s literature: all other examples of douchebag/douche bag refer to medicine or hygiene. I doubt the term was in popular currency at the time.

The next such usage doesn’t appear until 1964, in a stream-of-consciousness passage of another famous novel, Hubert Selby’s Last Exit to Brooklyn:

• *“…and she yelled to Jack to comeon and she/d f***in blind not like that f***in douchebag he was with and someone yelled we/re coming and she was dragged down the steps …”*

Still, examples of the pejorative douchebag in the 1960s are few and far between. And seeing as that decade was famed for its relaxation of literary puritanism, I’d hazard to guess it was still uncommon.

It was only in the following three decades that douchebag seemed to make some headway. There are about a dozen examples of the word being used pejoratively in literature between 1970-1980. In the 80s, this increases to several dozen.* And by the 1990s, this skyrockets to somewhere between 100-200.

• But it’s really the 2000s where we see “douchebag” take off. Google books records the word being used 868 times, the overwhelming majority of which appear to be non-medical. This was truly the decade of the “douchebag.”

If douchebag appeared to be an epithet dating back to at least the 1950s, why did it not become as popular until the 21st Century? My personal theory relates to the fact that douching (the act of cleaning bodily orifices with a stream of water) has become steadily less popular as a hygienic technique over the past fifty years. This is likely a result of medical warnings such as this (from the 2005 health book What Women Need to Know):

At one time, doctors routinely instructed their female patients to douche; however, that is no longer the case. Studies have shown that there is a higher rate of infection of the reproductive tract among women who douche that among women who do not.

So let’s put the pieces together. In 1960, when douching was a much more common practice and perhaps more prominent in the public imagination, douchebag would have had a much more disgusting connotation, and likely would have been avoided for this reason. But in the 21st-Century, at a time when many people barely remember what douching was to begin with, it might be taken as a less offensive insult.

According to this site the first instances of douchebag as an insult dates back to the '30s:

• Apparently, douchebag is an olde tyme insult, much like “trollop” or “dingbat.” The OED says it was first printed in the 1930s and that it was popularized in the 1950s as a term of contempt towards women.

Solution 2:

None of my dictionaries from the 80s contain the word, though it is in the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 10th edition from 1993 I.B.S.N. 0-87779-709-9. The definition in my Merriam-Webster's 10th collegiate edition is "n (ca. 1963) slang: an unattractive or offensive person." It is listed as two words.

I don't have the 9th edition unfortunately. Being in a dictionary from the 90s suggests significant use must have been used significantly observed by lexicographers in the 80s though. It would probably be more definitive if I saw it in the 9th though if I had it. If I ever see it, I'll edit the question to say yes or no to that but that won't be for a while. I regret not buying the copies I've seen now.

Regardless, my research also indicates that the was used in the movie E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, after they check to see what's in the shed and Elliot drops the pizza, when everybody is walking onto the porch to get back inside of the house. You'll have to listen carefully or you'll miss it. That movie was a blockbuster hit in 1982, which implies the word was common enough by then to not be considered an anachronism. I doubt I need to find another resource.

I checked other dictionaries from the 1980s, including the Oxford American Dictionary (1980) The American Heritage Dictionary Second College Edition (1980) the Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary Unabridged Second Edition-Deluxe Color (1983) and the Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition (1988). I'm not sure if they would've had it anyway though, since it is rude slang. The American heritage Dictionary 3rd edition from 1992 doesn't even have it and Wordnik shows no results from their 4th edition in either form. The Houghton Mifflin company must have known about its existence by then, since Merriam-Webster already listed it, which suggests they intentionally omitted it.

Solution 3:

To quote from James Jones's 1951, debut novel, From Here To Eternity (p. 308 in the version Google Books has online):

“The trouble with you, Pete,” the voice that did not seem to come with him but from that cigaret said savagely, “is that you can’t see any further than that douchebag nose of yours.”

Clearly it is being used in a pejorative sense here, so the word was in use as an insult well before the 1980s.

Solution 4:

Early underworld use of 'douchebag'

Here are three early (1939–1950) instances, courtesy of Hathi Trust and Google Books search results, of douchebag used in a (presumably) pejorative sense. First, from a footnote in the preface to the first edition of Hickman Powell, Ninety Times Guilty (1939):

Underworld people are almost never known by their right names and people in the low life have a talent for assuming picturesque and rhythmic appellations. ... Among these was a pimp known to all and sundry as Jimmy Douchebag. Jimmy exists, I am convinced of that, and he may well be still operating in New York; but research fails to reveal any more about him and his highly original name.

From Louis Falstein, Face of a Hero (1950) [snippet view]:

The voices of my comrades drifted to me lazily, Dooley crying while he hugged little Cosmo Fidanza, whose cheeks were red with the thawing out: "Oh, that fukken Wiener Douchebag sonofabitch! I never thought we'd make it."

And from Hyman Goldin, Frank O'Leary & Morris Lipsius, Dictionary of American Underworld Lingo (1950):

Douche-bag. A term of utmost contempt for women.

The term also appears later in the same book in a list of slang terms for "prostitute or loose woman."

It seems, then, that douchebag as a pejorative term arose as U.S. underworld slang in the 1930s and that one of its earliest uses in that milieu was as a contemptuous term for a woman.

Student use of 'douchebag' as a pejorative in the 1970s and early 1980s

Students at a number of colleges across the United States were using the expression as an all-purpose pejorative slang term by the early 1980s. For example, from a classified ad in the [Kent, Ohio] Daily Kent Stater (February 14, 1974) [Kent State University]:

Happy V.D. Day you surrogate douche bag, you. I love madly. [signed] Wednesday Night Eddy

From a classified ad in the the [Ithaca, New York) Ithacan (September 19, 1974) [Ithaca College]:

Dear Bullet, As you begin your teaching career we all wish you the very best of luck! (Even if you are a "douche-bag!) [signed] All of your loving douche-bag buddies.

From "$750 Scholarship and a Salami," in the [Santa Rosa, California] Oak Leaf (May 6, 1976) [Santa Rosa Junior College]:

The libbers are right, the whole thing is sexist down to small details; i.e., when prominent people were asked to stand up. they were always introduced something like "that great, fair and true douche bag salesman, the honorable Richard M. Nixon, and Mrs. Nixon.”

From "Minny-a-go-go," in the Columbia [New York City] Daily Spectator (March 23, 1978) [Columbia University]:

Wandering between the folk singer and the amyl fumes, I was still amazed at my friend's patience with the douchebag petting his date-to-be. I'll tell you now that Bill and the fox went home together.

And from an open letter to "Joyce", in the [Houston, Texas] Rice Thresher (February 19, 1982):

All I'm asking for is a break so I can save some bucks and a lot of wear and tear on my digestive system. Listen to us. Before the revolution Sincerely. Arnold "Douchebag" McCoy

My conclusion from these instances is that it wouldn't necessarily be anachronistic for "average, mainstream, small-town US characters" in a story set in the 1980s to be using the term douchebag in this way.