¿Haces tortillas?

Before we get into things, let me point you to a guest post I wrote for the blog No Hay Bronca which is written by my friend TC.  It's called Tortillera and it's about the various words you can use to talk about lesbians in Spanish.  While it's not necessary you read it before this one, be sure to check it out.  And I'm sure you'll enjoy his blog as well.

OK, enough chit-chat, let's get on with it.

¿Haces tortillas? is a seemingly innocent question, but in the right context it's meaning changes completely and isn't quite so innocent.

First of all, let's talk about its innocent meaning, in case you don't know.

¿Haces tortillas?
Do you make tortillas?

But if you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I'm not here to write about making tortillas.

¿Haces tortillas?
Are you a lesbian?

Actually, hacer tortillas is way of referring to lesbian sex in Spanish.  You could have easily translated this as:

¿Haces tortillas?
Do you sleep with woman?

At the end of the day it's another way of asking the same question, so let's not get hung up on translations.

Mi amiga me preguntó, ¿Quieres hacer tortillas conmigo?
My friend asked me, "Do you want to have sex with me?

And just like with the hacer tortillas, you can say hacer arepas to talk to about sex between lesbians in Spanish.  

Vamos a hacer arepas
Let's go have sex

Esas mujeres hacen arepa
Those woman are lesbians

That last one is more of a figurative translation than literal.  And let me add that this expression is something that you'll hear in Venezuela and Colombia as opposed to Mexico.

If you don't know what an arepa is you can read my post tortillera that I mentioned earlier.   

Your Spanish book probably told you that torta means cake, but it's also a way to refer to a lesbian in Spanish.  

And speaking of tortas, that leads us to our next expression,  hacer tortas, which is yet another way of referring to lesbian sex in Spanish.  And don't ask me how baking a cake has anything to do with lesbians in Spanish because I have no idea.  

And if you're thinking we've covered all the ways of talking about lesbian sex in Spanish, you're wrong.  There's also tortear.  

Pareja de lesbianas torteando
A lesbian couple having sex

Si me va a tortear por lo menos invitarme un cafecito primero
If you're going to have sex with me you can at least buy me a coffee first

¿Estás harta de los hombres y pensando en tortear?
You're fed up with men and you're thinking about having sex with women?

Well, that about wraps things up for today.  It should go with out saying these aren't words and expressions you should be tossing around with just anybody, you could easily offend someone, so consider yourself warned.

You can't go around swearing all the time, so be sure to check out my other blogs that will help you improve your everyday Spanish.  My Spanish Notes is all about teaching you the Spanish you won't find in a textbook.  Everything I write about I learned from real life conversations.

My blog Helping You Learn Spanish is all about making the stuff in your Spanish textbook a little easier to understand and offering you advice on how to go from Spanish student to Spanish speaker.

¡Hasta la próxima!

¡No soy joto!

No soy joto
I'm not a fag

Like in English, there are many ways to talk about homosexuals.  And if you want to be politically correct, this is not one of them.

Joto is a very offense way of calling someone gay.  Except that is much stronger the word gay.  It's more like the word fag.  And for those of you don't know, fag is short for faggot.

There's also the word puto, which also means fag.  So when it's time to hurl insults, you've got at least two options.  But just like in English, there's more than one way to skin a cat, so let's look at a few other words.

There's also maricón and marica, which for all practical purposes, mean the same thing.   And interestingly enough, sometimes puto and maricón can be used as a greeting among friends.  Clearly you need to be on very good terms with your friends for these kinds of greetings.

The standard non-offensive words are homosexual and gay.  Homosexual and gay have the same spelling in English and Spanish, just the pronunciation differs.

Let's look at a few simple examples:

¡Qué joto eres!
You're such a fag

Mire ese puto
Look at that fag

I don't think it will be hard for you to figure out how to use these, we don't need a ton of examples.

That's it for today, short, sweet and to the point!

¡Espero que te sirva!

¿Y a tí qué tortillera?

A picture is woth a thousand words, so let's start with that.

This is a tortillera:

A tortillera is a machine that makes tortillas.  A tortillera is also a woman who makes and/or sales tortillas.

Tortilleras is also another word for lesbians.  While I love pictures, in this case I thought that might a bit much in this case, so you'll have to find your own pictures.

There are a few other words that mean lesbian.  Let's start with the ones you can use in polite company like homosexual, gay and lesbiana.  Notice that homosexual and gay are spelled the same in Spanish, just use your Spanish accent.  While it's good to know the PC (politically correct) terms, those are no fun, and this blog is all about teaching you bad words anyway.

There's also cachapera and bollera.  You may still be wondering what tortillera, bollera and cachapera have to do with being a lesbian.  Well, I haven't yet found out where cachapera comes from, but here's an explanation I found for bollera and tortillera:

Tortillera, mujer homosexual. Viene de la palabra tortillera que en mexico es la mujer que hace las tortillas y las palmea entre sus manos como se supone que hacen dos sexos de mujeres al chocar uno contra otro, de ahí pasó al castellano. Bollera, porque es un bollo de pan, pan con pan sin chorizo en medio.

Personally, I thought the part about "pan con pan sin chorizo en medio" was pretty funny. Just in case you need a translation, it's "bread with bread without sausage in the middle". I'm guessing you can figure out what that means.

 Let's try to put a few of these words to use:

¿Eres tortillera?

Are you a lesbian?

¿Y a tí que tortillera?
What it's to you dyke

No salgas mas con esa cachapera
Don't go out any more with that dyke

No sabía que tu primer es tortillera
I didn't know your sister is a lesbian

Notice the suttle change in meaning from lesbian to dyke, depending on the context. I believe bollera, tortillera and cachapera are more accurately translated to dyke when used as an insult, and lesbian otherwise. 

Well, that's it for today.  ¡Hasta la próxima!