Bimbo

A bimbo is a term that emerged in the English language in the late 20th century as a popular term for a stupid and pliable woman. As it derives from Italian language words of male gender, it first emerged into English (probably through the United Kingdom Italianate underworld slang known as Polari) referring to stupid men; though it now is understood to connote a woman unless one says "male bimbo." Some still prefer the explicitly female variant bimbette, which has also entered The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Others distinguish between the words to use "bimbette" to mean a woman either younger or stupider than a "bimbo". The word "bimbo" is sometimes interpreted as the backronym "body impressive, brain optional".

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The archetype of a bimbo with sex appeal is much used as a stock character in comedies with sexual humor, an example being Christina Applegate's character Kelly Bundy in Married... with Children. Alicia Silverstone's character Cher Horowitz in Clueless is more accurately described as a Valley girl, a similar archetype with more elements of laughably unusual priorities and behaviors than are strictly derived from the "bimbo" themes of comical stupidity and sex appeal. An older comedy archetype of perhaps more direct resemblance is the dumb blonde, for example the giggling naive characters often portrayed by sultry actresses such as Marilyn Monroe.

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The sacrifice of a woman's intelligence in the furtherance of her own or another's lust is an element of some erotica, especially that of the mind control fetish genre. Stories tell of an intelligent woman becoming a bimbo or bimbette by various realistic or unrealistic means, a process known by the coinages "bimbification" or "bimboization". The former website bimboslutz.com was dedicated to stories of this type.

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Of course there is far more amusement in an intelligent woman's willing behavior as if she were stupid, whether in the course of sexual roleplay or in mainstream comedy, than in the behavior of a woman who is really intellectually limited. Humor deriving from blonde women's (or male jocks') stupidity has been accused of sexism.

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English language: The English language is a West Germanic language that originates from England and is also spoken as a native language in the other home countries of the United Kingdom, in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, and numerous other countries. English is now the third...

20th century: The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar. Common usage sometimes regards it as lasting from 1900 to 1999, but this is often considered incorrect due to the nonexistence of a "Year Zero" before AD 1. The 20th century is also sometimes known as the nineteen hundreds (1900s)...

Italian language: Italian (Italian: ') is a Romance language spoken by about 70 million people primarily in Italy. Standard Italian is based on Tuscan dialects and is somewhat intermediate between the languages of Southern Italy and the Gallo-Romance languages of the North. The long-established Tuscan standard has, o...