A Wildly Obscene Term’s Path to Mainstream Usage

If you suddenly feel like you’re noticing the term “rawdogging” used widely and in surprising contexts — online, in the office, at the bar — you’re not alone.

Over the last few months, the slang term, which has historically been used to refer to sexual intercourse without a condom, has been adopted to describe almost any activity accomplished without the assistance of a buffer. Now, you can rawdog the flu by refusing medication; you can rawdog cooking by not using a recipe; you can even rawdog life, by being sober.

The most obvious example of the term’s spread is the phenomenon of “rawdogging” flights. The trend, which was written about last month by GQ, has been cropping up across social media platforms like TikTok and X, with people — mostly men — enduring long flights without indulging in any entertainment other than staring at the in-flight map. The concept, which was the subject of a viral tweet in 2022, has come as a shock to some commenters who couldn’t imagine why someone would put themselves through something so boring.

“Just rawdogged it, 15 hr flight to Melbourne. No movie, no music, just flightmap (I counted to one million twice),” Torren Foot, an Australian music producer, wrote in the caption of a video posted on TikTok last month. It has since received more than 11 million views.

Even celebrities are in on the act. In an Instagram story posted this month, the actor Ryan Phillippe, best known for films like “Cruel Intentions” and “Crash,” posted a selfie from an outdoor concert venue. “Raw doggin’ this concert: solo, no alcohol, no drugs, no concessions,” read the caption.

But according to Adam Aleksic, a linguist and content creator who is writing a book about how social media has changed language, Gen Z was using the term long before the flight videos started spreading rapidly on TikTok. Mr. Aleksic said he first noticed the usage of the word beginning to shift around 2019 or 2020.