passion pit

plural passion pits

1. slangA drive-in theatre or other unlit or dimly-lit secluded public or private location, with particular reference to it as a place of intimacy.

   I don't have enough dough to take this chick to a passion pit.

   1959, “Theatre arts, Volume 43, Issue 6”, in Theatre Arts, Inc., page 39

   5 more examples

   The men who worked in it called it the Passion Pit in wry remembrance of other dark rooms they had known and used for more intimate and more enjoyable purposes...

   1952, Maxwell Griffith, Port of call, Lippincott, page 23

   We gotta hide up some-place and let them lose us. Tell you what. There's a passion pit just where this comes out onto 95. Drive-in movie.

   1956, Ian Fleming, Diamonds are forever, Cape, page 145

   They won't have to brag about how far they went, and the mechanical, "plumbing" aspect of sex in the back seat at the passion pit may soon be a thing of the past.

   1971, Seymour Martin Lipset, Gerald M. Schaflander, Passion and politics: student activism in America, Little, Brown, page 277

   He sat on the back porch on the weekends and watched glumly as a never ending progression of young boys he had never seen before popped out to mutter a quick hello before taking his buxom daughter off to the local passion pit.

   1979, Stephen King, Night Shift, Signet, page 199

   That was the summer the Bengies Drive-In movie opened. Instantly it became the most notorious passion pit we'd ever heard of.

   1996, William Gildea, When the Colts Belonged to Baltimore: A Father and a Son, a Team and a Time, JHU Press, page 172

2. slangAny place where sexual activity commonly occurs.

   During their teenage years, this secluded area was affectionately referred to as the pit, short for passion pit.

   2009, R B Conroy, In My Father's Image: Life in the Shadows of a Local Legend, CCB Publishing, page 234

   2 more examples

   As relationships mature, the bedroom gets de-coupled from its former role as a passion pit and instead becomes a place to zonk out, watch TV or work.

   1996, Sex: a man's guide, Rodale, page 163

   Downstairs, it's The Nightclub - a large room with a funky semi-circular glowing blue bar, big comfy wall banquettes, a secluded circular passion pit in one corner, and a medium-size dance floor.

   2004, Donald Olson, Frommer's Vancouver & Victoria 2005, John Wiley and Sons, page 181