Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)? is a French phrase. It means "Do you want to sleep with me (this evening)?" and was popularized in the song "Lady Marmalade" by the group LaBelle featuring Patti Labelle, Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash . This phrase also appears in Tennessee Williams's 1947 play, A Streetcar Named Desire. The origins of the phrase in English discourse, however, can be traced back to a poem by E. E. Cummings (see below).

The phrase has sometimes been taken as awkward French because of its formality—Voulez-vous... uses the formal pronoun vous, indicating some kind of distance between the protagonists, which may not seem consistent with sexual activity. One would expect lovers to be using the informal pronoun tu. However, the usage of the polite form voulez-vous may be consistent with high-class prostitution. Both "Lady Marmalade" and the poem allude to prostitution.

This phrase can also been seen as a good example for a meme in memetics.

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little ladies
than dead exactly dance
in my head, precisely
dance where danced la guerre

Mimi à
la voix fragile
qui chatouille des
Italiens

the putain with the ivory throat
Marie Louise Lallemand
n'est-ce pas que je suis belle
chéri? les anglais m'aiment
tous, les américains
aussi .... "bon dos, bon cul de Paris" (Marie
Vierge
Priez
Pour
Nous)

with the
long lips of
Lucienne which dangle
the old men and hot
men se promènent
doucement le soir (ladies

accurately dead les anglais
sont gentils et les américains
aussi, ils payent bien les américains dance
exactly in my brain voulez
vous coucher avec
moi? Non? pourquoi?)

ladies skilfully
dead precisely dance
where has danced la
guerre j'm'appelle
Manon, cinq rue Henri Mounier
voulez-vous coucher avec moi?
te ferai Mimi,
te ferai Minette,
dead exactly dance
si vous voulez
chatouiller
mon lézard ladies suddenly
j'm'en fous des nègres

(in the twilight of Paris
Marie Louise with queenly
legs cinq rue Henri
Mounier a little love
begs, Mimi with the body
like une boîte à joujoux, want nice sleep?
toutes les petites femmes exactes
qui dansent toujours in my
head dis donc, Paris

ta gorge mystérieuse
pourquoi se promène-t-elle, pourquoi
éclate ta voix
fragile couleur de pivoine?)

with the
long lips of Lucienne which
dangle the old men and hot men
precisely dance in my head
ladies carefully dead