it ain't the meat, it's the motion

English

Alternative forms

• it's not the meat, it's the motion

Etymology

From the song It Ain't the Meat (it's the Motion) by Lois Mann and Henry Glover, written in 1951 and recorded by The Swallows. Often mistakenly attributed to Maria Muldaur, who sang a cover of the song on her 1974 album Waitress In The Donut Shop.

Proverb

it ain't the meat, it's the motion

1. (slang, somewhat vulgar) When it comes to sexual satisfaction, the size of the penis does not matter, but technique during intimacy does.
   • 1951, Lois Mann, Henry Glover, It Ain't the Meat (It's the Motion):

     It ain't the meat it's the motion/That makes your daddy want to rock/It ain't the meat it's the motion/It's the movement it ain't the stock.

   • 1999, Anonymous Too, Monica Lewinsky's Guide to Dating, →ISBN, page 63:

     We girls know the truth in that old song “It Ain't the Meat, It's the Motion,” but no matter how confident a man is, he secretly believes that the motion just isn't enough.

   • 2006, Mo Foster, A blues for Shindig, page 53:

     'What that they say, girl: it ain't the meat it's the motion?' 'They lie.' And I go and kiss his cock as it rests half soft on his thigh.

2. (more generally) The tools that one uses to accomplish a goal are not as important as what one does with them.
   • 1985, Sonic Options Network, Option, page 15:

     When the engineer was asked by other clients, "Can you make the drums sound like Bonham?," he simply smiled and said, "Sure! Just play like 'im!" So lesson number one is that it ain't the meat, it's the motion, to paraphrase the old blues tune.

   • 2008, Douglas R. Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop, →ISBN, page 195:

     By focusing on the medium rather than the message, the pottery rather than the pattern, the typeface rather than the tale, philosophers who claim that something ineffable about carbon's chemistry is indispensable for consciousness miss the boat. As Daniel Dennett once wittily remarked in a rejoinder to John Searle's tiresome "right-stuff" refrain, "It ain't the meat, it's the motion."

   • 2009, Derek Pell, Shoot to Thrill: A Hard-Boiled Guide to Digital Photography, →ISBN:

     So it ain't the meat, it's the motion. That said, we all like new tools and cool gear.

See also

• it's not the size of the ship, it's the motion of the ocean