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Who really said it

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity

Not George Carlin — an anonymous Vietnam-era protest slogan Anonymous In print since 19 May 1968 · Vietnam-era antiwar saying
Disputed — the wording is documented, the attribution is not. Rights unconfirmed

The line is a communal protest slogan, not a comedian’s joke: it has been in print since 19 May 1968, when Omaha’s Sunday World-Herald reported students picketing Armed Forces Day with a sign reading “Fighting for peace is like raping for love.” It appears on none of George Carlin’s albums, HBO specials or books, and the credit to him seems to have taken hold only after his death in 2008.

Last verified 3 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity” not George Carlin. An anonymous Vietnam-era antiwar saying, in print since 19 May 1968 in the form "Fighting for peace is like raping for love" (Sunday World-Herald, Omaha); chronology documented by Barry Popik. Via Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to George Carlin. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of truth, wisdom and justice. Theme: "Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the saying actually comes from

Origin
Anonymous Vietnam-era antiwar saying; credited in 1969 only to “an underground pundit”
Earliest print citation
Sunday World-Herald (Omaha, NE), 19 May 1968, p. 22B
This exact wording
Windsor Star Weekend Magazine, 11 November 1978, p. 20 — the earliest “screwing for virginity” instance in Popik’s chronology
In Carlin’s work
Not on any album, HBO special or book

“Listen,” a corporal said to me, “we’ve got a saying here: Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.” Windsor Star, 11 November 1978

This is the earliest appearance of the exact “screwing for virginity” wording in Barry Popik’s chronology. Earlier citations, from 1968 onward, carry the same joke with different verbs — raping, making out, fucking, fornicating, balling — which is itself evidence that the line grew out of protest culture rather than a scripted routine.

Barry Popik’s dated chronology of the saying

How the saying travelled

  • 19 May 1968 — Omaha’s Sunday World-Herald reports University of Northern Iowa students picketing an Armed Forces Day observance with signs including “Fighting for peace is like raping for love” — the earliest citation in Barry Popik’s chronology ↗.
  • 1969–1970 — the saying spreads anonymously through campus graffiti, a Chu Lai latrine wall and letters to the editor; Liberation attributes it to “an underground pundit,” and twice in this period no author is named at all (Popik ↗).
  • 1971–1978 — it reaches print books (Eliot Asinof, 1971; Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, 1973) and finally the “screwing for virginity” form, quoted by a corporal in the Windsor Star in 1978 (Popik ↗).
  • After 2008 — George Carlin died on 22 June 2008, and georgecarlin.net ↗ observes that, as with other bogus Carlin quotes, people appear not to have started crediting him with this one until after his death.

No rights status can honestly be asserted. The wording has no identified author and no identified first publication of its own — it circulated as an anonymous protest slogan and was recorded, in varying forms, by newspapers and books that each carry their own separate copyrights. Quoting the sentence itself is a short quotation of an ownerless saying; the surrounding passages transcribed above belong to their publishers.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Who gets the credit, and why none of it holds

This is a textbook magnet quote: an ownerless slogan that keeps getting handed to whichever famous rude truth-teller is nearest.

George Carlin Not in his catalogue

Barry Popik states there is no evidence the saying originated in any Carlin routine, and georgecarlin.net ↗ lists it among bogus Carlin quotations, noting it turns up on none of his albums, HBO specials or books and that people appear not to have started crediting him until after he died. Aggregators still run it under his name — Goodreads ↗ among them.

Lenny Bruce Chronologically impossible

Popik notes the saying is sometimes given to Bruce (1925–1966) as well, but that he died before the saying was first recorded ↗.

Emma S. Riches Unverified

georgecarlin.net ↗ mentions research going back to 2002 crediting the line to Emma S. Riches, but calls the attribution “a little iffy.” The documented print record starts in 1968.

No one owns it. It is an anonymous Vietnam-era protest saying, in print since 19 May 1968 and shape-shifting through half a dozen verbs before settling on this one — see Barry Popik’s chronology ↗.

Context

Why a slogan with no author travelled so far

Before it was anyone’s punchline it was public property. Barry Popik’s chronology tracks the saying across picket signs, campus graffiti, a latrine wall at Chu Lai, letters to the editor and mimeographed underground papers — and across at least six different verbs. In 1969 the magazine Liberation could credit it only to “an underground pundit.”

That shapelessness is the tell. A line with a real author arrives fixed; this one arrived in whatever form the sign-painter needed, hardening into the “screwing for virginity” version only later. Folk sayings drift, and drifting sayings eventually land on the most famous plausible name in the room. For a blunt, obscene, antiwar one-liner in the English-speaking internet, that name was always going to be George Carlin.

Six different verbs, one joke, no author. That is what a real folk saying looks like.

The variants Popik documents, in order

1968 — “raping for love” (student picket sign, Omaha Sunday World-Herald). 1969 — “making out for chastity” (campus graffito, Salina Journal) and “fucking for chastity” (Liberation, vol. 14). 1970 — “raping for chastity” (a Chu Lai latrine, The Enterprise) and “fornicating for chastity” (Fond du Lac Commonwealth Reporter).

1971 — “balling for virginity” (Eliot Asinof, Craig and Joan: Two Lives for Peace, p. 223). 1973 — “fucking for virginity” on a children’s hand-lettered poster (Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Unlearning the Lie: Sexism in School, p. 19). 1978 — “screwing for virginity,” quoted by a corporal in the Windsor Star. All per Popik’s chronology ↗.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Wisdom Justice

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Barry Popik: “Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity”barrypopik.com

The anchor research: a dated chronology from the 1968 Omaha picket-sign citation through the 1978 “screwing for virginity” wording, plus the verdict on the Bruce and Carlin credits.
Bogus Carlin Quotations: “Fighting for peace…”georgecarlin.net

The long-running unofficial Carlin catalogue site states flatly that Carlin did not say it and that it appears on no album, HBO special or book.
Addressing Bogus Carlin Quotes (with Carlin’s 2001 essay)georgecarlin.net

Reproduces “Don’t Blame Me,” the essay Carlin posted on his own site, including his rule of thumb for spotting fakes.
George Carlin (Wikipedia)en.wikipedia.org

Biography and dates, plus a section noting that many joke lists and rants have been falsely attributed to him.
George Carlin (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s sourced Carlin quotations — this line does not appear anywhere on the page, in any section.

The name it gets pinned to

Not the author: George Carlin

George Carlin

1937–2008 · American comedian, satirist and social critic

George Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American comedian, satirist, social critic, actor and author who recorded fourteen stand-up specials for HBO. He is also one of the internet’s most heavily forged bylines — Wikipedia’s article ↗ notes that many joke lists and rants have been falsely attributed to him, often contradicting what he actually thought. In 2001 Carlin posted an essay on his own site asking people to stop, and gave a rule of thumb: treat nothing online as his unless it came from one of his albums, books, HBO specials, or his website. By that test, this saying is not his.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Best-available documentation

Barry Popik, “Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity,” barrypopik.com, entry dated 16 April 2012, citing Sunday World-Herald (Omaha, NE), 19 May 1968, p. 22B, for the earliest print instance (“Fighting for peace is like raping for love”), and the Windsor Star Weekend Magazine, 11 November 1978, p. 20, for the earliest “screwing for virginity” wording in his chronology.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity’?” Last verified 3 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/fighting-for-peace-is-like-screwing-for-virginity/

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