In French, that's what it means. I am not sure of the English, not dirty but cute equivalent. Maybe something like "who really liked to nukey" sorry, don't know how to spell that. That's the least pejorative I can think of...

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Note added at 2002-12-24 18:47:54 (GMT)
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Excuse me, but what is the matter with everyone? Femme-lapin is cute.

Sex mad, nymphomaniac, loose wanton etc and all the suggestions are NEGATIVELY CONNOTED IN ENGLISH.

The only CUTE way to say it, so far, [the actual expression in French is usually chaud lapin], is she like to nookey. If Claudia Iglesias is right, and I suspect she might very well be, the answer would be:

My dance-crazy friend.....

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Note added at 2002-12-24 18:51:13 (GMT)
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Ok, based on Claudia\'s idea, here is a circa WWI reference: it was a dance! This is I think is the right idea, now:

Avant 1910 les danses sociales, comme la Polka, la Valse, la Scottish, étaient surtout dansées par des jeunes car elles demandaient beaucoup d\'endurance et dès que se développa le Ragtime il se développa aussi des danses beaucoup plus simples. Des danses qui avaient des noms d\'animaux comme le : Fox-trot (pas de renard), le Turkey hot (pas chaud de dinde), le Grizzly bear (l\'ours), le \" Bunny hogue \" (LE BISOU DU LAPIN), le Camelwalk (la marche du chameau qui inspira James Brown et à son tour Michael Jackson et finalement qui prit le nom de \"Moonwalk\").

FINAL: BUNNY HOGUE



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Note added at 2002-12-26 22:01:13 (GMT)
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Note to Dan:

I am not saying, again, my answer is the only one. But it is the only one that comes anywhere near the idea of cute. Universal acceptance is not something that necessarily means a translation is correct. I repeat to my ear, the sex mad is pejoratively connoted.

Re the Nazis: The text refers to WWI NOT WWII. So, the guinea pig answer does not fit the bill in my opinion.

There is the expression in English: to go at it like rabbits! i.e. to be have a lot of sex. This obviously comes from the same idea, but you wouldn't describe someone in English as a rabbit in this sense!

There is the term sexpot - very mild these days, and not perjorative, just a little old-fashioned.

Sex maniac also can be used tongue-in-cheek - it doesn't have to be perjorative.

But if you want to preserve the animal instinct, you could say she was a bit of a vixen.



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Note added at 2002-12-24 17:38:07 (GMT)
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To Marie - remember the woman she is describing is an old friend. All of the terms you suggest - as vivid as they are - are all to greater or lesser degrees dissapproving or downright offensive. Unlikely that she would describe une amie de Conservatoire in such terms I think.

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Note added at 2002-12-24 21:27:12 (GMT)
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To Jane: I find your certainty regarding the ONLY suitable term somewhat misplaced. I repeat - to nookey (as you have now decided to spell it - is NOT universally accepted term, nor is it the ONLY term that can be used in a \'cute\' way. In fact to assert this is quite absurd. \'My sex mad friend\' has ABSOLUTELY nothing perjorative about it. And there are other ways of saying it too - but \'my friend who liked to nookey\' hmmm.

But then it seems we were both wrong anyway and it refers to something entirely unsexual.

I don't think it is related to sexual habits. In french the exact/usual wording for that is rather "une (chaude) lapine".

I guess, as she was at the Conservatoire, that it was related to a role in a play.

Someone who is sex-mad.

well if it isn't a sexual reference and it is really something along the lines that Mark and Claudia are suggesting it could be this perhaps.

showgirl, chorus girl are more generic terms and therefore more appropriate. bunnygirls are associated specifically with Hugh Hefner's Playboy empire

Literary coined by Bazin: in fact "the mother of many children"
Tht's what it means in French. Nothing for direct sexual relations. It exist for the man, (un chaud lapin), not for a woman (sorry for not being politically correct)"Une mère-lapine" describes a mother of many.

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Note added at 2002-12-24 18:57:07 (GMT)
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I think \"yes\", she could have been a \"Guinea Pig\" for Nazis.
But I am definitely sure that \"femme-lapin\" has nothing to do with the feminine of \"chaud lapin\"!

but do not believe it is has anything to do with chaud-lapin and other sex-mad creatures... may be someting to do with a part in a play or else some sort of oriental horoscope feature (help Arthur !!!) or else some local custom fable of "femme-lapin" seems plausible from context given but definitely against the sex version, though in fact I have no satisfactory suggestion

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Note added at 2002-12-24 18:19:38 (GMT)
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I am not half-horse, either 100% (the photo is my beautiful barbian (north-african fantasias horses) stallion, or a normal female translator creature, it\'s just this bestiary sequence strikes me as having something to it we have not grasped yet

Not exactly a term, just a sugegstion for the idea.
I believe this is to do with that frightening Nazi 'Herrenvolk' breeding programme, though I'm afraid I don't have time right now to dig out suitable references.

avec CJohnstone, si vous ne voulez pas nous croire que "femme-lapin" est un numero dans un show de varietes, au moins ne mettez pas sexmad or something of the kind...