Male and female partners in heterosexual peer networks in Calabar metropolis, Cross River State, south-eastern Nigeria, use reciprocal label metaphors to characterize each other in negative (or positive) ways. This article explores how sexual metaphors, banters, and teasing are used to satirize young people’s heterosexual behaviors and practices to develop consensual sexual morality. The study is anchored on Charteris-Black’s (2004) critical metaphor analysis (CMA) which highlights the social influence of ideology and asymmetry power relations which are communicated by metaphors from semantic, pragmatic, and cognitive dimensions. Drawing on ethnographic qualitative data sourced through focus group and semi-structured interviews with 30 participants who were purposively sampled, I argue that categories of metaphors used in labeling the significant other provide platforms where sexuality and intimate bonds and relations are (re)imagined and (re)constructed in the context of the lived experiences of young sexual actors. The study concludes that reciprocal labeling of sexual partners among the sampled population in this study facilitates the enthronement of hegemonic ideologies and heterosexual capital such as the reproduction of male power, as well as the subversion of such power and control through female agency. In this way, label metaphors provide prominent social instruments of regulation of peer sexual behavior and in bridging the gender divide.

尼日利亚东南部克罗斯河州卡拉巴尔大都市的异性恋同伴网络中的男性和女性伴侣使用相互标签隐喻以消极（或积极）的方式来描述彼此。本文探讨了如何使用性隐喻、玩笑和戏弄来讽刺年轻人的异性恋行为和做法，以培养双方同意的性道德。该研究以Charteris-Black（2004）的批判隐喻分析（CMA）为基础，该分析强调了意识形态和不对称权力关系的社会影响，这些影响是通过隐喻从语义、语用和认知维度进行传达的。利用通过焦点小组和对 30 名有目的地抽样的参与者进行半结构化访谈获得的人种学定性数据，我认为，用于标记重要他人的隐喻类别提供了（重新）想象性和亲密联系和关系的平台，并且（在年轻性行为者的生活经历的背景下重新构建。研究的结论是，本研究中样本人群中性伴侣的相互标签促进了霸权意识形态和异性资本的加冕，例如男性权力的再生产，以及通过女性机构颠覆这种权力和控制。通过这种方式，标签隐喻为规范同伴性行为和弥合性别鸿沟提供了重要的社会工具。