Eskimo Sisters Is a Slang Term That 'Love is Blind's' Kacie Used to Explain a Relationship

If you've ever heard the phrase "Eskimo sisters," you might have had to do a mental double-take, and you wouldn't be alone. Not only are some people unaware of what Eskimo sisters actually means, but they are painfully aware of how derogatory the term "Eskimo" is on its own. Still, it's a phrase that people use in slang without fully understanding the offensive undertones.

Eskimo sisters and eskimo brothers are used by people regarding relationships with men or women, and Madison from Love Is Blind Season 9 even references eskimo sisters in the reunion when she says another woman used the phrase to describe the two of them. She doesn't explain what it means, though, and instead seems to take for granted that most viewers already know what an Eskimo sister is. Spoiler alert: Not everyone does.

According to Urban Dictionary, Eskimo sisters is the phrase used to describe two women who sleep with the same man. In sleeping with him at separate times, they are bonded for life as Eskimo sisters. Eskimo brothers is a phrase used to describe the same thing, except for two men who separately sleep with the same woman.

Fans of the show The League might have first heard Eskimo brothers on the show when one character uses it to describe two other men in the show who, it turns out in a storyline, slept with the same woman. The same character from the show even came out with a song and music video dedicated to the "bond" of being Eskimo brothers.

According to a Reddit post about the term Eskimo brothers, or in this case, Eskimo sisters, which has the same meaning, it comes from the tradition of Inuit or Alaska Natives allegedly "gifting" their wives for their houseguests to use as they please for the night. A study from the University of Alaska Fairbanks backs that claim.

According to the study, Alaska Natives near the Bering Strait had a tradition of becoming "bond-fellows" if they lived in neighboring villages. In doing this, the agreement was that if one of the men traveled to the other's village, he was given the opportunity to use the host's bed with the host's wife in it for his stay. That being said, it should be noted that the term "Eskimo" is seen by many native individuals as being offensive, so it's really not something anyone should be saying.

During the Love Is Blind reunion for Season 9, Madison says that her ex-fiancé Joe began dating one of the other women from the show, Kacie. Madison reveals that Kacie "had the audacity" to tell her they are now Eskimo sisters. This is likely in reference to both women having slept with Joe at different times.

In most cases, using Eskimo sister or Eskimo brother to describe a shared relationship with the same man or woman is pretty outdated. Besides Eskimo sisters being a derogatory and offensive way to describe sharing a partner over two different periods of time, it's often not welcome to those who aren't even offended by the turn of phrase.