Gerbilling
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Gerbilling, also known as gerbil stuffing or gerbil shooting, is an urban legend description of a fictitious sexual practice of inserting small live animals (usually gerbils but also mice, hamsters, rats and various other rodents) into one's rectum to obtain stimulation. Some variations of reports suggest that the rodent be covered in a psychoactive substance such as heroin prior to being inserted. There is no evidence that the practice has ever occurred in real life, and its existence remains highly dubious, as all rodents have long nails and teeth for digging or burrowing and naturally try to burrow out of any small spaces.
Overview
According to folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand, fictitious accounts of gerbilling were first recorded in 1984 and initially were said to involve a mouse and an unidentified man. In subsequent versions of the story, the animal was a gerbil and the story applied to several male celebrities.[1][2] Rumors surrounding various male celebrities engaging in gerbilling have become persistent urban legends.[1][3][4]
As of the mid-1980s, there were no reports in peer-reviewed medical literature describing gerbilling among the variety of rectal foreign objects removed from people's bodies.[5][6]
Mike Walker, a National Enquirer gossip columnist, spent months attempting to verify the gerbilling rumors about a celebrity. "I've never worked harder on a story in my life," Walker told the Palm Beach Post in 1995. After much investigation, he was unable to find any evidence that a gerbilling incident ever happened: "I'm convinced that it's nothing more than an urban legend."[7]
Dan Savage, a sex-advice columnist who frequently discusses unusual sexual practices, stated in 2013 that he has never received a first-hand or even a second-hand account of the practice.[8]
According to the editors of Snopes.com, gerbilling is an unverified and persistent urban legend.[1]
M Jenny Edwards, an attorney who specialises in "sexual offenses relating to bestiality, zoophilia and zoosexuality", connects the folkloric practise of 'gerbiling' to formicophilia. She defines this as "a form of bestiality, which essentially deals with things crawling on your or in you". However, she acknowledges that she hasn't "personally dealt with a gerbil case, nor read about them".[9]
In popular culture
Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm has an entire episode (“The Bat Mitzvah”) where he is rumored to practice gerbilling.
A February 2015 episode of Family Feud featured a woman who immediately answered "a gerbil" when host Steve Harvey asked "Name something a doctor would pull out of a person." The response produced prolonged laughter from the audience and a stunned silence from Harvey; even the other contestant at the podium burst out laughing over her response. The clip of the scene from the episode quickly went viral.[10]
In the "South Park" Season 6 episode "The Death Camp of Tolerance", Mr. Garrison inserts the class gerbil Lemmiwinks into Mr. Slave's anus during class. This starts the episode's B-plot, where Lemmiwinks must make his way through Mr. Slave's intestines and reach his mouth to escape, which he does at the end of the episode.[11]
In a 1996 appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, guest Mickey Rooney, trying to remember the name of actor Richard Gere, stated of Gere that "There was talk of gerbils." O'Brien later turned "there was talk of gerbils" into a catchphrase for his podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.
See also
References
- ^ a b c Barbara and David P. Mikkelson (2001-11-18). "From Gere to eternity". Urban Legends Reference Pages. Snopes.com. Retrieved February 8, 2012.
- ^ Brunvand, Jan Harold (2001). "The Colo-Rectal Mouse". Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 81. ISBN 978-1-57607-076-5. ISBN 9781576070765
- ^ Brunvand, Jan Harold (2001). "Gerbiling". Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 166. ISBN 978-1-57607-076-5. ISBN 9781576070765
- ^ "Urban Legends: Gerbilling Mishap Injures Two". About.com. Archived from the original on April 28, 2012. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
- ^ Adams, Cecil (1986). "Is It True What they Say About Gerbils?" The Straight Dope, March 28, 1986.
- ^ Busch, D. B.; Starling, J. R. (1986). "Rectal foreign bodies: case reports and a comprehensive review of the world's literature". Surgery. 100 (3): 512–519. PMID 3738771.
- ^ Young, Paul (2002). L.A. Exposed: Strange Myths and Curious Legends in the City of Angels. St. Martin's Griffin. p. 20. ISBN 978-0312206468.
- ^ Savage, Dan (March 20, 2013). "Gerbils? Again?". The Stranger. Archived from the original on 2014-02-08.
- ^ "A Highly Questionable Cultural History of Richard Gere's Ass Gerbil". MEL Magazine. 2019-11-19. Retrieved 2022-11-26.
- ^ "She said what? Possibly the most awkward answer ever shouted on game show". KSTU. February 12, 2015.
- ^ "South Park's 10 Greatest One-off Characters". Paste. September 14, 2017.
Further reading
- Norine Dresser (July 1994). "The Case of the Missing Gerbil". Western Folklore. 53 (3): 229–242. doi:10.2307/1499810. JSTOR 1499810.
- Barbara and David P. Mikkelson (2001-11-18). "From Gere to Eternity". Urban Legends Reference Pages.
- Cecil Adams (1986-03-28). "Is it true what they say about gerbils?". The Straight Dope. Archived from the original on 2009-10-30. Retrieved 2009-10-13.
- Becky Vorpagel (1988). "A rodent by Any Other Name: Implications of a Contemporary Legend". International Folklore Review. 6: 53–57.
- Jane Hu (2012-11-19). "A Complete History Of Gerbiling So Far". The Awl.
- Plaintiffs' Response, Conseco Services, L.L.C., v. Alexander, 2009 WL 2492186 (D.Kan.) (case where former employee created websites that suggested other employees utilized gerbils as a sexual prop). Court Order
External links
- "strange sex some may have known", December 26, 2009: A study of felching and gerbiling in language, culture, and popular imagination
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- Donkey punch
- Sex bracelet
- Gerbilling
- Progesterex
- Rainbow party
- Toothing
- Vagina dentata