gerbilling
{{Short description|Unsubstantiated sexual practice}}
{{dablink|For a hazard relating to piloting a monowheel, see monowheel gerbiling}}
File:2008-02-16 Mongolian gerbil.jpg
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.{{cite web |url=http://www.snopes.com/risque/homosex/gerbil.asp |title=From Gere to eternity |date=2001-11-18|author=Barbara and David P. Mikkelson|work=Urban Legends Reference Pages|publisher=Snopes.com|access-date=February 8, 2012}}{{Cite encyclopedia|article=The Colo-Rectal Mouse|pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofur00janh_0/page/81 81]|author=Brunvand, Jan Harold|author-link=Jan Harold Brunvand|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Urban Legends|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|year=2001|isbn=978-1-57607-076-5|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofur00janh_0/page/81}} {{ISBN|9781576070765}} Rumors surrounding various male celebrities engaging in gerbilling have become persistent urban legends.{{Cite encyclopedia|article=Gerbiling|pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofur00janh_0/page/166 166]|author=Brunvand, Jan Harold|author-link=Jan Harold Brunvand|encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Urban Legends|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|year=2001|isbn=978-1-57607-076-5|url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofur00janh_0/page/166}} {{ISBN|9781576070765}}{{cite web |url=http://www.urbanlegends.about.com/library/blbyol4.htm |title=Urban Legends: Gerbilling Mishap Injures Two |publisher=About.com |access-date=September 28, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120428204012/http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blbyol4.htm |archive-date=April 28, 2012 |url-status=dead }}
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.Adams, Cecil (1986). "[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/478/is-it-true-what-they-say-about-gerbils Is It True What they Say About Gerbils?]" The Straight Dope, March 28, 1986.{{Cite journal
| last1 = Busch | first1 = D. B.
| last2 = Starling | first2 = J. R.
| title = Rectal foreign bodies: case reports and a comprehensive review of the world's literature
| journal = Surgery
| volume = 100
| issue = 3
| pages = 512–519
| year = 1986
| pmid = 3738771
}}
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."{{cite book|title=L.A. Exposed: Strange Myths and Curious Legends in the City of Angels|last1=Young|first1=Paul|page=20|publisher=St. Martin's Griffin|year=2002|isbn=978-0312206468}}
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.{{cite web |author=Savage |first=Dan |date=March 20, 2013 |title=Gerbils? Again? |url=http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=16295662 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140208062951/http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=16295662 |archive-date=2014-02-08 |website=The Stranger |publisher=}}
According to the editors of Snopes.com, gerbilling is an unverified and persistent urban legend.
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 you or in you". However, she acknowledges that she hasn't "personally dealt with a gerbil case, nor read about them".{{Cite web |date=2019-11-19 |title=A Highly Questionable Cultural History of Richard Gere's Ass Gerbil |url=https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/richard-gere-gerbil-incident-story-fact-check |access-date=2022-11-26 |website=MEL Magazine |language=en-US}}
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- {{cite journal|title=The Case of the Missing Gerbil|author=Norine Dresser|date=July 1994|volume=53|issue=3|pages=229–242|jstor=1499810|journal=Western Folklore|doi=10.2307/1499810}}
- {{cite web|url=http://snopes.com/risque/homosex/gerbil.asp|title=From Gere to Eternity|date=2001-11-18|author=Barbara and David P. Mikkelson|work=Urban Legends Reference Pages}}
- {{cite news|url=http://straightdope.com/columns/read/478/is-it-true-what-they-say-about-gerbils|title=Is it true what they say about gerbils?|date=1986-03-28|author=Cecil Adams|work=The Straight Dope|access-date=2009-10-13|archive-date=2009-10-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091030233409/http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/478/is-it-true-what-they-say-about-gerbils|url-status=dead}}
- {{cite journal|author=Becky Vorpagel|year=1988|title=A rodent by Any Other Name: Implications of a Contemporary Legend|journal=International Folklore Review|volume=6|pages=53–57}}
- {{cite web|url=http://www.theawl.com/2012/11/a-complete-history-of-gerbiling-so-far|title=A Complete History Of Gerbiling So Far|date=2012-11-19|author=Jane Hu|work=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). [https://ecf.ksd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2009cv2130-169 Court Order]
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20110606130455/http://larvatus.livejournal.com/234912.html "strange sex some may have known"], December 26, 2009: A study of felching and gerbiling in language, culture, and popular imagination
{{Sexual urban legends}}