Gerbilling

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The satirical animated television series South Park depicted gerbilling in the 2002 episode "The Death Camp of Tolerance", in which a gerbil known as Lemmiwinks falls victim to the practice.

Gerbilling also known as gerbil stuffing or gerbil shooting is the supposed sexual practice of inserting small animals, usually gerbils but also mice and hamsters, into the rectum; the idea being that the animals would "nose around" and stimulate the prostate as in anal sex. Despite apparently widespread public belief and persistent rumours, especially in the 1980s, no verified medical evidence of gerbilling exists; its status is that of an urban legend.

Gerbilling also has an alternate meaning, associated with monowheels, referring to when the rider loses her or his normal position in the bottom of the wheel and instead spins around the inside uncontrollably. This sense is derived from gerbil wheels.

According to the Urban Legends Reference Pages (Snopes):

The notion of gerbilling (not necessarily restricted to homosexuals — the insertion of items into the rectum for purposes of autoeroticism is practiced by heterosexuals as well) appears to be pure invention, a tale fabricated to demonstrate the depravity with which "faggots" allegedly pursue sexual pleasure.

The lack of medical evidence for gerbilling is not surprising when one considers that (1) rodents have claws, (2) frightened animals are likely to bite, and (3) rodents can be quite large.

Medical literature, which covers examples of items retrieved from patients' rectums in extreme detail, has never recorded a case of an animal being removed from a patient, nor of damage inflicted on a patient's insides due to rectal insertion of an animal. False, homophobic rumors surrounding various male celebrities engaging in gerbilling have become popular urban legends over the years.

A medical doctor who works in an ICU in Nevada (currently remaining anonymous) explains that there have been reports of "gerbilling", and describes that it possibly originated in an underground or black market culture in France. The process is described as putting an animal, wrapped or unable to cause damage, inside the rectum. As the animal suffocates and dies, it convulses and vibrates, purportedly causing pleasure to the practicer.

People who practice this technique incorrectly may have a reaction like the rumored "Richard Gere incident" where the animal actually did scratch around, causing pain.

Pop Culture

• In the last verse of "Fack" by Eminem he raps about gerbilling, repeating the line Shove a gerbil in your ass through a tube four times.
• Half way through Electric Six's "Gay Bar" video a gerbil is shown running through a plastic tube.
• Roddy Bottum, keyboardist for the rock group Faith No More, would describe gerbil stuffing in graphic detail to shocked interviewers.
• The comical minstrel Stephen Lynch published a song entitled "Gerbil", wherein he sang of a fictitious misadventure about this particular phenomenon.

See also

• Rectal foreign object
• Felching
• The Death Camp of Tolerance

External links

• Full snopes article
• An urban legend from the Darwin Awards
• The Straight Dope: Is it true what they say about gerbils?