Donkey Punch - Urban Legend

Urban Legend

Sex columnist Dan Savage has discussed the alleged practice on several occasions. In 2004, Savage referred to the donkey punch as "a sex act that exists only in the imaginations of adolescent boys," adding "no one has ever attempted "the Pirate," just as no one has ever performed a Hot Karl, delivered a Donkey Punch, or inserted an Icy Mike. They’re all fictions." Responding to an enquiry from Wikipedia editors, he again discussed the donkey punch urban legend in his "Savage Love" column in 2006. He wrote, "attempting a Donkey Punch can lead to ... unpleasant outcomes," including "injury, death or incarceration"; he also pointed out that it "doesn't even work." He quoted Jeffrey Bahr, a faculty member at the Medical College of Wisconsin,

To the best of my knowledge, there is no definitive reflex in the human neurophysiology that induces involuntary tightening of the anal sphincter after receiving blunt force trauma to the occiput, or back of the head. ... Trauma to any part of the head can have serious ramifications. Pain, intracranial hemorrhage, memory loss, neck injury, and possibly some related sensory deficits in the arms and legs. A strong enough blow to the back of an unsuspecting person's head could result in a vertebral fracture which, I hope most people know, could cause paralysis or even death.

Jordan Tate, commenting in The Contemporary Dictionary of Sexual Euphemisms (2007) on the "almost purely theoretical nature" of the term, stated,

The donkey punch originated in the late twentieth century sometime after the sexual revolution, when the empowerment of women was threatening the place of men in contemporary society. This shift in gender paradigms left men feeling threatened, and to reassert their authority, they created and popularized these theoretical and violent euphemisms. ... The secondary reward of the donkey punch is the creation, or reinforcement, of the ideal power structure, or solidifying existing gender roles.