Wedgie

This article is about the wardrobe malfunction. For other uses, see Wedge.

A male receiving a wedgie

A wedgie is the act of forcibly pulling a person's underpants upwards from the back. The act is often performed as a school prank or a form of bullying.

Wedgies are commonly featured in popular works, either as a form of low comedy or as a behaviour representative of bullying. In such works, briefs are usually the type of underpants that are worn by the victim. ^{[1] [2]}

A wedgie can also occur in artistic gymnastics, particularly females who wear leotards. Retired American gymnast Nastia Luikin said “You’re not allowed to [pick a wedgie] or else you get deducted. So a lot of people use like sticky spray [called TuffSkin] for your butt so your leotard doesn’t move. I’ve never used it and I know most of the girls don’t really use it, though we use it for our wrists before we put tape on underneath our grips because we’re sweaty and it’s a little extra stick. But if you have a fall and your leotard goes up your butt, you don’t want to fix it in the middle of your routine. Off to the side, it’s totally fine.” ^[3]

Dangers

Wedgies, especially when performed on males, can be dangerous, potentially causing testicular or scrotal damage. An incident in 2004 involving a ten-year-old boy required reattachment of a testicle to the scrotum. ^[4]

Variations

A female receiving a regular wedgie

As a prank or form of bullying, there are a number of variants to the normal, or traditional wedgie. It is impractical to list every variant, as the names and processes can be rather subjective; however, there are a few better-known variants of the wedgie.

• The melvin is a variant where the victim's underpants are pulled up from the front, to cause injury, or, at least, severe pain to the victim's genitals. ^[5]
• The atomic wedgie entails hoisting the waistband of the receiver's underwear up and over their head. ^[5]
• The hanging wedgie is a variant in which the victim is hung by their underpants, elevated above the ground. ^[6]
• The ripping wedgie involves the tearing of the victim's underpants, sometimes ripping off a portion (such as the waistband) of them, or forcibly removing the garment entirely. ^[7]

See also

• List of practical joke topics
  • Indian burn
• Wedgies, a 2008 mini series-focused block on Cartoon Network

References

1. Wedgie. Archived 2007-11-18 at the Wayback Machine The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Retrieved 30 November 2007 via Dictionary.com.
2. No More Bullies, School Counselor Resources.
3. https://people.com/style/rio-olympics-2016-gymnastics-rules-nastia-liukin/ ^{[ bare URL ]}
4. "Emergency operation after school prank". Yorkshire Post. 2004-12-02. Archived from the original on 2014-01-10. Retrieved 2021-03-15.
5. Curran, David (4 January 2007). "Gwyneth And 'The Atomic Wedgie' / The attempt to prove the actress wrong after she slams American dinner party chatter is beyond a disaster". SFGATE . Retrieved 7 July 2009.
6. Stuever, Hank (2 September 2002). "At School, a Most Uncomfortable Subject". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 13 April 2010. Retrieved 7 July 2009.
7. Harper, Shaun R. (2010). College Men and Masculinities Theory, Research, and Implications for Practice. Wiley. p. 270. ISBN   9780470448427.

External links

• Media related to Wedgies at Wikimedia Commons