“You know what? Let me air my grievances,” Eamonn Wrightstone, a college student in New York, says in a TikTok video, over-enunciating so grievances sounds more like gRIvaNcES. “If a girl wants to peg you, you’ll say… thank you.”
Pegging is fully mainstream, and it has been for some time now. Peak pegging culture first started in 2018 when shows like Broad City and movies like Deadpool began referencing straight guys wanting to take it up the butt.
Now, two years later, Gen Z TikTokers like Wrightstone are discovering the beauty of straight and bi men bottoming. Wrightstone posted his video in late April, and it now has nearly 98,000 views.
@eamonnimstoned thank u for everything u do ladies ? #fyp #foryou #xyzbca #peging
Since mid-April, the topic of pegging has made its way across several TikTok communities. Some videos can be found under the hashtag #peging, as #pegged and #pegging are banned. Most, though, are spread algorithmically through a community of femboys and bigirls on the app.
@hamsterw.hore I had to #buythis so ur gonna #wearit and take it in the booty #likeaman
@lillias REPOST CUZ I FORGOT THE PUNCHLINE str8 boys pls google what top/bottom means y r u even sayin it?#lgbt #queer #peging #getthestrap
@deathsyndrome4cutie Authentic experiences #foryou #foryoupage #fyp #peging #eboys
Pegging TikToks are humorous, jesting lightly at men who’d recoil at the idea that pegging is somehow emasculating. “Hell yes, let’s talk about pegging. If your girlfriend is asking to experiment and do that with you, that’s so cool,” Wrightstone tells me. “You don’t have to be into it, but at least say thank you. That’s some powerful shit.”
Right on, Wrightstone. Pegging is some powerful shit. Pegging is electrifying your asshole, and more straight guys should get into it. “Guys love getting fucked because it’s stimulating the exact same nerve as the penis,” Paul Nelson, a clinical sexologist at the Men’s Sexual Health Project, told MEL in 2018. The pudendal nerve connects your anus, taint and penis, which means bottoming offers similar pleasurable sensory experiences to penetrative vaginal sex or masturbation.
TikTok is notorious for its rigid censorship toward the discussion of sex (in addition to its suppresison of content by “ugly” creators, people of color and LGBTQ users). Sex-positive creators, including porn stars, are forced to find ways to work around the shadowbans and missing hashtags. Some have started painting their nudes, creating secret secondary accounts called FikFoks (fake TikToks) or hiding porn behind revealing video filters.
As for pegging, most TikTokers aren’t showing themselves getting pounded (though it’s surely only a matter of time until the popular satirical POV videos tackle anal). So, while the trend continues to grow, the pegging movement is wedging itself into other cultural discussions.
Like… which character from The Sopranos is most likely to be pegged.
@madisontayt brought to you by binging the sopranos over quarantine
@madisontayt The part 2 no one asked for but I felt like doing
Madison Tayt, an actor in Salt Lake City, posted those Sopranos pegging videos. “I’ve been binging The Sopranos during quarantine,” Tayt tells me. “I’d never made a TikTok video before, so I figured why not do one now.”
She deduced that Tony Soprano doesn’t know what pegging is, Christopher Moltisanti deeply needs some silicone up his ass and Dr. Jennifer Melfi is a certified dom top. Ralphie Cifaretto? He’s surely craving some good gabagool.
Bottoms up.
Joseph Longo
Joseph Longo is a culture and entertainment journalist whose work has appeared in The Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly and more. He's still trying to understand what it means to be a Gemini Rising.
