Welcome to a magical mystery ride down the tube and into the anus: a special three-part report on boofing. Parts II and III can be found here and here.
Every few years America comes to a screeching halt and asks itself, what is boofing? Whether it be 2012, when a University of Tennessee fraternity trotted in front of national TV to deny they boofed boxed wine, or 2018 when then-Supreme Court-nominee Brett Kavanaugh denied even knowing what boofing means in the first place.
To be clear, Brett, boofing does not mean pursing your little Heritage Foundation butthole to spurt out a dusty fart. In fact, digging through the annals of slang history, the definition of boofing has changed a few times, but it’s never meant farting. Back in the 1980s, for instance, boof was more commonly known as lingo for anal sex .
What Is Boofing?
So what does boofing mean now? In the present year of our Lord, boofing means to insert drugs or alcohol into one’s butt so as to forgo typical digestion and quickly absorb chemicals directly into the bloodstream via the intestinal lining.
But before running off to the bathroom with a hose and bottle of gin, let’s learn a little more about boofing. So allow us to provide a brief overview of the boofing phenomenon: the science of boofing, what boofing feels like, and the long history of the term “boofing,” from kayaking to baseball to anal sex.
How Drinking Normally Works
In order to understand how boofing works, it’s good to know how drinking normally works. You know, consuming food and drink through your mouth, not your butt.
Basically, we’re made to eat and drink with our mouths because unlike the butt route, the mouth allows our body’s natural defense system to keep us from dying. This is called the First Pass, where your body’s natural defenses team up to break down and moderate the absorption of toxins before entering the “systemic circulation,” where your bloodstream circulates to your brain, and all the other important organs.
How Does Boofing Work?
To reiterate, when you consume alcohol the normal way, your body treats it with natural filters and chemicals that we evolved to have in order to not poison ourselves. As Atlanta gastroenterologist Preston Stewart explained to CNN back in 2012:
Our stomachs and livers have an enzyme known as alcohol dehydrogenase that breaks down ethanol to make it less toxic for our bodies. The lower gastrointestinal tract doesn’t have that enzyme, so alcohol molecules are absorbed into the bloodstream through the lining of the colon.
Eventually the alcohol would still make its way to the liver, but the high alcohol content would overwhelm the organ.
Boofing works by totally bypassing all of that. When we drink beer with our mouth holes, alcohol is absorbed in the stomach and small intestine, which can take up to an hour, depending on weight and other food in the digestive tract. What happens when you boof alcohol, however, is you’re basically just dumping alcohol directly into the bloodstream. Which, of course, is bad.
The Risks of Boofing
To protect yourself from landing on national TV asking reporters “What is boofing?” as if you didn’t just read any of that, let’s cover the risks of boofing. Boofing alcohol, or boofing drugs, or boofing anything leads to faster absorption, which leads to stronger intoxication. That’s all fun and games until you realize the alcohol is in your butt and you’ve effectively neutralized your body’s last-ditch attempt to save you from alcohol poisoning: vomiting.
When your body absorbs alcohol faster than it can eliminate it, your blood alcohol content (BAC) rises — so imagine the abrupt spike in BAC when you forgo the body’s natural process. Once alcohol hits the bloodstream, the only way out is to let it filter through the kidneys, liver and lungs. Such an immediate surge in BAC will lead to normal effects of an alcohol overdose, only in a much, much shorter window: Your brain begins shutting down, your breathing slows, your heart rate slows and if you’re like the man in 2004 who was administered a sherry enema by his wife, you’ll die.
I spoke with multiple boofers who admitted they take great lengths to get the exact boofing dosage for alcohol or drugs before doing it. If they don’t, they risk ending up like those Pi Kappa Alpha fellas at University of Tennessee, whose members made themselves the poster boys of boofery after a 20-year-old was hospitalized — and authorities said he’d used an alcohol enema.
To be clear, an alcohol enema is boofing, which is butt-chugging. “A boof by any other name…” would be a reference those frat boys might understand if the incident didn’t result in their suspension from campus and overall embarrassing the college when it made national news.
How to Boof
Despite the obvious risks of boofing, people still do it. As such, those who regularly boof take extreme precautions, and are acutely aware that boofing, as Wesley put it, will get you “blacked-out drunk in a matter of minutes.” Another boofer, Taylor, measures his boof juice to the exact milliliter. He knows exactly how much time he needs to lie down to prevent any “leakage.”
“I use a ratio of 20 milligrams [of the 2C-B, a psychedelic] per milliliter of water, so with 200 mg and 10 mL of water I have my boof juice ready to go. Fifteen to 18 mg or so is a good boof dosage for 2C-B, so I use a little under 1 mL of water,” he says. He inserts the syringe 2 to 3 inches deep, and after squirting it in, he chills out on his stomach for a couple minutes.
Overall, there’s no good reason to boof, even if you want to boof Pedialyte for hydration. But if you do, own up to it. The boof—sorry, the truth—will prevail.
Quinn Myers
Quinn Myers is a staff writer at MEL. He reports on internet culture, technology, health, masculinity and the communities that flourish within.
