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]

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.[3]

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.[4]
  • The atomic wedgie entails hoisting the waistband of the receiver's underwear up and over their head.[4]
  • The hanging wedgie is a variant in which the victim is hung by their underpants, elevated above the ground.[5]
  • 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.[6]

See also

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. ↑ "Emergency operation after school prank". Yorkshire Post. 2004-12-02. Archived from the original on 2014-01-10. Retrieved 2021-03-15.
  4. 1 2 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.
  5. ↑ 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.
  6. ↑ Harper, Shaun R. (2010). College Men and Masculinities Theory, Research, and Implications for Practice. Wiley. p. 270. ISBN 9780470448427.
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