Pegging is a sexual practice in which someone (usually with a vagina) performs anal sex on someone else by penetrating their anus with a strap-on dildo.
The neologism "pegging" was popularized due to the sex education movie Bend Over Boyfriend released in 1998. After it became the winning entry in a contest for the "Savage Love" sex advice column, held by Dan Savage in 2001 upon observing that except for the phrase "Strap On Sex" used by Queen and her partner Robert in their national lecture series (Robert was the original Bend Over Boyfriend at the Good Vibrations lectures). The concept lacked a common name and there was no dictionary entry for the act.[1][2] Other words include "buggery" or "sodomy", but these refer to anal sex in general.[2] "Strap-on sex" can be used for vaginal or anal intercourse between people of any gender using a strap-on, and is thus less precise than pegging.[3] Some queer people prefer "strap-on sex" instead of "pegging" because they feel the latter is too hetero and cis centric.[3]
Beckett and Miller use "pegger" and "peggee" to refer to the person penetrating and the person being penetrated; "top" and "bottom" are also used.[3]
Pegging is penetrative sex with a strap-on dildo, usually anal penetration. It is usually defined as a heterosexual practice in which a woman penetrates the anus of a man.[3] This definition of pegging is very centered around cisgender and heterocentric identities. However, anyone can be penetrated anally regardless of their genitals or gender.[2]
The person penetrating their partner uses a strap-on dildo, often a silicon phallus, attached with a harness or strapless (a dildo that also penetrates the pegger).[3] Use of lubricant is recommended.[3]
Stimulation of the anus, rectum, and especially the prostate, is pleasurable. Prostate stimulation may even lead to an orgasm.[4] (see Prostate massage#As a sexual practice for more information).
According to Tristan Taormino, gender and gender roles play a important part in pegging.[2] Pegging reverses traditional cisgender heterosexual gender roles in sexual practices: the man is penetrated by the woman, becoming passive rather than active.[2]
Pegging is also about power: it reveals the power inherent in different roles and preconceived notions about who is and is not powerful. It takes the supposedly stable connection between gender and who gets to penetrate whom and exposes it as a lot more fluid than traditional heterosexuality would have us believe. (...) pegging dismantles the man-woman-penis-vagina foundation of heterosexual sex.
— Beckett & Miller (2022), foreword by Tristan Taormino
According to Beckett and Miller (2022), most popular representations of pegging are derogatory, negative or even amounting to sexual assault.[5]
Prior to the coinage of "pegging":
Various popular culture references since the coinage of "pegging":