Not the type of pegs discussed here. A picture of four metal tent pegs.
29 July 2022
Deliberately coined words rarely achieve widespread and lasting use. But occasionally one breaks through and becomes part of the common vocabulary, and the sexual sense of the verb to peg is one such word. Pegging is when a woman anally penetrates a man with a strap-on dildo, and the word was coined from a suggestion in a contest run by sex-advice columnist Dan Savage in 2001. Savage asked his readers to come up with a name for this practice, and in his 24 May 2001 column he published this reply (among others) from a reader named Paris P.:
Boy prostitutes were sometimes called peg boys because they would sit on pegs to keep their assholes open between clients, so I suggest the word “peg.” The woman would be the “pegger”, the boy would be the “peggee,” the act would be “pegging,” and the boy would write in his personal ad: “I want to get pegged.”
Savage was initially skeptical of the term, preferring punt or bob for the practice, replying:
Most people who like to fuck butts like to fuck butts that are tight, not butts gaping open after hours on a peg. Consequently, a boy prostitute who sits on pegs would seem to have a less marketable ass than one who spends his downtime doing, say, squat thrusts or crossword puzzles. So I very much doubt that the practice you describe was widely practiced, if it was practiced at all. And while “peg” has a certain appeal as a sex word—one syllable, percussive—my Aunt Peggy (who goes by Peg) would never speak to me again if “peg” took off.
[…]
So here's where we're at, folks. Out of the hundreds of proposed names for woman-on-man ass-banging, we've got two good options: bob and punt. While I would normally choose one myself and order my readers to use it, in this case I find myself torn. So let's vote: For punt, send an e-mail to punt@savagelove.net; for bob, send an e-mail to bob@savagelove.net; and, what the hell, for peg, send an e-mail to peg@savagelove.net. In two weeks, I'll announce the winner, and we'll have our cute new term for this delightful sexual practice.
In his 21 June 2001 column, Savage announced the winner:
The votes are in, they've been counted, recounted, and...actually, I'm going to resist making the stock Florida/hanging-chad/Republican-coup jokes. After all, this is serious business: What term, from this day forward, will be the commonly accepted slang for a woman fucking a man in the ass with a strap-on dildo? Three candidates stood in this election: bob, for Bend Over Boyfriend, a popular series of “how to fuck your man in the ass” videos; punt, for kicking the ball to the other team; and peg, for a device once used to, uh, keep the butts of some very unlucky boys gaping open. Thousands of people took the time to cast ballots (12,103 to be exact) and many included impassioned pleas for their favored candidate along with their votes.
[…]
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...THE WINNER! In what can only be regarded as a stunning upset, my favored candidate, bob, came in dead LAST. Out of 12,103 votes cast, bob received only 2,721 votes (22.5%). In second place, with 4,166 votes (34.5%), was punt. And in first place, with 5,216 votes (43%), was peg! Peg is the winner!
[…]
And, finally, I'd like to offer an apology to my Aunt Peg. I've always been close to my Aunt Peg—she taught me about the birds and the bees—and she's always been there for me. And how do I thank her? By ruining her good name.
By 2 October 2002, peg had an entry in Urbandictionary.com:
peg
A term coined by sex advice columnist Dan Savage that refers to an act of love making that involves a woman with a strap-on dildo anally penetrating her male partner.
Jennifer pegged the shit out of John last night; I bet he won't be able to sit down for a week.
But a sexual sense of peg is not entirely original to Savage and Paris P. There is a nineteenth-century slang use of peg meaning simply to fuck. The Man of Pleasure’s Illustrated Pocket-Book for 1850, a guide to the sex workers and bordellos of London, uses the verb in a play on words involving cribbage, a card game where score is kept on a peg-board and to win is to peg one’s opponent:
They dance, and are card players; they play a pretty game at all-fours, and when they cut they are safe to turn up Jack. The abbess, who is a slashing piece, is good at cribbage, though she will let you peg her; she is safe to bilk your crib, and hole you in spite of your play.
And five years later, another such guide, the Yokel’s Preceptor, has a definition:
Pegging cribs, Bawdy houses.
Still, Savage and his readers deserve credit for the present-day sense. This sense of peg has yet to make it into any of the standard dictionaries, but that’s only a matter of time and available editorial resources.
Sources:
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2022, s.v. peg, v.5.
The Man of Pleasure’s Illustrated Pocket-Book for 1850. London: William Ward, 1850, sig. E3v. Adam Matthew: London Low Life.
Savage, Dan. “Savage Love: Let’s Vote.” The Stranger, 24 May 2001.
———. “Savage Love: We Have a Winner!” The Stranger, 21 June 2001.
Urbandictionary.com, 2 October 2002, s.v. peg, v..
Yokel’s Preceptor. London: H. Smith, 1855, 30. Google Books.
Photo credit: Jan Uthoff, 2007, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.