Columns Mar 20, 2013 at 4:00 am

Savage Love

Gerbils? Again?

Dan Savage
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Comments

103
86-nocute-- Does she Snopes it? Does she get back to you to say something along the lines of "Rats, it was such a great story, but it turned out not to be true!"? Years ago I repeated an urban legend (the one about Neil Armstrong overhearing his neighbors arguing about oral sex) and remember feeling deeply embarrassed about it later. I tried to revoke it where I could. But for some number of people, the only thing that will happen when they find a favorite story labeled false on Snopes is to questions Snopes's authority. After all, the good folks at Snopes have never met their hairdresser's brother-in-law.
Crinoline on March 22, 2013 at 1:45 PM Report this
106
Wow, Robin8...that must have made you feel super empowered to mention that Richard Gere's brother is gay but he isn't. Kind of saying, "Well maybe it was his brother who did the gerbil thing." Aren't we all so super impressed that you know things that other people don't know. OOoooooooo!
on March 22, 2013 at 4:13 PM Report this
107
@95: I agree, but the stories you hear have the hospital wrong (Cedars Sinai versus UCLA Med) and came out much later on. My coworker's mom WAS a nurse in the ER (I had known that for several months before the Richard Gere story ever came up) and she had told her son about it on a Friday night. The guy related it to a group of twenty on a Saturday night, and it came out on the radio a couple days later.

Again, inasmuch as his mom was a nurse in the ER four blocks away and used to pick him up from work, I believe it. Could be totally made up, but I had absolutely never heard such a thing before that. Honestly, in early 1990 (before Pretty Woman), who was thinking about Richard Gere? The last memorable thing he had done was An Officer and a Gentleman seven or eight years earlier.
Approaching 40 in LA on March 22, 2013 at 7:36 PM Report this
108
@Approaching 40, I am about your age and heard this story when I was in middle school--early to mid 80s. I probably did believe it then, but to be honest I don't think I truly even knew what a gerbil was at the time.
As an adult I can see how the rumor has been used to demonize and dehumanize the lgbqt community (especially gay men). Even without the gruesome details included in the column, it is clearly sadistic to put a live animal in one's ass. The assumption that all gay men -- or even one presumed gay man--practice this "technique" only furthers and rationalizes bigotry.
Purbear on March 22, 2013 at 11:26 PM Report this
109
@Approaching 40 in LA: I first heard this in the mid-1980s. (If you're only now approaching 40, then you don't remember the fuss that Richard Gere prompted since "American Gigolo," and through "An Officer and a Gentleman.")

Check out what Snopes has to say about how many people supposedly worked the ER and witnessed this personally:
http://www.snopes.com/risque/homosex/ger…
nocutename on March 23, 2013 at 9:18 AM Report this
110
If it's illegal to sell gerbils in California, then isn't it fairly meaningless to cite lack of gerbils in CA pet stores as proof that there's no demand? I am not saying that anyone has actually done this (although my past experience with humans would lead me to be unsurprised if someone somewhere has), but shouldn't that particular piece of evidence be gathered from pet stores where gerbils may be sold?

Also, I would imagine that the choice of rodent is not particularly important. Doing the same with mice or rats or (if you're Rick Santorum) raccoons (which aren't rodents, but I doubt he knows that) could perhaps reasonably be referred to as "gerbiling" just as photocopying on a Canon is often called "Xeroxing".

Again: I doubt this is a very common practice. I'm just criticising the nature of the presented evidence.
something on March 23, 2013 at 12:05 PM Report this
111
It's no use. Every straight guy I know, especially ones whose wifes or girlfriends are nurses, swears that they know a woman emergency room worker who has to de-gerbil a gay man a few times a year? How do they know the gerbil-ed men are gay? A: Because they have gerbils stuck in their asses - duh.

As for the Richer Gere-bil connection, I think someone already confessed to starting that malicious rumor. I think it was a movie producer that Gere pissed off, so he started the most ridiculous rumor about him that he could think of, and took on a life of it's own.

I never heard this stuff about removing teeth and legs and lower jaws. According to all the straight men I know, the biting and clawing are half the fun for the gays. When you ask how they do not die of perforated colons, gangrene, septicemia, etc, the answer they give is that the gerbil goes in a ziplock bag. Which according to the logic of straight men is impervious to the gnawing of rodent teeth and reduces the potentially fatal bites and scratches into stimulating pinches and pokes.
jussmbdy on March 23, 2013 at 5:02 PM Report this
112
@89 nocutename: I am, too!! And after 48 years of having to fight off not one, but TWO controlling, manipulative, dictatorial zapf dingbatz older sisters (my oldest seems to think she's my mother!), old school friends of Mom's, older relatives, and anyone else falling into the insane category of shamefully meddlesome old busybody, I still have the battle scars to prove it!
Luckily, I now live a good county away from all those who were so excessively hellbent upon coercing me into doing what I didn't want to do.
Being the youngest in my family was supposed to be a curse for some bizarre, still unexplained reason.
auntie grizelda on March 23, 2013 at 10:52 PM Report this
113
@grizelda Good for you.

May I add that I enjoy reading your posts ? You seem to be a fine specimen of human on your own, you're well rid of the controlling people.
sissoucat on March 24, 2013 at 3:29 AM Report this
114
Snopes had a good point that I hadn't thought of before: (Some) doctors and nurses pass on urban legends the same as anyone else. So when I hear about Richard Gere and gerbils from my hair dresser who heard it from her client who owns a landscape company, I'm likely to dismiss it, but when I hear it from my allergist who heard it from his roommate who works in the E.R., I'm likely to give it weight. Yet that shouldn't be the case. If you were to track it down by asking each person who heard it to verify, both lines would fizzle.
Crinoline on March 24, 2013 at 4:08 AM Report this
116
@113 sissoucat: Thank you. I enjoy hearing from you and others, too.
Yeah----it has been a lifelong struggle to declare my independence,
but lo these many years the rewards are all the sweeter.
No news from either of my sisters or their equally meddlesome peers
is good news.

auntie grizelda on March 24, 2013 at 2:51 PM Report this
117
Troll alert on Aisle 115!!
auntie grizelda on March 24, 2013 at 2:54 PM Report this
118
It never occurred to me that anyone'd think gerbiling was more than a really sick joke... That is happened so much that Dan used to get three letters a week is frankly a shock.
Sketch on March 25, 2013 at 12:26 PM Report this
119
@101 - Thanks so much for that Article!!!

I'm another mid-forties person and I heard this long before 1990.
AFinch on March 25, 2013 at 12:35 PM Report this
120
hey any girl that wants a boyfriend im the boy i got 15 girfriends but only one will be mine for ever

jhosh on March 25, 2013 at 3:14 PM Report this
121
As a California resident, I can assure you there are plenty of mice and hamsters for sale here in our great state. Unless it is the prestigious brand name of "Gerbil" is the status symbol everyone is rushing to attain? I guess it's not the same thrill with a generic mouse...

I am surprised that no one here has mentioned South Park, that depicted a gay character doing this, and is most likely where this rumor is finding a new generation of gullible 13-year-olds.
on March 25, 2013 at 3:40 PM Report this
122
1987, a friend of mine I was sharing a place with was an ER nurse in Vancouver, BC. Came back from work once, breathlessly excited because on the ER shift before hers! they had pulled a gerbil! out of Richard Gere's ass!
Top secret! She'd get fired if anyone knew she told! I'd like to think that my reply back then was "yeah, whatever..."
shak on March 25, 2013 at 5:55 PM Report this
123
@122: I was thinking about South Park as well, but I assumed the obvious "in poor taste" quality of that plotline wouldn't have children thinking gerbils up gay asses is gospel. While we're on the subject, I'm surprised more people weren't pissed at the Mr. Garrison sex change storyline. It was pretty virulently transphobic.
lolorhone on March 25, 2013 at 7:13 PM Report this
124
I meant @121
lolorhone on March 25, 2013 at 8:10 PM Report this
125
"These were mice that had their tails cut off, they were smothered in Vaseline and they had string tied around them." From the bestiality farm, at least according to the police report. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/16…
TrahB on March 25, 2013 at 10:53 PM Report this
126
"These were mice that had their tails cut off, they were smothered in Vaseline and they had string tied around them." From the bestiality farm, at least according to the police report. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/16…
on March 25, 2013 at 10:54 PM Report this
127
I think the obvious answer is that nurses like to troll people. :p
mydriasis on March 26, 2013 at 6:09 AM Report this
128
I heard the gerbil/Richard Gere rumor in Jr. High in the late spring of 86. A girl was telling a group of us kids that her aunt is a ER nurse at UCLA and you would never guess what happened....
Even then I knew is was a load of crap. I have been bitten by hamsters, and there is no way in Hell that someone would shove a squirming animal up their ass willingly for kicks when it will shred your butt beyond human endurance.
Huge Liability on March 26, 2013 at 2:36 PM Report this
129
Alright as a child of this generation I thought I had seen it all, heard it all (heard from all you lovely older people who chose to share tales of their experience and the resulting wisdom of course) ,working my way to having done it all, and maybe even inventing some of that "all"....... that being said, what shit is this? Forget shoving a bleeding, suffering, carnage-y, gerbil up your bunghole, I'm still stuck on the logistics of de-jawing and de-legging it. Isn't that a symptom of psychopathy? Torturing small animals?
on March 27, 2013 at 7:01 AM Report this
130
Hate to tell you this, but the legend of Richard Gere and the gerbil is TRUE. How do I know? I heard it from a paramedic, who himself was told about it by the paramedic who was ON THE SCENE when the incident "went wrong" and an ambulance had to be summoned, which is, no doubt, how the incident originally got "out" into the public domain.

And no, it was not told me during a drunken session in a bar, but during an "Emergency First Responder" course I was taking.

And it is well known to any emergency room attendant anywhere near a gay district just how often GAY men show up with an astounding range of objects stuck up their asses, so, really, Dan, let's not pretend it "isn't so", okay? A mutilated gerbil would be just one out of many things!

As for the "no gerbil" law, well, it's easy enough to breed one's own just for the purpose. Marijuana is illegal too; doesn't stop people smoking it! I heard about the gerbil thing long BEFORE the Richard Gere incident; being in the S&M scene means you hear about a LOT of strange things before the vanilla types..and yes, the news came out of SanFran, and having heard even stranger stories about what the gays get up to in terms of prostate stimulation(remember the horse story out of Washington?)there is no question the practice of gerbil mutilation enjoyed a vogue in the back rooms of gay bars and similar venues!
on March 27, 2013 at 9:01 PM Report this
131
@127 mydriasis: Hunter78 is a healthcare worker?!?
Okay, NOW I'm scared.
auntie grizelda on March 27, 2013 at 9:17 PM Report this
132
>> All you need is one doomed gerbil and one willing butt-hole
or one willing gerbil and one doomed butt-hole
(the practitioner, not the body part)

- - -

>> But being a gay man or Richard Gere in America
>> means always having to reassure people
>> that you don't have a gerbil in your ass.

Ahhhh, I understand. Mr. Gere only does it in foreign countries. Less trouble, that's smart. No wonder he's always going to Tibet.

- - -

So, no one practices "gerbiling".
But, everyone engages in "horsing around".

Now that's gotta be just downright painful.

But it does explain how you find a horse's head in your bed in the morning. Someone made you an offer you couldn't refuse.

- - - - - - - - -

"Joker, I've had my ass in the grass. Can't say I liked it. Lots of bugs & too damn dangerous. Fortunately, my present duties keep me where I belong. In the rear with the Gere."

-- Lt. Lockart, "Full Metal Jacket"
RobynH on April 7, 2013 at 8:47 PM Report this
133
When I was in high school sex ed, our teacher did a thing where we could anonymously put a sex question - ANY sex question -on a piece of paper and put it in a hat and he'd answer it. Someone asked what "gerbiling" was. The look on his face...

He actually answered it, too, after qualifying that this is something that "very very few" people do. I remember being really puzzled at age 15 as to where my teacher would get this information.
Whoop Di Doo on April 24, 2013 at 11:27 PM Report this

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