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Revision as of 14:23, 13 January 2006

Goatse.cx (variably pronounced "goat see," "goats," "goatsex," "goat say", or "goat see dot cx", and often truncated to goatse) is one of the most infamous Internet shock sites and well-known Internet memes. Its front page contains a sexually explicit picture, hello.jpg, featuring a man wearing a gold ring on his left hand (and nothing else) manually stretching his anus and rectum to a diameter roughly equal to the width of his hand. Below his anus, the man's dangling penis and testicles are visible. The site is commonly linked to by Internet trolls in order to shock unsuspecting users with the image.

As of January 14, 2004, the domain goatse.cx is no longer online. However, many mirrors of the site are still available and the image itself has been posted at many other websites. The most common mirror was goat.cx; however, goat.cx was, like its predecessor, no longer online as of February 22, 2005. As of February 27 of that year, the domain goat.cx, like goatse.cx, had been suspended by the Christmas Island Internet Administration, but the domain as of April 2005 appeared to be back online, showing only the message "be right back." In May 2005, there was an image on the site showing a pumpkin with some hands around it as if it was stretching its anus. Christmas Island Technology Corp has registered goats.cx as of May 24, 2005 with obviously nonexistent name servers, presumably in an attempt to prevent another mirror of the original goatse.cx. In July 2005, goats.cx displayed the text "SIRS! WE HAVE A PROBLEM! ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO GOATS.CX!"

The mirror that most closely resembles the original is at http://goatse.ragingfist.net/ , but is entirely complete. Four other similar but incomplete mirrors are http://goatse.ca/ and http://www.notgoatse.com/, neither of which have the Giver, Contrib or Feedback sections. The second of the four has links to other shock sites — Tubgirl, Harlequin Fetus, Lemonparty, and Loopback — while the fourth's hyperlinks all point to goat.cx.

The Internet Archive has the original site preserved as it was before it was shut down.

Etymology

The intended meaning of the site's name is not known for certain. It is commonly interpreted as a word play on the phrase "goat sex", although no goats are involved anywhere on the site.

It has been claimed that prior to hello.jpg, Goatse.cx contained a picture of a woman being anally penetrated by a goat. This is incorrect. The alt attribute on the image, "Stinger", actually comes from the EFNet #quake channel. The image itself was discovered on a webpage called members.xoom.com/stinger (it was removed and placed in members.xoom.com/_stinger). Goatse.cx was created by a #quake member expressly for the purpose of displaying the image.

The Internet Archive only lists versions of the Goatse.cx site as far back as March, 1999, at which point hello.jpg was already being used.

Others believe that goatse is actually an acronym for "Guy Opens Ass To Show Everyone", with the usage of the ".cx" TLD being purely coincidental. This is likely a backronym.

Also, a member of another EFNet channel who, tired of the channel being mistaken for a warez channel, began sending hello.jpg to those who requested pirated software, renaming it appropriately to what was requested. Around this same time, members of that channel were also taking advantage of the free domain registration offered by the newly-online Christmas Islands NIC (.cx), many of whom played on the phonetic resemblance of "se.cx" to "sex".

It was then that one of this channel's operators put hello.jpg on one of such domains, to facilitate easier and more effective shocks by replying to such requests with something like "see http://goatse.cx for all your cracks/warez needs."

Identity of the "Goatse man"

A series of pictures by a man identified as Kirk Johnson contain the precursor images to hello.jpg and some following. At this point, it is highly likely that Kirk Johnson is the "Goatse Man." Kirk Johnson is a regular poster to the newsgroup alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.male.anal, among others, and a rather simple analysis confirms this; it is unlikely that there is another practitioner of anal stretching with the same mole on the upper-left edge of his anus. Furthermore, both the gap.zip (see below) pictures and Kirk Johnson's pictures show the same large yellow buttplug being used.

He has been given many nicknames by various Internet communities, including "The Goatse Guy", "Goatse Man", "G-Man", "Assman", "Bob Goatse", "The Ass Pirate," "Mr G.", "The Goatman", "The Receiver", "Stinger" (hello.jpg was originally passed around on IRC as _stinger.jpg, with the intent of prodding an op), "Gman", "Goatsemon", "The Ass that started it All", "Goatse", "Gaping Ass Man", "Gay Byrne", "Señor Goatse", "MVG", "Mr. Goatse", and many others.

Some have speculated that "he" is actually an intersexual who is pulling open his vagina. However, the rest of the images in the series are unambiguously male. An interview with a man who shows similar elasticity can be found at: http://www.bmezine.com/news/people/A20210/plp56/index.html (Note that this site contains similar photos on the front page.)

Organization

Goatse.cx had four sections, three of which have images intended to shock the viewer:

• The "Receiver" section, showing the aforementioned hello.jpg. Hello.jpg has the alt attribute "stinger". Before the picture is the text in black, "The goatse.cx lawyer has informed us that we need a warning! So.. if you are under the age of 18 or find this photograph offensive, please don't look at it. Thank you!" This text was not a sincere warning in the minds of some, as hello.jpg is very close to it. It also had links to http://www.dolphinsex.org/ and http://www.urinalpoop.org/, and it once had a link to http://www.biganal.com/ (all of which are now occupied by cybersquatters). The text below hello.jpg reads, "IMPORTANT NOTE: There are many merchandising attempts for goatse.cx around the web-- none of them are real, none of them are official. Do not buy this gimmick merchandise. The official goatse.cx merchandise is coming soon!" The title of this page is "Eh."
• The "Giver" section, showing a picture (giver.jpg) of a man reclining in an orange convertible (later versions show him on a yacht or speedboat of some kind, with ocean or river waves in the background). He has an oversized penis which reaches up to his chest. The length and girth of mentioned penis is exaggeratedly anatomically disproportionate to the rest of the man's body; the photo shows obvious signs of being "photoshopped" or otherwise graphically altered for shock value or humor. The title of this page is "Whoa." The whole website contains an anal sex joke: either that the Giver will be able to insert his oversized penis into the Receiver; or that the Giver's oversized genitals are responsible for the Receiver's condition.
• The "Feedback" section, where e-mails are exhibited.
• The "Contrib" section showcasing visitor contributions to the site. Contrib has additional variations of hello.jpg and giver.jpg, as well as other images and files. The title of this page is "Contributed Work".
  • bush.jpg is a picture of United States President George W. Bush, calling someone on a telephone in his office, with hello.jpg displayed on a laptop computer on his desk.
  • goatse-wwii.jpg is a picture of a large snowball, with "goatse.cx" written on the side, chasing Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo.
  • giver2.jpg is a picture of the Goatse giver holding his oversized penis.
  • magiceye.jpg is a Magic Eye picture. After about 16 seconds, the image changes to that of a 256 color version of hello.jpg. It attempts to fool viewers by exploiting the fact that, although the server sends a MIME type stating the filename is a JPEG image, the image is in fact an animated GIF.
  • warning.jpg is a warning sign picture telling people not to go to goatse.cx
  • goatsex.swf is a Flash Movie, set to the hook from "MMMBop" by Hanson. The movie shows a large dildo being inserted into the anus of the man posing in hello.jpg. The background is from another gap.zip picture, gap8.jpg.
  • Goatman.mp3 is an mp3 Music file. It takes up 518 KB.
  • Foxy_goatse.mp3 is another mp3 music file, a parody of the Jimi Hendrix song Foxy Lady. It takes up 1061 KB.
  • goatsecx-winamp.zip is a ZIP file containing a Winamp skin, depicting hello.jpg. It takes up 313 KB.
  • hello.mpg is a movie, first showing the text "HI" on a black background, followed by shots of gap.zip pictures. At the end of the movie, the following text appears next to a picture of a teenage boy:
    "http://www.goatse.cx
    The goatse.cx lawyer has informed us that we need a warning! So.. if you are under the age of 18 or find this photograph offensive, please don't look at it. Thank you!"

People sometimes link to goatse.cx images not shown on the actual webpages, such as loopback.jpg, a picture of a man looping his penis into his anus. There are also numerous other files in the directory http://www.goatse.cx/contrib/.

The image hello.jpg originates from a set of 40 images depicting the man performing various anal sexual acts. In those images, the man used dildos and butt plugs to stretch his anus. The images were located by Stile Project and are also available from the "Contrib" section of the goatse.cx website under the filename gap.zip. hello.jpg is the third file in the archive, gap3.jpg.

Geographic location

The site used the .cx country code, which is the top-level domain of Christmas Island, whose operators will not disclose registrants' personal information. The actual server of Goatse.cx was not located on Christmas Island, but in the United States and is owned by Hick.org, which is a website about computer programming and bathroom humor. The Hick.org domain was registered by Matt Miller in Overland Park, Kansas. Both Goatse.cx and Hick.org originate from the same IP address; the server is located in the Kansas City, Missouri metro-region. Goat.cx, a mirror of Goatse.cx, is located in the Dallas, Texas metro-region.

In recent times the website has been rehosted as www.goatse.ca. The .ca suffix implies that the website is now hosted in Canada, although it is unknown at this time if www.goatse.ca is "official" and was hosted by the original owners of www.goatse.cx, however it remains a popular mirror of the site.

Parodies and tributes

Because many frequent Internet users have been tricked into viewing the site at one time or another, it has become something of an Internet-wide in-joke. As such, hello.jpg and the other images on the site are common subjects of parodies and tributes.

• Snopes.com has an article, "The Hands of God", about an image of a cloud formation that looks suspiciously like the Goatse.cx photo.

• Some have considered Sheela Na Gig to be a 1,000-year-old foremother of goatse.

• The game Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil by Nerve Software and id Software features blocks forming a rough image of hello.jpg in level 3 of the Hellanoid game.

• Unreal Tournament 2004 featured an assault level for which the final objective was to move the Hellbender through the Goatse.cx anus.

• "Goat See" - An altered version of the original hello.jpg. In this version an Eye in the center of the hole watches the viewer.

• "GO:AT:SE" - A digitally altered video clip from the Fox series 24 (season 3)

• The 8 Phases of Goatse

• Pelord Goatse - A Family Safe Goatse Parody Image

• Goatse Clan

• The following two parodies are hosted on Yahoo! Geocities.

• • http://www.geocities.com/electabuzz2002/lite.htm - Was originally like the Goatse.cx receiver section, but with hello.jpg replaced by the ASCII version found in the "Contrib" section of Goatse.cx. It has since been changed so that the

"Receiver" and "Giver" are replaced by crude line drawings.

• • http://www.geocities.com/internetgoat/ - This website has the Goatse warning, and fake links, as well as a link to this webpage, with the words "Thanks for the hits!"

• The following parodies all originate from the same IP address, hosted in the Houston, Texas metro-region:

• • Oralse.cx - The "Pussy" hello.jpg is that of a kitten, and the "Wiener" giver.jpg is that of a dachshund. Oralse.cx also has a "Contrib" section of more shots of the cat and the dog, as well as modified versions of the aforementioned pictures. It also had a "Feedback" section with its own letters.

• • http://analse.cx/ - This site has bunny.gif, which is a picture of bunch of cartoon rabbits, each with a pancake on its head, who open their anuses in imitation of hello.jpg. The title of the page is "GoatsePancakeBunnyDance". A song called "bunny.mid" plays on the site, a version of "The Girl from Ipanema". The string "Now this is something I just don't get. - Matthew 11:42" (Matthew 11 only has 30 verses) is seen in the source code. This site is also a spoof of The Hamster Dance and Oolong the rabbit.

• In the tradition of oralse.cx and throatse.cx, "anti-shock" (sites that imitate shock/curiosity websites but do not feature objectionable content), has become an Internet trolling phenomenon where people advertise non-shock sites as containing pornographic or shocking matter. Commonly, the actual website linked-to is an image of a family pet, a recipe for sugar cookies, or the Olsen twins' website.

• Trollse.cx - a parody of the front page of goatse.cx, replacing the original picture with a picture of open source figure Eric S. Raymond, wearing a Unix shirt photoshopped to say LUnix. The giver section has a cartoon of two men, a still frame from Jeff K's animation satirizing Linux users and game designer Cliffy B. One of them is clothed and sitting down in a chair. His oversized penis is bulging through the crotch of his red pants. In the background are pictures of Something Awful characters Cliff Yablonski and JeffK. The "contrib" only has an ascii picture of Raymond. This website is hosted in the Washington, DC metro-region. The site links to Slashdot and Slashnet. The site also links to cowse.cx, which is advertised as "coming soon." Cowse.cx currently simply displays the word "moo".

• http://comedy.allinfoabout.com/goatse.html - A flash file that exhibits several Goatse parodies.

• http://sam.zoy.org/fun/goatse/ - A gallery of Goatse parody pictures. Warning: The first page is not pornographic, but it contains links to pornographic and disturbing variations on hello.jpg

• http://conese.ath.cx/ - A re-enactment of hello.jpg using an ordinary traffic cone. Non-pornographic.

• http://forge.evula.net/fc/fc_goatse.jpg - An altered Family Circus comic

• http://www.redcoat.net/pics/couldsecx.jpg - A picture of the sky pulling a hello.jpg

• http://www.digitaldfw.com/uberzine/hax.asp?clip=32 - A video showing two young men in the background of a newscast with a sign that says "Goatse."

• http://www.cadaverine.net/misc/hello.jpg - An altered hello.jpg, showing the face of cartoon dragon blocking the man's anus

• http://www.cellosoft.com/nash/garbage/photos/simonb-goatse.jpg - A picture of a teenage boy doing a Goatse pose. The photo has the goatse anus doctored onto the seat of the boy's pants.

• http://web.archive.org/web/20010305142500/http://www.conhugeco.org/goatse.cx - Neo Goatse.cx, which has two sections - The Effect, which shows a picture of a man with a prolapsed rectum, and The Cause, which shows a pair of gap.zip pictures, the first depicting the Goatse man sitting on a large butt plug, the second with a pair of dildos inserted into his anus. The site now states: "Sorry... My web hosting company decided that a man pulling his ass apart wasn't appropriate content."

• Legoatse, featuring Lego parodies of the receiver and giver.

• http://www.xcesta.org - features a reversed version of hello.jpg (looking out from the man's anus instead of into it) for the "Receiver" section. The site's name comes from a reversal of the Goatse.cx domain - reversed, Goatse.cx would be Xcesta.og, though the site uses ".org" because there is no such TLD as ".og". The inside of the 'anus' in the picture is actually an undoctored photo of the inside of a cave, something this parody's author claims reflects on the mind's ability to conclude based on assumptions. The text is reversed and the "contrib" section is a poor-quality ASCII version of hello.jpg.

• http://goatse.biz/ - A "PG-rated" goatse tribute lacking any pictures, only displaying the text, "<Insert picture of rectum here>".

• blog.jackola.net and http://www.timese.cx feature parody versions of The 20th September 2004 cover of Time Magazine, which look similar to goatse even before the parodies were made.

• http://www.evilscheme.org/defcon/ - A gallery of censored goatse images being shown to people.

• Snopes.com has an article, "The Hands of God", about an image of a cloud formation that looks suspiciously like the Goatse.cx photo.

• http://www.bananase.cx - Contains a (non-pornographic) cartoon of a young boy with a large banana inserted through his anus. These cartoons are modeled after or taken directly from Viz, a British comic book.

• - A Family Guy screenshot showing Stewie with a doll of a female pig. If the user direct-links to the image, the goatse image may be superimposed on the lower right corner of the image.

• Xbo.cx, which used to have the Goatse.cx image altered so that it looks as if the man is covering his anus with a Microsoft Xbox, and with a Xbox controller covering his penis and testicles. The page was titled "The Butcher". Others were "The Baker", which was "The Butcher" but with an Atari 2600 in place of the Xbox, and "The Candlestick Maker", which had the Goatse.cx giver with a joystick in place of the oversized penis. The "feedback" button leads to a mailto to gimps@r33t.org. "Hate" leads to a "What would Santa do?" thread on the r33t.org internet forums. And the r33t.org link links to the said website, which has a "Communist" theme. The website has been taken down due to the lease expiring, and was hosted in the Auckland, New Zealand metro-region. The Xbox picture (though not the Atari 2600 or the joystick) can be viewed at http://web.archive.org/web/20020526122729/www.xbo.cx/. Currently, http://www.xbo.cx has become a commercial Xbox modding site.

• http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v118/andrespictures/someonegoatseswithtime.jpg - A picture of a person with his trousers down holding a TIME magazine with the cover facing the camera over his buttocks.

• http://img96.exs.cx/img96/2517/eww7qa.jpg - A picture showing the back of the goatse man (but not the offensive parts of him), with several kittens where the rest of the goatse picture would normally be. The text "ewww!!" is above the kittens and below the top part of the goatse image.

• http://www.clitoros.org/snpcff3/rom - A low-brow ROM hack of Super Mario Bros. 3 which contains several references to goatse.

• http://www.gorkalimotxo.net/mt/img2004-01/goatse.jpg - A digitally altered picture showing a Spanish woman speaking at a podium. The podium has the text "Goatse.cx el ministero va de culo" written on it.

• The cover of the Lois Lowry book The Giver digitally altered to include "The Giver" from Goatse.cx.

• http://www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk - A parody of the official Government website (http://www.preparingforemergencies.gov.uk), the 4th image from the left in the logo is a representation of Goatse.cx

• Duffse.cx A page identical to goatse, except there is a Macromedia Flash Tetris based game instead of the Goatse image. the text instead reads "The tetrise.cx lawyer has informed us that we need a warning! So.. if you are under the age of 18 or find this photograph offensive, please don't look at it. Thank you!"

• The June 2, 2005 'Fashion & Style' section of The New York Times contained an article featuring a photo of blogger Anil Dash wearing a Goatse-themed t-shirt from Threadless, an online submission-based t-shirt company.

• The game Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil by Nerve Software and id Software features blocks forming a rough image of hello.jpg in level 3 of the Hellanoid game.

• Building Accessible Websites (With CD-ROM) (Paperback) cover image is influenced by the Goatse.cx phenomenon.

• The humorous, online role-playing game Kingdom of Loathing features a tribute while fighting a Spam Witch - "She shows you a picture of her pet goat. 'This is my goat, see?' she says. Dear god, the horror."

• Australian ISP Westnet's logo seems to bear some resemblance to goatse:

• One college student's tribute in cd form

• Goatee.cjb.net is an anti-shock site featuring a goatee in place of the reciver. The giver is replaced with a picture of a kitten with a drawn-on beard.

• GoutC.cx is a website created by Clive Gout, the finder of Slime Volleyball. His login at work is goutc (gout-see). The hello.jpg is just a picture of his mouth stretched open by his hands.

• The Christchurch, New Zealand rock band The Hairy Nobs recorded a song entitled Stretched, Sagging, Worn-Out Anus which makes reference to Goatse in its title, subject matter and the lyric "Stretch it open like a Goatse, make it breathe the atmosphere". In the band's animated music videos, one of the band members plays a Goatse'd anus.

• "wreathse.cx" A homemade Christmas ornament.

External links

• http://goatse.cx/ - Leads to the notice of the domain suspension.
• Collection of the original goatse series
• An interview with a man who some have claimed to be the Goatse Man.
• Detailed discussion of goatse.cx's suspension on Kuro5hin.
• Article on Goatse in The Scotsman

• http://goatse.cx/ - Leads to the notice of the domain suspension.
• http://goatse.co.uk/ - Not a mirror of goatse, but contains "similar" images.
• http://www.raw-cs.com/bad/goatse/ - Collection of the original goatse series
• http://www.raw-cs.com/bad/goatsegirl/ - An actual working link to the female version of goatse
• http://www.raw-cs.com/bad/311sam/ - A goatse imitator
• http://goatse.dr.ag - the stable goatse mirror on a romanian server
• http://loadup.dr.ag/s/GOATSE_ANIMATED.HtMl - animation of the goatse move
• http://www.theinternetisstupid.com/modules.php?name=Gallery - A gallery collection of the goatse series.
• http://www.goaste.cx/ - A humour site capitalising on the mis-typings of the goatse URL.
• http://goat.cx/ - Leads to an image of a pumpkin with two carved out hands (formerly a mirror of goatse.cx).
• Goatse mirrors: http://www.pr0ny.com/goatse/, http://goatse.rubmyballs.net/, http://goatse.ragingfist.net/, http://retropay.com/goatse/goatse.cx/, http://synflood.at/mirrors/goatse.cx/, http://www.kwaak.net/~ard/goatse/goatse.cx/, http://www.goatse.ca/ and http://www.goatse.in/ (links exchanged for "Fight Censorship!").
• http://www.rokbom.com/, which is a front page for a personal website (http://rokbom.com/index.php, linked by an additional 'Rokbom' link). The receiver page lacks the "merchandise" string that the current version has, suggesting that the front is a mirror of an older version of goatse. The modified contrib section has the text "A small request: SUP XXX JASON IS THE RECEIVER" in addition to other content, and the text "Our first Christmas present: A collage from the people at holyzoo.com! Thank you!" is present, unlike in the current version of Goatse; the image is on both sites, however.
• http://www.boobtits.com/bad/goatse/, http://www.dejenerate.net/ruxpin/pub/goatse/, http://goatse.reacharound.org/contrib/gap/, http://www.exet.nu/html/bildarkiv/goatse.shtml, and http://goat.cx.homepage.dk/ - Links to gap.zip and gap.zip galleries
• http://www.bmezine.com/news/people/A20210/plp56/ - An interview with a man who some have claimed to be the Goatse Man.
• http://www.stileproject.com/son.html - Images of the man from the above interview at bmezine.com
• http://sam.zoy.org/fun/goatse/ - has a comprehensive goatse tribute section with many well-known (and many lesser-known) photoshoppings of the images from the site
• http://www.boobtits.com/bad/goatsegirl/ - A collection of images of a woman doing similar acts.
• http://www.stilemedia.com/?v=shmap1.wmv&akey=99d5cdb42c95c70f54713174542d4d30 - A video of Kirk Johnson doing two different acts of stretching his anus.
• http://www.detroithardcore.com/lensman2.jpg - Kirk Johnson's "Lensman" photograph. The image is also on the detroithardcore.com main page.
• An individual named Rhonda Clarke made an official complaint to the domain's registrant. Check the current state of the goatse.cx whois entry.
• The suspension of goatse.cx was discussed in detail on Kuro5hin.
• http://static.stileproject.com/rnd/fp/ripgoatse.gif - "RIP Goatse" cartoon
• http://www.b0g.org contains many goatse references within its archives
• http://dejenerate.net/ruxpin/pub/GOATSETHEVIDEO.wmv - Another video of the Frenchman from the BMEZine interview stretching his anus.
• http://www.kolumbus.fi/xtmb/goatsefloppy/ - A site that has bootable floppy disk and CD-ROM images which can be used to show goatse on any x86-architecture computer.
• http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=759&id=651492004 - Scotsman article on Goatse
• http://www.linuks.mine.nu/magiceye.jpg - Mirror of the magic eye picture.
• A new goatse, though unlikely the original, is available as an animated .gif at http://koti.mbnet.fi/marsa/tih0p@erminet.gif
• Stereogram (chain.deviantart.com) - Stereogram (3D) Goatse
• NGC 604: The Goatse Stellar Nursery - An interstellar dust cloud that looks surprisingly familiar
• http://www.orgasmatrix.com/articulos/goatse/ - Tributo a Goatse - Article about Goatse in Spanish
• Hebosagil: "Goatse Mansion" - A Thrash metal tribute song
• http://www.femse.com - Miss Goatse, an image of a woman in a goatse-like pose.
• "Zelda Goatse" - There is also a goatse in one of the Zelda games.
• "Traumatized By Goatse" - Goatse.cx tribute song by Internet band Request-A-Song.com.
• http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/14167304/ A deviantart user who made a sign saying "Honk if you love Goatse" around Auckland, New Zealand. From the same user, two Metallica parodies relatiing to Goatse from the same user. The user has also made a video of him making the sign.
• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=39245004045180636&q=goatse - The video of "Honk if you love goatse!"
• http://www.deviantart.com/view/16882668/ - Enter Goatman - Fan artwork
• http://www.deviantart.com/view/19550738/ - Give and Destroy - Fan artwork
• http://www.livejournal.com/users/kalephunk/459479.html - Woman who purchased GOATSE license plates
• http://s4xton.com/?p=1124 - Goatse as seen on Hiawatha Line trains in Minneapolis, Minnesota
• http://www.monochrom.at/cthulhu-goatse/ - a short-short story mashing up HP Lovecraft's
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/firstgoatse/ - Flickr Photoset of people reacting to seeing Goatse for the first time.

• Shock sites
• Internet memes
• Anal eroticism