Awedgie is the act of forcibly pulling a person'sunderpants upwards from the back, thus forcing the fabric into theintergluteal cleft uncomfortably. The act is often performed as a school prank or a form ofbullying.
Wedgies are commonly featured in popular works, either as a form oflow 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]
The same term can also refer to the situation wherein any clothing worn over the buttocks randomly becomes wedged between them.[3]
Dangers
Wedgies, especially when performed on males, can be dangerous, potentially causingtesticular or scrotal damage. An incident in 2004 involving a ten-year-old boy required reattachment of a testicle to the scrotum.[4]
Variations
A female receiving a regular wedgie.
There are various versions of the traditional wedgie that can be used as pranks or a form of bullying. It is impractical to list every variant, as the names and processes can be rathersubjective; however, below are a few better-known variants of the wedgie.
Themelvin 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'sgenitals.[5]
Theatomic wedgie entails hoisting the waistband of the receiver's underwear up and over their head, which on at least one occasion has beenlethal.[6]
Thehanging wedgie is where the victim is hung by their underpants, elevated above the ground.[7]
Theripping wedgie involves the tearing of the victim's underpants, sometimes ripping off a portion of them (such as the waistband), or forcibly removing the garment entirely.[8]
Wedgies, a 2008 mini series-focused block on Cartoon Network
References
^Wedgie.Archived 2007-11-18 at theWayback MachineThe American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Retrieved 30 November 2007 via Dictionary.com.
Media related toWedgies at Wikimedia Commons