goatse
English
Etymology
From the name of a now defunct website which first published the image, namely goatse.cx, which used the top-level domain code .cx, reserved for Christmas Island, because an attempt by an English speaker to say the website's full name would result in a string of phonemes sounding like goat sex.
Pronunciation
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈɡoʊt.si/
Audio (General American): (file)
Proper noun
goatse
- (Internet slang) A notorious shock image of a man displaying his unnaturally dilated anus.
- 2008, The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, Chris Anderson, page 182:
- I thought everyone knew about GOATSE, but I was wrong. […] And knowing about GOATSE appears to be one of its secret membership codes, which is what Anil was demonstrating when he cheekily wore the word on his T-shirt […]
- 2010, Porn.com: Making Sense of Online Pornography, Feona Attwood, page 136:
- Sometimes communities are founded specifically around the images — Facebook has a Goatse appreciation group at the time of writing […]
- 2011, The Register (newspaper), "Scottish TV news pumps goatse link", John Oates:
- So they resorted to close-ups of LulzSec's Twitter feed. Specifically, 47 seconds in, the message: "For anyone that doesn't know what goatse is, check it out here, it's really eye-opening:"
- 2011, Cole Stryker, Epic Win for Anonymous: How 4chan's Army Conquered the Web, page 100:
- For many, the experience of Internet shock sites began with goatse, a notoriously repulsive image that is considered the king of shock sites.
Verb
goatse (third-person singular simple present goatses, present participle goatseing, simple past and past participle goatsed)
- (Internet slang) To trick (a person) into viewing the image.
- (Internet slang, transitive) To exhibit one's anus to (a person) in a similar manner to the image.
- 2001 June 21, Lianna Skywalker <liannaskywalker@hotmail.com>, “David Miscavige unveils his new Scientology promotion”, in alt.religion.scientology[1] (Usenet), via Google Groups, archived from the original on 20 October 2025:
- I love goatseing people... :)