Pegging -- The Tragedy Of The Female 'Pervert', Or Is It Power Play?

Bend over boyfriend and take it like a man! What is the role of the female body during sex and what if “her” role was reversed? Ever heard of pegging?
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Bend over boyfriend and take it like a man!

What is the role of the female body during sex and what if "her" role was reversed? Ever heard of pegging? I suggest that you play Trading Places by Usherin the background while you read this post to create some alluring ambience. All set? Okay let's dive right in.

Pegging is when a woman attaches a strap-on and enters a man in his booty during sexual intercourse. That is the standard definition of pegging in practical terms. So, why would a woman want to do such a thing? Are these women abnormal and deviant? Do these perverted women need prayer and deliverance?

About a year ago there was an Ask Reddit thread where women confessed what pegging felt like for them. Here's what women who have pegged revealed:

"For me it's the way my boyfriend... moans and writhes while I'm [in] him. It's SO different and so hot. He's usually pretty quiet when he's [in] me but he moans soooooo loudly when I'm pegging him. Our power dynamic definitely switches when we're pegging and he becomes incredibly submissive." —kinky_trees

"Watching your partner be all... needy is just wonderful. Mentally, one of the biggest turn-ons ever." —Not-Your-Valentine

"I love the switch, how I can go from being small... to being big. It feels natural, and I love satiating my boyfriend's desires. It's also a perfect bonding opportunity, because he has to open himself up and become vulnerable just as I have to. It gives him a better understanding of sex, and we really bond over the shared experience of vulnerability and newness." —Gilly-flower-tho

"I can't help but feel really accomplished. I have [pegged] my man to the point where he doesn't care how feminine he sounds, he just wants more. It honours me as a woman that I'm capable to do such a thing." —Melly_K

"I love his reaction to me pegging him and just wearing the strap-on he says makes me look sexy and confident. I do stand taller and feel more powerful when wearing it." —RedsChronicles

"To watch a manly, masculine man tell ME to [peg] HIM and that he wants all of me inside him, it's bizarre and so sexy. It's bizarre because society teaches us that men aren't like that and that women are the submissive little b***** that need to lie down and spread our legs. In fact, I view a man as MORE manly and secure in his masculinity... and he's comfortable enough to want just another part of his body to be sexually stimulated. It's all the same at the end of the day." —Brianna-Girl

"I really enjoy how powerful I feel. I never really thought about how vulnerable I am when I'm the one on the receiving end until I got to be the one to give it." —sexystuff12

After reading these responses from women who have pegged, a few thoughts spun in my mind:

Is gender a performance?

In 1949 Simone de Beauvoir famously claimed that "one is not born, but rather becomes a woman. Philosophers, psychologists and sociologists such as Foucault and Judith Butler have argued the material fact of female body and the male body. The fact that you are born male or female or inter-sex is a material and anatomical fact. They argue that how you act and present yourself in your body is a performance. Think about the first time you saw a woman who did not portray "feminine" characteristics. Was she sitting with her legs open too widely? Was her haircut too boyish? Was her face too stern? Did you question her sexuality? Did you reduce her womanhood based on how masculine she looked?

Is she someone you would envision as a "pegger"? Arguably, pegging can be an enactment of female masculinity. Female masculinity is the imitation of maleness, thus, pegging is the personified sexual act of dominance through the female body and mind. It is no wonder that Melly_K (see confessions above) describes her boyfriend to be making "feminine sounds", almost as an ironic comment on the "feminine sounds" she makes when she is the receiver. The dominance felt by these women is felt through the enactment of maleness. So the million dollar question here is: does her enactment of maleness (pegging) have the power to put her male partner's sexuality into question even if he identifies as a heterosexual male? Messy, huh?

Women's agency during sex

Are women "naturally" submissive during sex or socially conditioned to be submissive through constant positive and negative reinforcement. I have memories of my mother calling the elders to sweep my breasts (for more info ask your black female friends what "sweeping" is) because they were growing too quickly and that was negative reinforcement. This conditioned me from an early age to think that becoming a sexual being and owning my sexuality was always filtered through how my body will be consumed through the male gaze. (The gag is that I'm a big fat lesbian but that's another blog post entirely.) The concept of submissiveness brings up the topic of agency and virginity.

After reading the comments by these women who have pegged I realised that the women's disposition, while pegging, was that she was "taking" something away" from her partner by being the penetrator. Think about it, one can "take" the virginity of women but one cannot take the virginity of a man because there is anatomical evidence of that "taking". Pegging, however, seemed to give the women a sense of how that "taking" feels like. So, in the performance of pegging the woman has some form of agency over her body and her partner's body.

I think pegging provides a radical understanding of gender. Questioning the binary limits on gender, particularly in South Africa's traditional context, offers a deeper understanding on topics about power, rape culture, sexuality and sexual violence. If you want a more thoughtful boyfriend ask him: "Babe, would you allow me to peg you?" I cannot promise anything but intrigue.

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