Pegging and the heterosexualization of anal sex: An analysis of Savage Love advice

This article analyses the Savage Love advice columns that discuss the act of ‘pegging’, a term that US sex advice columnist Dan Savage and his readers coined in 2001 to describe a woman anally penetrating a man with a strap-on dildo. Since the term was coined, the act (and the term) has gained popularity in the United States, appearing regularly in the mass media. Using a queer theoretical approach, this article shows that while straight-identified peggers benefit from the gains that gays/lesbians/queers have made in expanding norms in sexual culture, they simultaneously engage in a form of ideological work to expand the definition of ‘straightness’ in order to maintain their straight identity and the accompanying social privileges.