A History of Mooning for Spanking Fetishists
- Sweet Tea
- Oct 8
- 6 min read
In this era of passionate protest here in the U.S. of A, I’m frequently reminded of one of humanity’s most time-honored forms of résistance: mooning! When the classic act of dropping trou and baring one’s buttocks to an audience comes to mind, you may think of it mainly as a college prank. Interestingly enough, mooning has fulfilled a variety of purposes throughout history and we’re going to discuss them in this post.
This lovely blog of mine centers on all things spanking and, by extension, all things butt. Let’s talk about what it’s meant to show one’s whole ass over the years in societies across our round, bodacious globe.
Publicly baring one’s buttocks began as a magical form of protection.
Throughout the 5th-4th century BCE in Ancient Greece and Egypt, the buttocks symbolized power, defiance, and humor. Allegedly, women would lift their skirts and flash their naked rears to ward off evil spirits or bless the land during festivals and fertility rituals. This sacred act, known as anasyrma (Ancient Greek for "lifting the skirt"), referred specifically to mooning performed by women, which also gave viewers a coveted peek at la vulva. 👀🪇
Historical references suggest anasyrma had a dramatic and supernatural effect. Stripping away clothing was thought to create a "raw" state closer to nature than society, facilitating interaction with otherworldly entities. In Egyptian mythology, Hathor is depicted in the Chester Beatty I papyrus lifting her robe to make the god Ra laugh. Mooning was a means of communing with the Divine.
Soldiers later adopted mooning as a gesture of ridicule and contempt.
From the 1st-15th centuries CE in Medieval Europe, soldiers reportedly mooned their enemies to insult and humiliate them. In the bloody Siege of Constantinople in 1204, the Greeks exposed their bare buttocks to the Crusaders after repulsing them from the walls, as if to yell “KISS MY ASS!” with nationalistic fervor.
This trend spread throughout the hills and valleys of Europe’s battlefields over the course of many generations. Abruptly baring one’s backside became both a signal of contempt and a challenge meant to provoke one’s enemies. At the Siege of Nice in the summer of 1543, Catherine Ségurane, a common washerwoman, led the townspeople into battle. Legend has it she took the lead in defending the city by standing before the invading forces and exposing her bare bottom. What a badass!
Soon, the boldest rebels and peasants of society were also baring their buttocks to rulers as a form of insult. At the Conference of Badajoz–Elvas of 1524, where delegates from Portugal and Spain discussed the location of the border that would separate their respective hemispheres, a young boy asked the leaders if they were trying to divide the world. The adults answered they were. The child then responded by mooning them, suggesting they draw their border north to south through his intergluteal cleft.
The Papal Belvedere, an illustrative woodcut by artist Lucas Cranach the Elder in the 1545 publication of Luther's Depiction of the Papacy portrays Pope Paul III meeting German peasants with farts fresh from their naked "belvedere". (Belvedere refers to a building in the Vatican, but also means "beautiful view" in Italian.)
One of our fellow spankos used mooning as a form of fetishistic self-expression.
Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, best known for works like The Social Contract and Emile, wrote proudly of his mooning habit in his autobiography during the 18th century. After running away from an apprenticeship as a teenager, there was a period wherein he would moon strangers—mainly women—from a distance. He would wander from town to town bending over and baring his bottom before hastily fleeing the scene.
“I cannot recall without laughter, and at the same time without shame, a trick which I played at this time. As I was passing through Turin, I had the folly to display my person in an indecent manner to a woman at a window. It was a childish, silly piece of mischief, but it shocked me afterward, and I have never been able to think of it without blushing.” —The Confessions of Jean-Jacque Rousseau, Book II
While his “trick” was certainly a creepy form of sexual harassment, these impulsive flashes of exhibitionism seem to have stemmed from Jean-Jacque’s well-documented spanking fetish. I’ll be covering his proclivities in more depth at this blog in the future, but for now, it’s enough to note how much trouble spankos had fulfilling their needs before the internet helped us find each other. Sexual repression can cause us to act out in ways that aren’t entirely healthy, respectful, or sensical.
Rousseau later analyzed his mooning habit as an expression of his desire to be seen and judged, yet loved despite his faults. His childhood experiences with spanking led to a lifelong erotic fascination with humiliation, punishment, and submission. I can only imagine that if he wanted people to spank him, but felt too ashamed to profess this directly, he figured he could provoke them by presenting his bare ass while sporting a cheeky grin.
Which brings us to our next iteration…
Mooning later became associated with youthful pranks.
Toward the end of the 19th century, mooning evolved into a form of juvenile mischief meant to be more humorous than insulting—a tool used primarily by rebellious students and frat boys performing hazing rituals.
As the 20th century unfolded, the act of exposing one’s bottom in public regained its status as a symbol of anti-establishmentarianism and a popular means of mocking authority. Throughout the free-spirited years of the 1960s and 70s, activists mooned police during protests and college students mooned rival football teams to express cheeky defiance. Sounds like those hippies were asking for a paddling to me.
This trend continued through the 90s as mooning became a cultural staple at protests and football games. Movies like Animal House and TV shows like The Simpsons cemented the act as a humorous prank in the zeitgeist, causing its popularity to explode in the media. This all got rather out of hand and the authorities began prosecuting cases of mooning as indecent exposure. In 2003, students at UC Berkeley were arrested for mooning during a protest against university policies. Legal spankings!
Mooning is still used as an act of protest in modern times.
While it’s now less common to do so, activists still bare their buttocks to mock figures of authority occasionally. In June of the year 2000, a mass mooning event outside Buckingham Palace was organized by the Movement Against the Monarchy (MAM). This event is now referred to as the "Moon Against the Monarchy" and I’m sure Prince Charles remembers it to this day.
At a 2011 demonstration titled "Davos Diarrhea" by Ukraine's women's movement FEMEN, a handful of ladies mooned President Yanukovych in a public square. They were apparently upset about some degrading, humiliating comments uttered by their embarrassing president at the Davos economic summit. Boy howdy, I sure can relate to those feelings.
In our attention-obsessed society, performers, exhibitionists, and influencers have also been using mooning to draw attention to their personal brands. In 2017 during the Eurovision Song Contest, a man wrapped in an Australian flag snuck on stage and mooned the audience. He was later revealed to be Ukrainian journalist and prankster Vitalii Sediuk. In January 2023, 79-year-old Australian music personality Molly Meldrum climbed onstage at an Elton John concert and mooned the audience as well. The incident garnered significant social-media attention.
With our fragile democracy hanging by a thread, I think it’s only right that we bring back mooning as a popular means of giving The Man the business. Exhibiting bare cheeks for the sake of spectacle is both a potent and non-violent path to civil disobedience. T’would be impossible to resist the urge to giggle in response to the surprising sight of two glorious globes butting their way into the quest for revolution. I suspect this may be just what our divided nation needs to unite once more. It’s hard to hate a person who has their pants down in public.
-T
