Warning: Some links and content may be offensive to some readers
A shock site is a website intended to be offensive to most viewers. Usually it displays a particular picture most prominently; some shock sites also show animations or galleries of images. Shock sites are often of varying severity; this article discusses the contents of notorious shock sites.
Links to shock sites are often passed around via email or disguised in posts to Slashdot and other discussion sites as a hoax in an attempt to trick readers into following the link to the website. In order to end these practices, Slashdot has changed the software to display the domain name of a linked URL in brackets following the link (example: "Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]"), so that any link to goatse.cx or a similar shock site would be immediately visible as such. To circumvent the measure, people began to set up mirror sites and use public CGI redirect scripts run by sites such as Yahoo or Slashdot itself.
The images of notorious shock sites have also occasionally been used for vandalism on Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia has disabled the ability to embed images on external servers by merely typing their URL, in part because of these acts of vandalism. It is now required to upload such images to the Wikipedia server first, which can only be done by registered users.
"Goatse" and "tubgirl" along with "the harlequin fetus" have become known as the LUE Trinity on the message boards at gamefaqs.com after they gained infamy there. Tubgirl and Goatse are both autoflagged words at the site now because of this, and providing links to any of the sites is considered a major offense.
For Halloween 2003, the picture was changed to an image of the picture carved into a pumpkin. The other sections (and the mirror sites) weren't altered.
The website has at least two alternative locations - hick.org/goat/, which has the same contents as Goatse.cx, and goat.cx, which is apparently an older version of Goatse.cx .
Goatse.cx has four sections, three of which have images of questionable taste:
Distribution of links to shock sites
Goatse.cx
Goatse.cx is a widely-known shock site, with internet trolls heavily promoting (or secretly linking to) the site. The domain name of this site is a wordplay on the phrase "goat sex". Its front page contains an explicit picture (with filename hello.jpg) of a man manually opening his anus and rectum to approximately three times the normal size of such an orifice. The identity of the man is largely unknown, though according to some sources he is an Italian man who has been practicing anal expansion/anal stretching for years, as a hobby. The picture belongs to a series featuring the man demonstrating his anal stretching ability. Some have claimed that he is actually a hermaphrodite, and he is actually pulling open his vagina. The developer of this theory later admitted that the theory was false. While his real name is unknown, he has been nicknamed "Bob Goatse" and "The Goatse Man". Another name attributed to the Receiver is "Yam Sthruss," originating from an email in the Feedback section from a person with this name claiming that hello.jpg is of him and asking for its removal. The site has been online since March 1999.
People sometimes link to goatse.cx images not shown on the actual webpages, such as loopback.jpg, a picture of a man looping his penis into his anus. There are also numerous other files in the directory http://www.goatse.cx/contrib/.
The image hello.jpg originates from a set of 40 images depicting the man performing various anal sexual acts. In those images, the man used a peg to stretch his anus. The images were located by the Stile Project and are also available from the "Contrib" section of the goatse.cx website under the filename gap.zip. hello.jpg is actually the third file in the archive, gap3.jpg.
Goatse.cx has an IRC server located at irc.goatse.cx, which shows the ASCII hello.jpg in the MOTD. The server is part of the IRC network Evolnet.
In January 2004, the domain's lease was revoked by the provider (apparently due to it violating the terms of service), and the site ceased to exist. Goat.cx and Hick.org/Goat remain active.
Geographic location
The site uses the .cx country code top-level domain of Christmas Island, where the operators will not disclose the registrant's personal information. The actual server of Goatse.cx is not located on Christmas Island, but in the United States and is owned by Hick.org, which is a website about computer programming. The Hick.org domain was registered by Matt Miller in Overland Park, Kansas. Both Goatse.cx and Hick.org originate from the same IP address; the server is located in the Kansas City, Missouri metro-region. Goat.cx, a mirror of Goatse.cx, is located in the Houston, Texas metro-region.
Tubgirl.com is a redirect to a picture (tubgirl.jpg) of a naked woman contorted in a bathtub, buttocks and anus upward, projecting a high fountain of liquid faeces from her anus into her masked upward face at the bottom of the tub, between her legs.
Tubgirl.com is owned by Redcoat.net, a picture website. The Redcoat.net domain was registered by "absolute redcoat" in Knoxville, Tennessee. The Redcoat.net server is located in Parsippany-Troy Hills Township, New Jersey.
Before the launch of tubgirl.com, the relevant image was featured in a rotten.com story "Fecal Japan" explaining that the subject matter is allegedly popular in Japan. The copy of the image displayed on tubgirl.com, however, originated from http://www.consumptionjunction.com
The many sites that have pictures of the harlequin fetus syndrome aren't intended to be shock sites. Many internet trolls link to such pictures anyways to shock people.
The Pain Series is a collection of seven JPEGs, each containing a number of images of injuries and mutilations pasted together. It is fairly popular with users of the Something Awful forums, who commonly use it when someone leeches (directly shows an image without linking to the site, or asking the webmaster's permission) pictures on their websites.
Bakla.net has six images. The first three images are of a woman in a white dress against a black background. The next two images are of a transgendered woman wearing a black T-shirt and blue jeans. The final image is of the woman naked, sitting on a bed, revealing her penis and breasts. Note that "Bakla" is a tagalog (Filipino) derogatory term for homosexual, basically equivalent to "queer" in English. The person shown on the page is from the Philippines.
Bakla.net is hosted on Yahoo servers, which are located in Sunnyvale, California
External links
has a goatse tribute section.
Parodies
Tubgirl.com
External links
Harlequin Fetus
External link
The Pain Series
External links
Bakla.net
External links
Lemonparty.org
Lemonparty.org contains a picture of a triumvirate of elderly men, one of whom is performing oral sex and another kissing the fellatee. The site was defunct for a number of years, but has recently been restored. Originally it also featured a link (labeled "Click here to wash your eyeballs") to a picture of a kitten.External links
Rate My Goatse
Ratemygoatse.cx is a rate me site of goatse related material in the style of the hot or not site.Rate My Poo
Ratemypoo.com is another "rateme" parody that features submitted pictures of fecal matter. It is hosted by rotten.com.Faces Of Death
Facesofdeath.com is a website that supposedly carries snuff movies, such as a Russian soldier having his throat cut by a rebel in Chechnya.Last Measure
Last Measure is a malicious shock site combining many of the shock sites listed above, including Tubgirl, Penisbird, Goatse and various other scatological pictures. It abuses Javascript to make it very hard to leave the website once you visit it. The main page plays a voice shouting "HEY EVERYBODY. I'M LOOKING AT GAY PORNO" at top volume, while the various shock images move around in popup windows, bouncing off the sides of the screen.External link
Ogrish
Ogrish is an enormous, comprehensive site filled with disturbing images of gore, autopsies, amputations, and snuff movies. Ogrish's infamy peaked when photos of World Trade Center "jumper" victims emerged on the site, along with photographs of other 9/11 victims, shortly after the terrorist attacks. New content is posted daily, often photos of newsworthy calamities, such as suicide bombings, train wrecks, and graphic footage from the war in Iraq.
