What, to you, is a circle jerk?

I guess this is for guys but ladies are always welcome.
It recently came to my attention that some people think a circle jerk is a group of young boys, (all straight presumably) standing in a circle and masturbating into the center.

However, I’ve only know a circle jerk to be a prank. All of the boys except one will know that it is a prank. The lights are turned off, a few choice sound f/x are made and then a bit later the lights come on to the horror of the victim as he is the only one with his pecker out.
Although I have never participated in either kind and it was only a rumor about the prank version. (UL?)
Anyway, what did you think of when you read the words ‘circle jerk’?

I think of a band from the eighties.

The definition I heard – I tyhink from Reuben’s book “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask” was that it was a group of males sitting in a circle, each masturbating the boy next to him. The Magazine National Lampoon had a spoof picture of Boy Scouts sitting around a circle in a campfire, with the clear implication that this is what they were up to.
I’ve never heard any other definition, or the prank. I’ve also never heard of anyone actually doing this.

Is he the one they call the “pivot”?

Hell of a funny prank when he takes off the blindfold. :eek: :eek:

I’ve always known it to mean a circle of boys but actually never considered if they were all straight or not. Where/when I grew up we were all a bunch of ignorant blue collar homophobes and the very notion of “crossing swords” or accidentally witnessing some other guys business for more then 2.7 seconds we figured would have probably made us gay on the spot. So this activity was pretty much an urban legend…or myth of some sort.

Even now it doesn’t make sense and I think the gay boy is the one pranking the others so you may be onto something. :smiley:

Later on I found that it could mean any type of activity that was going haywire or got fouled up “this trip has turned into a complete circle jerk” on par with cluster fuck and likewise not actually a circle of boys or a pile of sex.

It always meant, to me, a bunch of guys in a circle jerking off the next guy. Not that I think it ever really happened.

There was always some doofus who claimed that “choice of guys from next town” did that, once. But, they were probably saying it about us.

Related to : ookie cookie

Definition: group of guys jerks off onto a cookie. Last one to come, eats it.

I’ve heard it used to describe many of the things mentioned in this thread. We also use it casually around the office to describe a meeting that wastes time for all involved. As in, “That brainstorming session was a TOTAL circle jerk.”

All of the boys except one will know that it is a prank. The lights are turned off, a few choice sound f/x are made and then a bit later the lights come on to the horror of the victim as he is the only one with his pecker out.
This happened twice at the college I went to, once that I heard about and once that I witnessed. The premise was telling the intended victim that …a circle jerk is a group of [fellows] standing in a circle and masturbating into the center.

The first patsy was a naive lad, and it happened a few years before I arrived. Although the story came up around the guys’ dorm, no one seemed to hold it against him and I never heard of anyone ribbing him about it. The second was widely regarded to be obnoxious and arrogant, and lots of folks figured he got what was coming to him (no pun intended). He came across as a hipper-than-thou know-it-all, and there was amazement that he fell for it. The story spread like wildfire around the whole campus, and a few people ridiculed him to his face. He left at the end of the semester.

… and then the last guy has to eat the bread!

J/k

Ah, the old ‘spit on the biscuit’ trick, eh?

Not that I’ve ever played that.

So what if I went to prep school?

The last faculty meeting I went to certainly qualifies… :smiley:

Most threads about Bush on the SDMB.

Regards,
Shodan

This is mentioned by Stephen Fry in the semi-autobiographical The Liar as “the Daisy Chain Club”, although the narrator alludes to it in a subversive school magazine rather than actually engaging in it or witnessing it.

The other thing’s also named “the Biscuit Game” or “Soggy Biscuit” and is allegedly a hazing pastime in the Royal Marines, though I’d be the last to ask one of Her Majesty’s Jollies if there’s a word of truth in it.

Actually, there is a website devoted to variations of this. I certainly won’t post the link because it is way not safe for the workplace, but if you wanted to find it, you might try jerk off buds dot com on google and then go to the galleries section and find the buds section. There are only a few pictures of larger groups, so unless you are so inclined to, ahem, peruse the site for awhile to find said group photos, don’t bother.

Not that I have ever gone to that site or submitted photos or anything…I, uh, read about it in a book. Really. No kiddin’. Never been there, nor done that, no sirree Bob.

I’ve heard all the defs listed here, but I’ve most commonly heard it used to generally describe the act of male group masturbation, not necessarily standing in a circle or giving anyone a “helping hand”.

The definitions told here are pretty much what I have heard.

It’s a common urban legend told to fraternity pledges. Kind of like the one about the pledges being told to fuck a sheep and the one that does gets de-pleged for being a sheep fucker or the guy who climbed the cell tower drunk, fell, and hit every beam on the way down (as told in Dazed and Confused).

The only thing I can think of is that a) it doesn’t happen or b) it occassionally happens in order to build a bond of mutual humiliation.

Or maybe it’s to prove you are so straight you can grab a guys cock, jerk him off, eat his spooge and not even like it.

I always thought a circle jerk was a meeting in which everybody was busy congratulating each other for how fantastic they were.

In fairness, planning meetings are even more of a circle jerk. :slight_smile:

That is true. The term has come to mean a non-productive or useless activity that results in a negative or undesired outcome. Also see cluster-fuck.

Me too. Kind of the like the famous line delivered by Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction: "Well, let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks just yet. "

Yes, the distinction between these two, somewhat opposite, terms has sadly begun to blur.

Shalmanese has it exactly right: a circle jerk is all about over-the-top mutual praise and congratulations. Productivity, or lack thereof, is not the important thing; an eyebrow-raising absence of criticism is.

A clusterfuck is entirely different. It’s an activity involving several parties that is passively disorganized, at best, or actively hostile, at worst, that results in little or no positive results. Here the lack of productivity is usually key.

It is too bad these terms are being used interchangably, because they are both powerful yet subtle in the way they descibe their own very different contemputous business situations, albeit in a vugar way. And the vulgar terms themselves – circle jerk and clusterfuck – trip off the tongue so easily because of their internally-rhyming vowel sounds. I love 'em both.