What Is ‘Dogging,’ The Illegal Internet-Fueled Sex Craze In Britain?

A few weeks ago, I was listening to an interview with Stephen Merchant (The Office, Hello Ladies) on Jeff Garlin’s podcast. I don’t remember exactly how they arrived there (I think it had to do with speculation surrounding Jeff Garlin’s arrest last year), but Stephen Merchant began explaining to Garlin what “dogging” was because Garlin, like most of us the America, has never heard of the term.

It may be an unfamiliar sex term to you, but apparently, dogging refers to a huge sex fad in Britain. It was more popular ten years ago, but a glimpse at news stories in Britain even in 2015 suggests that it’s still very much a “problem” in the country.

So, what is dogging? Basically, it involves two people notifying a bunch of randos on the Internet that they are going to a car park to bone in their automobile. While the couple is having sex, this group of strangers from the Internet gathers around the car, watches through the windows, and masturbates.

It’s like porn, only instead of watching it on your computer or television, you watch it live through a car window while standing next to other pepole.

But the thing about dogging is that it’s not an isolated thing in Britain. It’s common. I mean, just today, in Bristol, a woman is calling for a stop to daylight dogging, because men are engaging in public sex in an area where kids are walking to school. The article refers to a “dogging hotspot.”

THERE ARE DOGGING HOTSPOTS IN BRITAIN, PEOPLE.

This article talks about the secret dogging hotspots in Birmingham. Here, another outraged citizen is calling for action to be taken against a dogging hotspot near a children’s park. This BBC report says that police patrols have been stepped up to prevent dogging at another hotspot. Here’s a piece on police chasing a crossdresser through the woods after a dogging incident.

There are, in fact, websites that list dogging hotspots in the UK. In 2013, one British network aired a documentary, Dogging Tales, on this “peculiar British pastime.” Here’s a forum on people who were nearly caught by the police dogging. And yes, there’s even dogging porn.

All things considered, I guess, the sex act is not that unusual in and of itself — it’s a form of exhibitionism — but what’s strange to me is how something like dogging can become so popular in one country and be completely unheard of in the United States.

Then again, teenagers in Japan lick each other’s eyeballs to get one another off, and (thankfully) that’s not a pastime that’s made its way to America yet.

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