Rawdogging has gotten out of hand. People Rawdog airplanes by flying unentertained. They Rawdog showers by refusing to don shoes. They Rawdog the rain by forgetting an umbrella.
Somehow, we have untangled Rawdogging from the sheets, and now it wanders between the lips of everyone and their mother—and apparently, someone’s grandmother.
But what do we mean when we say it? What do we mean when we take two loaded words and shove ‘em together, when our mouths open and half-close like an invitation, when our sounds slip into that beautiful assonance? I have skulked around for weeks, popping out of shadows to ask the people:
“What does Rawdogging mean to you?”
Some people answered quickly, easily, primordially:
EA: Fucking without a condom.
BS: Like, unprotected sex.
GM: Well, to me, technically it just means having sex without a condom.
MH: I think it means doing it without the condom on. I’m not trying to be poetic here, it’s a penis and a butt.
But few were content to leave it at that.
BS: Or, like, it’s where you eat the hot dog without the bun. Either way, it’s the same.
EA: Or, going in the shower without shoes. A dorm shower, specifically.
GM: But also people now use it to mean, like, doing things without protection, or without a safeguard, so, if someone says, ‘I’m going to go to a party sober,’ that’s Rawdogging.
YY: To sit on a plane with no headphones. Or to walk around campus with no music. Or no bag, really. If you just walked around Sterling with no backpack, no headphones, no nothing? You’re Rawdogging Cross Campus.
CL: When I think of Rawdogging, I think of, like, in the summertime when I’m really hungry, I’ll be really sweaty and hot, and I’ll walk into my house and I’ll walk up to the refrigerator and I’ll pull out a package of extra firm tofu, and unwrap it and then bite into it. That’s Rawdogging. I think Rawdogging has to do with unprepared food.
MW: I deeply appreciate this question, because this has been on my mind a lot. My sister is very into kayaking. I don’t necessarily know if this is a real kayaking term, but she’s been saying Rawdog: like, ‘I’m gonna Rawdog that,’ but really she means like . . . well, I actually don’t know what she means by that. But my grandma was saying it, without really understanding what it was! So now my family has been using it as a joke when we’re about to do something that we’re not fully equipped or prepared to do.
Rawdogging expands beyond sex, to showers, planes, partying, kayaks, tofu. Sex seeps into the mundane. But some took a step further.
AS: It means so many things now. Like, it means everything to me.
EG: Rawdogging, to me, in, like, life? Living life metaphorically with no condom.
AS: It’s going balls to the walls, it’s doing what God intended, it’s being connected to whatever you’re working with.
WB: Being, like, ready to accept the outcome, knowing you’re going in underprepared and just owning it. Being ready that you’re setting yourself up to not succeed so gracefully, that it is what it is.
SG: Rawdogging, for me, is kind of like going through life with as little in between you and the sensation of living.
HB: Taking life by the horns and letting it take you where it wants to go. And also teen pregnancy.
SG: Like, remove your barriers! When I think of Rawdogging, I think of, like, one’s dogs, like their feet Rawdogging the pavement. Removing that barrier between your skin and the concrete.
EK: I think it’s the spirit of risk, and also of unbridled connection.
Ah, yes. What diversity! Much like the colors of the rainbow—and the stormclouds they burst from, and the spilled oil that reflects it—these answers are varied. And everybody loves Rawdogging, it seems. It is not an action, but a state of mind. We may be witnessing the birth of a new religion, a new sect; we may all soon kneel beneath stained-glass depictions of Lord Rawdog. Isn’t this a beautiful world?
Still, I was unsatisfied. I knew what it meant now; I may have solidly and confidently strutted around and slung Rawdogging every which way. But, if we are to pray to this new Lord, we must know His lineage. Where does the word come from? History is important: it may not repeat, but Twain said it rhymes, and so does Rawdog, sort of.
So it seems a gallant cause to learn the etymology. I cannot ask the linguists, nor the historians—academia could not dream of a word or concept so complicated as our subject. Instead, I returned to the people, and asked them:
Where does Rawdogging come from?
MH: Raw, I think, is pretty clear. We all know what raw means.
What does raw mean? I asked.
MH: We’re talking about raw meats. We’re talking about raw foods, talking about raw power. Fresh, and unobstructed, unbarriered, unfettered.
Ah yes. Of course.
Raw. Unburdened, unblemished. How does man’s best friend fit into all this, though?
MH: And, um, dog. Two ideas: someone was getting weird with a hot dog bun—
Many agreed.
BS: James Rawdog in 1854 opened his first hot dog stand, in New York, and there was a lot of competition. He stopped using the buns, because it was more efficient to just put ‘em in there. It’s just faster that way.
How did he give them the hot dogs? I asked.
BS: He just handed them uncooked packs of hot dogs. He became a wholesaler.
YY: In Greensboro, North Carolina, on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, not the flagship but the acute one. There is a single—I think it’s the only one—mom-and-pop hot dog shop called Yum-Yums. Now, Yum-Yums sells hot dogs because they are a hot dog shop. What’s distinctive about the Yum-Yums hot dogs is that they always appear raw, because they are the most vibrant red you have ever seen in your life. And these hot dogs are a blessing to the world, but they, in essence, appear raw.
MW: The opposite of a raw dog is a corn dog. Or a hot dog, or something that is safe and secure in some pillow of bread or gluten of some sort. So, if it’s lacking the gluten component, it’s simply just a raw dog.
YY: I believe if you were to look for the true etymology of Rawdogging, you are going to have to think, “What does remind me of a raw hot dog?”
MW: I think that can be applied to most things in that shape.
Hot dogs—despite James Rawdog and his stand, despite every potentially-shady mom-and-pop shop, and despite their beautifully phallic Americanness—are not the limits of what ‘dog’ can mean.
EG: But the dog part—I don’t know why they had to drag dogs into it.
AS: It’s so curious! Why do we keep doing this to the dogs? I love dogs, but not like that.
MH, what’s your second idea?
MH: Or, um, there is one truly, truly traumatized cocker spaniel in the world—
Oh. Oh, god—
WB: I assume it’s . . . bestiality. Unprotected bestiality.
AS: Well, ‘screw the pooch’ is also a phrase, what else?
GM: For some reason, I’m thinking of dog fights. But I don’t know how that evolves into Rawdogging. I don’t know what the dogs are doing without protection.
AS: ‘Doggy style’ is also a phrase.
EA: I feel like surely it’s related to doggy style, right?
SG: It’s just like a primitive, a primal thing—like doggy-style sex. Doggy style raw.
It is not the dogs themselves, but simply when we humans act as dogs do. Like all divine things, Rawdog is a metaphor, and no more. Thank the Lord.
CL: Anal sex is really chafable when you don’t lube. And I think ‘raw,’ in my brain, refers to, like, when your skin gets really sensitive, it feels really raw. And so some guy was just like, ‘my dog feels really raw today.’
So penises are dogs now? Dogs are dicks, dogs are sausages, dogs are feet, dogs—
HB: “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war?”
The what?
HB: You know, the Shakespeare quote? “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war,” literally slip it off. Give it a go, kids!
Thanks, HB. We appreciate it.
But please do not give it a go, unless you are ready for the consequences. Metaphorical condoms can be slipped on or off on whims, yes, but physical condoms are for physical protection. (The Yale Herald is a proponent of safe sex practices.)
Rawdog is a beautiful Lord, but He must be worshipped thoughtfully. He is complicated; Rawdogging is complicated. Do it at your own risk, do it at your own reward: consider both. Ask yourself always: What does Rawdogging mean to me? and How does my Rawdogging participate in its long and succulent history? Never cease your questioning—this collective knowledge is fluid and messy. Do not let that scare you.
For this conversation is not over. In fact, it has just begun.
