Donkey punch

To have knowledge of the meaning behind the phrase “Donkey Punch” is to be privy to a vulgarity of extremes. The counterculture Web site Deviant.com describes it eloquently as such: “Banging a chick from…” 

On second thought—no, we’re not going to impart such crudity. It’s sexual and violent. Just ask your friend with the dirtiest mind. Yet the meaning is beside the point, really. Let’s not ask what, but why? Why have a group of San Diego youths begun plastering the city with stickers, and with gallons of wheat paste in tow, rolling this quirky sequence of words on billboards in 20-foot letters?

Why are these guys risking fatal, four-story falls and/or jail time to display a message that few seem to understand?

And are they simply vandals, or are they—whether they themselves know or admit it—media hijackers issuing grand statements about the filth of corporate hegemony?

And finally, does a social experiment need to be premeditated in order to be effective?

Only the members of the Donkey Punch Crew have all the answers—or do they?

“It started as a joke—we never meant to be serious,” says Nick, his voice full of indifference as Austen quickly chimes in:

“It still is a joke, people just got hyped on it.”

Nick and Austen, who comprise two-thirds of the Donkey Punch Crew, didn’t mind if we used their real names. On a tour of San Diego County, they pointed out various billboards and walls that they have appropriated with their cryptic moniker, including:

- 8 West at Mission Gorge Road 

- 8 East at Waring Road - 163 South at University 

- 8 East (the green fence in front of Todai restaurant) 

- Electrical boxes, vacant buildings and other random locales in downtown, Hillcrest, Pacific Beach, North Park, College area and East County.

A young man by the name of Shepard Fairey made waves in San Diego a few years back with his “Giant” posters (taglines included “Obey,” “Andre the Giant Has a Posse,” etc.) that were, and still are, plastered everywhere. Both Giant and Donkey Punch were birthed in the simple sticker and poster format, but where Fairey had an implied message of activism and political oppression, what the Donkey Punch Crew is trying to convey is not as clear.

“We can’t even compare ourselves to those guys [like Fairey]—those guys fuckin’ rule,” Austen promptly quips, adding in characteristic self-deprecation: “We fuckin’ suck. We’re losers.”

As the tour progresses, Austen and Nick explain how the fruits of their labor are only visible for a day, at best. The realization sets in that, on a weekly basis, these guys are playing cat-and-mouse with Caltrans, the police and whoever else deems their guerrilla decor criminal activity.

Nick relates that the most grueling wall they ever painted—spending more than two hours in the middle of the night to scroll “Donkey Punch” in 18-foot letters along the South 805 Interstate—was painted over by the city before sunrise.

On another occasion, Nick tried to paint a billboard by himself in the early evening hours. He was spotted, surrounded, tackled and arrested by the police. In court, he was charged with trespassing, not vandalism and fined $400.

“When the judge said the words ‘Donkey Punch,’” Nick recalls, shocked at the paradox of the situation, “coming out of other people’s mouths, it’s weird to hear.”

Thousands of innocent people—children, pastors, judges and others who say things like “H-E-double hockey sticks”—ask each other, “What is ‘donkey punch?’” Unaware, of course, that what they’re saying aloud is criminally vulgar and sexually lurid.

So maybe that’s just it—a large ruse, intended to get Grandma to say gross things.

When it’s suggested that some may view this as an advertisement for sexual violence towards women, they both retort vehemently: “We’re not about the act of Donkey Punch. If you look at the fist, it’s like a sissy punk rock fist. We’re not trying to be like, ‘Yeah, punch girls in the back of the head—we’re punk rock!’”

Nick is referring to their logo, which shows a fist weakly clinched with nails painted in black polish and a spiked bracelet around the wrist. The emasculation implied in the graphic mocks exactly what it represents.

Often times, high school students will peel Donkey Punch stickers off walls to use as decoration for their notebooks. Ironically, it’s even good for the Crew’s love life. Girls have approached them at parties, ecstatic to meet the Donkey Punch Crew.

“They’re stoked on it; it’s amazing,” Nick says. “I thought only dirty rockers would like it. All kinds of people like it—that’s what’s awesome.”

“We get mixed reactions,” Austen interjects, with a more realistic view of public reaction, “like, ‘You guys are rad!’ And then jocks will say, ‘Fuck you, you fuckin’ pussies!’”

“We’re just trying to get people’s attention and I think we’re doing it pretty well,” Nick asserts. This reply is typical—though their “art” has brought them a modicum of notoriety, they deny any deeper relevance.

Their most notable public display to date was when they rolled huge, white letters on the lengthy green fence along the 8 East interstate, just in front of the Todai sushi restaurant. It caused such a stir on the morning commute that 91X DJ Chris Cantori spent half his show discussing it.

“They were [asking], ‘What is Donkey Punch?’ and having people call in. They didn’t understand it,” Austen recalls.

Most callers decried violence against women. Listening, Austen and Nick groaned. Their point was completely missed. The public had taken them too seriously. The calls that delighted the duo the most were the people who asserted that the Donkey Punch Crew members were idiots.

Still, Nick and Austen can’t be this lackadaisical about it. They’ve invested too much time, too much blood and sweat.

“It gets people to think—it makes people think—when they see those two words put together,” Austen finally admits. “If no one knows what it means, that is the whole point right there—then people will question it. We could’ve used any two words, but because we used ‘Donkey Punch,’ people got this craze that it’s about punching people in the back of the head, and that’s just ridiculous.”

Whether they know it or not, it is an effective social experiment. Art isn’t restricted to what the majority sees as tasteful. Marcell Duchamp and Robert Mapplethorp proved that.

And even if the Donkey Punch Crew claim there’s no meaning behind their message, Marshall McCluhan correctly posited that the medium is the message. For a brief moment in time, in a place set aside for capitalist agenda, three young men hijack the space for their own cryptically vulgar motto.

Possibly, you see them as worthless vandals. Or as media hijackers in the war against capitalism. Or as expressionists mocking the secret dialect of a violent society.