Legend:   A man lured by the promises of a barroom temptress submits to being tied naked to a bed, then receives a surprise backdoor visit from Batman.

Examples:

[Collected on the Internet, 1999] I've heard the story of a school boy from the Buckingham, Brown and Nichols private school in Boston who, after soliciting a prostitute for his first time, agrees to have kinky sex with her — allowing her to tie him to the bed face down. After stealing his wallet she promptly leaves the room. Leaving him tied up. Just as the situation sinks in and the boy realizes he is about to be very embarrased when he is found — a man dressed as Batman, without any pants on, jumps out of the closet and sodomizes him with his 12 inch penis. [Collected on the Internet, 1998] A male student just arrives into Sydney (big metropolitan city) after living most of his life in the more desolated areas, to start his first year as a university student. First night in Sydney, he visits the red light district of Kings Cross, and drinks at the clubs. That night, he starts talking to a girl and they get pretty friendly (he does not know she is a prostitute because he is a country kid, and is kinda stupid). Eventually, it is decided that they go back to the girl's place, which they do. Straight away, they undress and begin to make out, to which the woman asks "what do you want me to do?" The guy being a bit stupid, just goes, "fuck me" to which she does. When they finished, the girl goes "Now it's your turn to do something for me" The guy thinks about it, and believes it's fair, since she gave him sex, so he agrees to whatever she wants to do. From under the bed, she gets a coil of string, and ties the guy up to the bed frame. When the guy is tied up, the woman jumps away, and opens the closet, to which jumps out a big Black man, wearing nothing but a Batman mask and cape. Next morning, the man awakes in the rich suburb of nearby Double Bay, and is naked and really bleeding bad. He gets taken to hospital by a passing motorist, and needed 27 stitches for his anus.

Variations:

• Although in the overwhelming majority of the tellings the attacker is dressed as Batman, every now and then a Superman comes barging out of the closet.
• The victim is variously described as a student just arrived in the big city, a sailor on leave, or a generic horny guy in a bar.
• Sometimes the victim thinks he's hiring a hooker, other times he figures he about to get lucky with a barroom floozy.
• Most accounts end with the assault, but a few continue on to the next morning, when the victim is found and unbound by someone not party to the attack. (As one version puts it, the hapless man is discovered "pantsless, walletless and hopeless.")
• Robbery is sometimes added to the list of indignities the victim is subjected to.
• This legend has made the rounds in the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia, each time told as a local story.
• In a significant number of cases, the attacker is described as black. In all other versions, no color is specified. He's black or of unspecified race — those are the only two choices.

Origins:   Text references to this legend exist from 1989, but anecdotal reports date it back to 1981. The 1989 song Mucky Pup song "Batman" (from their "Boy in a Man's World" album) relates the legend in the following fashion:

Thought you were smart
Bought a heart
Then came Batman through the dark
Instead of fucking that stupid slut
You got eight inches up your butt

Batman! Batman!
Batman! Batman!

Saw Batman the buttripper
I'll rip your butt like a canopener
Batman the buttripper
I'll use your butt like a canopener man!

Though at first blush this urban legend appears related to the Too Late the Hero legend, their only shared motif is one of the participants' being dressed as the Caped Crusader. If anything, this legend has more in common with the Ether Bunny (a tale in which a non-gay victim is drugged and sodomized by his roommate).

On rare occasions a version surfaces in which robbery is the only objective of the woman and her accomplice:

[FOAFTale News, June 1996]

A 55-year-old man in Burbank, California, put an ad in a sex magazine catering to sadomasochists, and was happy when a woman responded to his offer of a blind date. When she arrived at his home, he allowed her to strip him, handcuff him, and strap him to a proctology table he had in his "playroom." Then she put a hood over his head and REALLY went to work: she and an accomplice robbed the house. The man wasn't found until the next day, when the mailman heard him calling for help.

In 2007 we happened upon a version that positioned the victim as the groom being feted at his bachelor's party, which is held at a sex club in Amsterdam.

[Collected via e-mail, 2007]

Man goes to Amsterdam with friends on stag night. While in a live sex club, the nude woman on stage asks if anyone wants to have sex live on stage. Groom to be goes up after coaxing from friends. Woman ties up man securely to a table, exits stage, and is replaced by heavily built black man who rapes the groom to be.

Groom returns home mentally disturbed, wedding cancelled etc etc.

In that telling, the assailant is not dressed as a superhero, yet the other elements key to the legend are there: the victim willingly places himself in jeopardy on the promise of casual sex with a woman he barely knows, he cooperates with being stripped and tied down, then the woman departs and a man arrives who anally assaults the victim.

The "raped groom" version does unfortunately have a real life counterpart. In 1997, a man out with his friends for his stag night in Cork, Ireland, was stripped and tied by them to a park railing then left there for half an hour while they went off in search of a takeaway meal. During that interim, the groom was indecently assaulted by a passerby. Subsequent to his assault, he disowned his "pals," cancelled his wedding, and sought professional counseling.

The legend about Batman bursting from a closet to assault a hog-tied victim could be seen as a typical expression of homophobic fears about predatory homosexuals who force themselves on unwilling straight men. In this case, a man is lured into a sexual frolic by a woman, an action affirming his heterosexual intent. Alas, she betrays his trust, leaving him at the mercy of a brute who rapes him. Incapacitated by his bonds, the straight victim is forced into a homosexual encounter not of his choosing, but struggle as he might, there's nothing he can do about it.

On the other hand, this legend can be viewed as a male rape fantasy in which the victim has thrust upon him that which he cannot quite bring himself to seek out. The woman who lures him into this compromising situation serves as his plausible deniability; he was there to have sex with her and thus is no queer. (One has to wonder what he's doing tied face down then; very few guy/girl positions feature the man presenting his back to the woman.)

The symbolism of the Batman character bursting out of the closet (he's never lurking anywhere else, you'll notice) can be interpreted as the "forbidden wish" of those who mentally project themselves in the role of the victim. They too yearn to "come out of the closet" but aren't yet ready to star themselves — even in their own fantasies — as the aggressor.

And it's no coincidence the attacker is usually costumed as Batman. Much has been made in recent years of the undercurrents swirling through the Dynamic Duo's relationship. (A ongoing cartoon spoof on Saturday Night Live titled "The Ambiguously Gay Duo" makes light of this by showing Batman and Robin-like characters tooling about in a penis-shaped, flesh-toned Batmobile and engaging in horseplay bordering on expressions of physical affection, while other characters in the cartoon openly speculate on the duo's sexual orientation.) But there's more to it than that: unlike a number of other superheroes, Batman wears a cowl that obscures his features. By this device of costuming, the victim is kept from the identity of the man assaulting him . . . and thus perhaps fails to recognize himself.

Barbara "denial: the mask of sorrow" Mikkelson

Last updated:   10 May 2007

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2013 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson.
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  Sources:

    Mooney, Ann.   "Groom 'Raped' on His Stag Night."

    The Mirror.   29 August 1997   (pp. 1, 4).

    Winick, Stephen.   "Batman in the Closet: A New York Legend."

    Contemporary Legend.   Volume 2   1992.

    FOAFTale News.   "A New Burglar Legend?"

    June 1996   (p. 8).

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  Sources:

    Healey, Phil and Rick Glanvill.   Now! That's What I Call Urban Myths.

    London: Virgin Books, 1996.   ISBN 0-86369-969-3   (pp. 162-163).