Fact Check

The Promiscuous Cheerleader

Cheerleader collapses during game and has several pints of semen pumped from her stomach.

Published March 17, 2001

Claim:

Claim:   A cheerleader performs a sexual favor on the members of one of her school's sports teams, then is rushed to a hospital where doctors pump her stomach free of an astonishing amount of semen.


LEGEND


Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 1994]


You hear this one in high school a lot . . . about a slutty cheerleader who promised to orally service each member of the school's football team if they won the big game... it turns out after delivering the 'prize' she got sick and had to be taken to the hospital to have her stomach pumped and they found something like a gallon of semen in her stomach.


 

Variations:


  • The type of sports team mentioned varies, with football, basketball, and hockey being the most predominant.
  • In some versions the cheerleader does not "service" the team before the game but only promises her favors if the team wins.
  • Differing versions mention oral sex only, oral sex and intercourse, or intercourse only.
  • The amount of semen allegedly pumped from the girl's stomach varies: always an exaggeration, generally somewhere between a pint and six quarts.


Origins:   Gary

Alan Fine believes this legend to have originated in the early 1970s, a time when women in American were demanding equal rights — rights that many males found threatening. Thus, according to Fine, this legend came about as adolescent males' way of simultaneously expressing desire for cheerleaders, the "symbol of virtuous young womanhood" and "highly desirable sexual possessions" while disapproving of women's newly liberated roles.

One of our

readers pushes the dates back a bit further, reporting hearing this legend in 1967 about a fraternity brother's date who had taken on the entire frat house with similar medical results.

The story shows, among other things, how the male ego can perpetuate mistaken assumptions, namely that the amount of the ejaculate supposedly swallowed by the cheerleader is routinely wildly overestimated. Tellers of the tale describe the amount in terms of pints, quarts, or gallons, yet at an average ejaculation of 4 cubic centimeters, the product of an entire football team (22 players), would tote up to just under three fluid ounces, about 3/8 of a cup.

A similar tale, driving home the decadence of rock stars, features any number of music celebrities in place of the overindulging cheerleader.

Last updated:   7 June 2014


Sources:




    Bronner, Simon J.   Piled Higher and Deeper

    Little Rock: August House, 1990.   ISBN 0-87483-154-7   (pp. 190-191).

    Fine, Gary Alan.   Manufacturing Tales: Sex and Money in Contemporary Legends.

    Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee, 1992.   ISBN 0-87049-755-3   (p. 59-68).


David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.