Rape Sloth is a 2012 image macro that pairs a photograph of a sloth apparently whispering to a woman with dark sexual captions and pick-up lines.

Where did Rape Sloth come from?

The format started with a February 22, 2012 thread on the BodyBuilding.com forums by user VitaCrave, and grew a dedicated Twitter feed that was posting through December of that year.

What does Rape Sloth mean?

The joke leans on shock contrast: a slow, harmless-looking sloth cast as a predator, defined on Urban Dictionary as "unwanted penetration from a sloth".

How do you use Rape Sloth?

People typically drop a pick-up line, threat or innuendo across the sloth-and-model image in white block text, often built around wordplay on the word "sloth".

Is Rape Sloth still popular?

No. Activity peaked in 2012 with compilations on FunnyJunk and 9gag and a @RapeSloth Twitter feed that was posting through late December 2012, and there is no visible current use.

Rape Sloth

2012image macrodead

Published September 24, 2026

Rape Sloth is a 2012 image macro built around a photograph of a sloth appearing to whisper into a woman's ear, paired with menacing sexual captions. The format started on a BodyBuilding.com forum thread in February 2012 and spread through FunnyJunk, 9gag and Reddit over the following year, drawing both hundreds of user-made variants and pointed criticism for joking about sexual assault.

image macro memes shock humor memes dark humor memes captioned animal memes 2012 memes

Overview

The core visual is a photograph originally shot for a Terry Richardson fashion editorial, showing a sloth positioned close to the ear of a nude female model. Caption writers frame the sloth's expression as predatory and layer pick-up lines, innuendo and threats over the image in white block text. Urban Dictionary later summarized the underlying joke as "unwanted penetration from a sloth," which captures the shock angle the format traded on2.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

BodyBuilding.com forums (viral spread on FunnyJunk, 9gag, Reddit and Twitter)

Key People

VitaCrave

Date

2012

The source photograph came from Terry Richardson's 2010 Pirelli Calendar shoot and was first posted publicly on the fashion blog Touch Puppet on June 17, 2009. The captioned image macro itself started nearly three years later on February 22, 2012, when BodyBuilding.com forum user VitaCrave opened a thread titled "Rape Sloth" that ran roughly ten months and gathered 230 replies3.

How It Spread

On March 16, 2012, FunnyJunk user braindeadsixtynine posted a compilation of notable examples that drew more than 56,000 views, 2,200 upvotes and 100 comments in the following ten months. The same compilation was reposted on 9gag by user johniskewl on June 21, 2012, adding roughly 19,000 upvotes and 2,000 Facebook shares over the next eight months. On August 31, 2012, Redditor happyman91 shared a "You know what rhymes with sloth? / Rape" macro to /r/funny that reached 4,600 upvotes and 65 comments3.

On September 25, 2012, a @RapeSloth Twitter feed launched and posted captioned versions of the format, including a video tweet on December 28, 20121. Redditors on /r/ShitRedditSays had already flagged the /r/funny post for joking about sexual assault, and by early 2013 dedicated pages had spun up on Facebook, Quickmeme and Meme Generator, with the Meme Generator entry carrying more than 6,000 items by February 20133.

How to Use This Meme

The format typically drops a pick-up line, threat or sexual innuendo across the sloth-and-model image in standard white block text, with the sloth cast as the speaker. Captions often lean on wordplay involving the word "sloth" or play the animal's slow, harmless look against the disturbing implication of the line.