Goatse.cx (commonly pronounced "goat-see" or "goat-sex", and often shortened to "Goatse") was an Internet shock site known for displaying a single, highly explicit image to visitors.

Image and depiction

The most notorious file on the site was published as hello.jpg. It showed an unclothed man using both hands to pull his buttocks apart so far that the inner cavity of his rectum was clearly visible. The photograph also exposed the subject's penis and scrotum, and a ring could be seen on the ring finger of his left hand. The action involved the subject forcibly expanding his anus; descriptions in other sources sometimes use the term buttocks when referring to the area.

The picture identified as hello.jpg was part of a larger archive distributed as gap.zip, which contained around forty photographs. In several of those files the man is shown using various sex toys and butt plugs to enlarge the anal opening. Researchers and archivists, including the Stile Project, traced the image set and copies were made available in the "Contrib" section of the original goatse.cx site; within the archive the well known picture corresponds to the file named gap3.jpg.