People laughed at Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine when he excitedly described what's in store for America's semiquincentennial next year—that's the country's 250th birthday for those keeping track—and used a NSFW sexual phrase that does not at all mean what he thinks it means.
Romaine, who previously served as the town supervisor for Brookhaven and was elected Suffolk County Executive in November 2023, waved his arms around with giddy anticipation when he said:
"It's going to be a gangbang like you've never seen. We're going to send off the rockets. We're going to enjoy our independence. Thank you!"
You can hear what he said in the video below.
Romaine likely meant to say "gangbusters," a phrase that refers to something going strongly or doing very well. By contrast, a gangbang is when a group of people, typically four or more, all have sex with a single person.
Gangbangs are a popular pornography search term—but they have nothing to do with celebrating a country's founding...unless you're into that sort of thing. Which we imagine those in attendance likely would not be, given the context.
People were quick to mock Romaine after the footage of his remark went viral.
Funnily enough, PornHub previously found that red states sure love their pornography compared to blue states—and that "gangbang" was among the Top 20 search terms for 2024.
PornHub also examined the data by age group and found that Boomers—a group to which Romaine belongs—are "more interested in group sex" than other age groups, and that gangbangs and videos from the "double penetration" category were chief among their category interests.
Well, we guess now we know what kinds of videos Romaine watches in his spare time... And while that's all well and good, it's probably for the best that gangbangs not happen in the middle of celebrating the anniversary of the nation's independence.