Naughty Grecians likely developed the phallic gesture around 2,500 years ago to offend each other. Here’s how the middle finger became the most obscene digit.

A US television network has apologised after a pop star showed her middle finger during the Super Bowl halftime show. When did the gesture become offensive?

Proudly displaying a middle finger 2,500 years ago was usually meant as a joke. Today, “flipping the bird” is considered so vulgar that it’s frequently blurred in media.

Similarly, Czech sculptor David Cerny sent a larger-than-life purple middle finger sculpture down the Vltava River—which runs past the president’s palace—in a not-so-subtle message to Czech ...

The middle finger’s popularity faltered, but did not entirely disappear, during the Middle Ages, likely due to the growing influence of the Catholic Church and its disapproval of sexual ...

Naughty Grecians likely developed the phallic gesture around 2,500 years ago to offend each other. Here’s how the middle finger became the most obscene digit.