diff -r aea58e1cae75 -r 061eb75339e2 Lib/test/test_urllib2.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_urllib2.py	Sun Sep 08 14:14:38 2013 +0200
+++ b/Lib/test/test_urllib2.py	Sun Sep 08 13:03:40 2013 -0400
@@ -1466,16 +1466,25 @@
         self.assertEqual(str(err), expected_errmsg)
 
 class RequestTests(unittest.TestCase):
+    class PutRequest(Request):
+        method='PUT'
 
     def setUp(self):
         self.get = Request("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/")
         self.post = Request("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/",
                             "data",
                             headers={"X-Test": "test"})
+        self.head = Request("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/", method='HEAD')
+        self.put = self.PutRequest("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/")
+        self.force_post = self.PutRequest("http://www.python.org/~jeremy/",
+            method="POST")
 
     def test_method(self):
         self.assertEqual("POST", self.post.get_method())
         self.assertEqual("GET", self.get.get_method())
+        self.assertEquil("HEAD", self.head.get_method())
+        self.assertEqual("PUT", self.put.get_method())
+        self.assertEqual("POST", self.force_post.get_method())
 
     def test_data(self):
         self.assertFalse(self.get.data)
diff -r aea58e1cae75 -r 061eb75339e2 Lib/urllib/request.py
--- a/Lib/urllib/request.py	Sun Sep 08 14:14:38 2013 +0200
+++ b/Lib/urllib/request.py	Sun Sep 08 13:03:40 2013 -0400
@@ -271,7 +271,8 @@
             origin_req_host = request_host(self)
         self.origin_req_host = origin_req_host
         self.unverifiable = unverifiable
-        self.method = method
+        if method:
+            self.method = method
 
     @property
     def full_url(self):
@@ -320,12 +321,8 @@
 
     def get_method(self):
         """Return a string indicating the HTTP request method."""
-        if self.method is not None:
-            return self.method
-        elif self.data is not None:
-            return "POST"
-        else:
-            return "GET"
+        default_method = "POST" if self.data is not None else "GET"
+        return getattr(self, 'method', default_method)
 
     def get_full_url(self):
         return self.full_url