diff --git a/requests/utils.py b/requests/utils.py
index 563248fb..c5c3fd01 100644
--- a/requests/utils.py
+++ b/requests/utils.py
@@ -115,11 +115,12 @@ def get_netrc_auth(url, raise_errors=False):
 
         ri = urlparse(url)
 
-        # Strip port numbers from netloc
+        # Strip port numbers from netloc. This weird `if...encode`` dance is
+        # used for Python 3.2, which doesn't support unicode literals.
+        splitstr = b':'
         if isinstance(url, str):
-            host = ri.netloc.split(u':')[0]
-        else:
-            host = ri.netloc.split(b':')[0]
+            splitstr = splitstr.decode('ascii')
+        host = ri.netloc.split(splitstr)[0]
 
         try:
             _netrc = netrc(netrc_path).authenticators(host)