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Dear Cecil:
While discussing a gay acquaintance recently, my friend Mary,
a nurse, lauded him by adding, "and he's no damn gerbil stuffer,
either."
When I protested that she should not perpetuate cruel
stereotypes of our homosexual brethren, she informed me that she
personally had witnessed a fellow admitted by her hospital to
remove a deceased gerbil lodged in his rectum. That gentleman is
now doomed to be tied to a colostomy bag through eternity.
What I'd
like to know is, what are the mechanics and philosophy of gerbil
stuffing? How are the gerbils inserted and retrieved? Don't they
bite and scratch? Why not hamsters or snakes? Is this a common
practice? My curious friends and I await your reply with bated
breath. --Shannon O., Chicago
Dear Shannon:
Brace yourself, toots. What follows is not for the weak of stomach.
For starters, an awful lot of stuff has been found where that
gerbil was found. The medical journals list, among other things,
the following astonishing array:
A bottle of Mrs.
Butterworth's syrup, an ax handle, a nine-inch zucchini, countless
dildoes and vibrators including one 14-inch model complete with two
D-cell batteries, a plastic spatula, a 9-1/2-inch water bottle, a
deodorant bottle, a Coke bottle, a large bottle cap, numerous other
bottles, a 3-1/2-inch Japanese glass float ball, an 11-inch carrot,
an antenna rod, a 150-watt light bulb, a 100-watt frosted bulb, a
cucumber, a screwdriver, four rubber balls, 72-1/2 jeweler's saws
(all from one patient, but not all at the same time, although 29
were discovered on one occasion), a paperweight, an apple, an
onion, a plastic toothbrush package, two bananas, a frozen pig's
tail (it got stuck when it thawed), a ten-inch length of
broomstick, an 18-inch umbrella handle and central rod, a plantain
encased in a condom, two Vaseline jars, a whiskey bottle with a
cord attached, a teacup, an oil can, a six-by-five-inch tool box
weighing 22 ounces, a six-inch stone weighing two pounds (in the
latter two cases the patients died due to intestinal obstruction),
a baby powder can, a test tube, a ball-point pen, a peanut butter
jar, candles, baseballs, a sand-filled bicycle inner tube, sewing
needles, a flashlight, a half-filled tobacco pouch, a turnip, a
pair of eyeglasses, a hard-boiled egg, a carborundum grindstone
(with handle), a suitcase key, a syringe, a file, tumblers and
glasses, a polyethylene waste trap from the U-bend of a sink, and
much, much more.
In 1955 one man who was "feeling depressed" reportedly
inserted a six-inch paper tube into his rectum, dropped in a
lighted firecracker, and blew a hole in his anterior rectal wall.
This changed his mood real quick.
"Insertion of foreign bodies into the rectum," as it is formally
known, is by no means confined to gays. Many cases are ascribed to
autoeroticism on the part of straights. Leaving aside victims of
assault or accident, however, practitioners do have one thing in
common: they're incredibly stupid.
You don't need to be an Einstein to realize that insertion of
objects presents enormous health risks. The rectum can become
lacerated, torn, or infected. Long-term effects can include a
flaccid sphincter and fecal incontinence.
Which brings us to gerbils. While the examples above are
well-documented in the medical literature, live or recently
deceased fauna are something else.
Rumors of gerbil (and mouse or hamster) stuffing have been
circulating since about 1982. In 1984, a Denver weekly
said it had a confirmed report of gerbilectomy in a local emergency
room.
The Manhattan publication New York Talk reported several years ago
that New York doctors first caught on to stuffing when they started
encountering patients with infections previously found only in
rodents.
But no such case has ever found its way
into the formal literature of medicine. Having investigated the
matter in some depth, I am inclined to write the whole thing off as
an urban legend.
Your nurse friend stoutly maintains that a patient was treated for
a case of ingrown gerbil at her hospital in Chicago. But she
concedes she did not read the patient's chart or see any
documentary evidence.
A doctor and a nurse at the hospital to whom she appealed for
corroboration of her story say they know nothing of any such case,
although they had both heard about gerbil stuffing, the nurse from
cops in the emergency room, the doctor at a medical meeting.
That's pretty much the story all over. I have checked with numerous
sources in both the gay and medical communities, and though
everybody has heard about gerbil stuffing, every attempt to track
down an actual case has come to naught.
The whole business sounds completely nuts, and implausible to boot.
Whatever the case, take my advice and stick to mammals your own
size.
--CECIL ADAMS
The Straight Dope / Questions or
comments for Cecil Adams to: cecil@chicagoreader.com
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