textfiles/sex/gerbilstuffing.txt

                               Gerbil Stuffing
                               ---------------

The following was taken from Cecil Adams' book "More of The Straight Dope."

Q: 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 removed 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 bit and scratch? Why
not hamsters or snakes? Is this a common practice? My curious friends and I
await your reply with bated breat.  --Shannon O., Chicago

A: 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 supposedly
turned up. The medical journals list, among other things, the following
astonishing array: a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's syrup, an ax handle, a
9-inch zucchini, countless dildoes and vibrators including on 14-inch model
complete with two D-cell batteries, a plastic spatula, a 9-inch water bottle,
a deoderant bottle, a Code bottle, a large bottle cap, numerous other bottles,
a 3 1/2-inch Japanese 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 jewler'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 10-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 6 x 5-inch tool
box weighing 22 ounces, a 6-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 ballpoint pen, a peanut butter jar, candles, baseballs, a
sand-filled bicycle innertube, 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
so on.  In 1955 one man who was "feeling depressed" reportedly inserted a
6-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 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 hamsters) 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 ManhatT#6publication "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. (I confess this
represents a change in my thinking since my original column on the subject in
1986.)
     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 ward, the doctor at the medical
meeting. That's pretty much been the story all over. I have check with
numerous sources in both the gay and medical communities, and though everybody
hears something, every attempt to track down an actual case
has come to naught.
     The whole thing sounds totally nuts, to me, and implausible to boot.
Whatever the case, take my advice and stick to mammals your own size.


Typed by Ali Kent on 3/26/89  7:45 PM.