i was just wanting to comment on the gerbil stuffing legend. now i dont know if it is a legend because i have heard it from a nurse also. and yes that could be an exageration or something of that sorts but after visiting Rotten.com and yes, looking under the F*** of the month there is a picture of a ::cough:: a man, a woman, a tube and a mouse. if you visit it… its not for the weak of stomic. its october of '98 entitled build a better mouse trap. is that enough evidence to prove it happens?
I’d say that’s not really evidence, since in the mentioned photo “it” hasn’t even happened yet. And doesn’t involve a gerbil, either, if you’re going to get picky about it.
My understanding was that the “legend” as it was, was that gay men just LOVE to shove gerbils up their butts for sexual pleasure. Now, if you were to take a survey of homosexual men, I think you’d find they’d prefer sex with Rosie O’Donnell over a gerbil any day, and Rosie is way down on the list to begin with. As if I need to mention that.
I feel safe saying this since I’m gay and I’ve never had anyone start a story off with “Oh my GOD, the sex was SO HOT, he had a fully-loaded Habitrail!”
Welcome to the SDMB, and thank you for posting your comment.
Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site.
To include a link, it can be as simple as including the web page location in your post (make sure there is a space before and after the text of the URL).
Cecil’s column can be found on-line at this link:
I know the picture in question (and ghod do I feel dirty for admitting that!) and it always seemed to me to be staged.
Unfortunately, SeaWench, there are two major pitfalls of Urban Legend at work here.
Firstly, “hearing it from a nurse” is not really evidence. In UL circles, it’s a FOAF–a Friend Of A Friend. I had a buddy who swore he had met the nurse who had treated Richard Gere. He later admitted he had just talked to someone who knew the nurse. And most likely, that person had also just talked to someone else. This is how urban legends vector, or spread. If you talk ot your nurse acquaintance again, I’d be very surprised if she claims to have actually seen a rodent in someone’s rectum.
However, it’s remotely possible she has. Which brings up pitfall #2: copycatting. There’s an urban legend out there about people putting dirty syringe needles in pay phone change slots. When people check for change, the story goes, they get pricked and the perps get a good malicious laugh. It’s bollocks. But a few years ago in Salt Lake City, UT, a used needle was discovered in a pay phone coin slot. “Ah-ha!” people crowed. “It’s not just a legend after all!”
As it turned out, a couple young kids had heard the legend and decided it would be funny to make it real. That doesn’t change the status of the legend to truth, nor does it mean that we should be paranoid about coin returns.
I think the rotten.com photo is of the latter. It seemed to me to be clearly using the legend of “rodent stuffing” for amusement and shock value. The people in the photo (and others like it) were not stuffers, they were posing.
I once found a used razor blade in a phone slot.
i didnt mean in my post that it proved that gay men stuffed. just that it happens. Ffrom my understanding of the artical it said that it has not happend. Have i miss understood the artical?
From the linked Cecil column
So does this extend to anal sex in general? Is Cecil dooming all gays (and straights) who engage in this practice to perpetually low IQs?
Or are some things soft enough?
The column can also be found on pages 216-218 of Cecil Adams’ book “More of the Straight Dope”.
Well, I guess it’s okay as long as they’re not foreign, so one should be sure to only introduce domestic bodies into one’s rectum.
Ok, at the risk of treading on Dan Savage territory, the answer is, well, yes, some things are soft enough. Vibrators, (flexible) dildoes, butt plugs, penises…they’re not likely to do much damage. The keys to safety: no hard or breakable materials (one hears, occasionally, of light bulbs…not bright), and a base that’s flared, so that it’s unlikely the object will get lost. (That describes a penis in spades.) Oh, and lubrication, lubrication, lubrication and, just in case, lubrication.
The real expert is Jack Morin, whose “Anal Pleasure and Health” is the authoritative guide. Dan Savage is a good source, too, but largely he’s just repeating Morin’s advice. As am I, so I’ll stop now. 
Well, SeaWench, I don’t think your post, or the (IMO) staged photo at rotten.com (and elsewhere) are in any way proof that gerbiling has happened. As Cecil says in the article,
And given the bizarre assortment of things Cecil mentions that have been found in the literature, one must assume that if a doctor had actually removed a gerbil from a rectum, the literature would reflect that. It’s that hallmark of medical science to publish the strange and unusual.
Until and unless a doctor who has personally performed or assisted a rodentectomy actually comes forward, there is no proof at all, I’m afraid.
-andros-
All I can say is that my friend who visits a doctor friend in LA says that he keeps the Gere gerbil in a jar in his office.
That’s nothing. I personally know an EMT who worked with the guy who took the guy to the hospital after his kidneys were removed.
Sorry, but I just had to say that this line makes me giggle every time I read it.