"The world’s most experienced penis reattachment surgeons can be found in Thailand..."

"... where, during the 1970s, an estimated one hundred vengeful Thai wives, spurred by media coverage of a prominent 1973 case, sliced off the penises of their adulterous husbands as they slept. When a suitably equipped microsurgeon was on hand to reattach the errant appendage, the men were able to resume philandering within a matter of months. Though probably with reduced success: The penises, though operative, were shorter, numb, and often only partway erectable. The most serious complication, in the Thai attacks, was infection. Two of the wives flushed the penises down the toilet, forcing their husbands to grope for their lost manhood inside the septic tank. (Incredibly, both were found, cleaned, cleaned some more, and reattached.) More commonly, the women would hurl the penis out the window. In the cases described in 'Surgical Management of an Epidemic of Penile Amputations in Siam,' all the recovered penises were 'grossly contaminated.' Better that than eaten by livestock. Many rural Thai homes are elevated on pilings, with the family’s pigs, chickens, and ducks tending to mill about seeking shade in the space underneath. It is not, oddly, the pigs, but rather the ducks, that the castrated Thai must worry about. The paper does not provide the exact number of penises eaten by ducks, but the author says there have been enough over the years to prompt the coining of a popular saying: 'I better get home or the ducks will have something to eat.'"

I'm reading "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex," by Mary Roach.

Space toilet — bet you're not ready for that.

Mary Roach says a lot of surprising things about orgasms.

Via Andrew Sullivan, who focuses on the sonogram of a fetus masturbating and says "Just a small effort to get K-Lo's head to explode." Odd. I would have thought that the fact that fetuses masturbate supports the pro-life side of the abortion debate.

Mellified man.

I'm suddenly getting lots of traffic from people searching for "mellified man." I come up #1 on this search. Here's my old post:

Yesterday at Borders, I got completely absorbed reading "Stiff," by Mary Roach. I happened to open it up in the middle, which is how I always judge books in bookstores. Apparently, a lot of people (most people?) start reading at page 1, but I figure the author has too much incentive to put good material on the first page. I want to see a more representative part of the book, so I open it up at random. Usually, I open in a few different places, and if they all seem interesting, I'll buy the book. I opened up "Stiff"--which is a book about cadavers, as you can tell from the cover--to a chapter called "Eat Me"--which, as you can imagine, is about cannibalism--and read about a little medicinal concoction called "mellified man." Well, that may have been the most amazing thing I've ever read about, and the author writes quite entertainingly about the subject. Really, just as an exercise in writing, this book is a marvel: how did Roach make so many things about dead bodies so interesting and so much fun? So, go pick up this book and read the part about mellified man or anything else. I'd try to say what mellified man is, but I can't put it as well as Roach. Let's just say it involves a lot of honey and 100 years.

Why the sudden interest in a legendary medicine made from the corpse -- soaked in honey for 100 years -- of a man who killed himself by eating too much honey? I think it's the name of a band with a song people are interested in, funnily enough.

UPDATE: Ah, no -- thanks, readers -- it's this.

Mellified man.

Yesterday at Borders, I got completely absorbed reading "Stiff," by Mary Roach. I happened to open it up in the middle, which is how I always judge books in bookstores. Apparently, a lot of people (most people?) start reading at page 1, but I figure the author has too much incentive to put good material on the first page. I want to see a more representative part of the book, so I open it up at random. Usually, I open in a few different places, and if they all seem interesting, I'll buy the book. I opened up "Stiff"--which is a book about cadavers, as you can tell from the cover--to a chapter called "Eat Me"--which, as you can imagine, is about cannibalism--and read about a little medicinal concoction called "mellified man." Well, that may have been the most amazing thing I've ever read about, and the author writes quite entertainingly about the subject. Really, just as an exercise in writing, this book is a marvel: how did Roach make so many things about dead bodies so interesting and so much fun? So, go pick up this book and read the part about mellified man or anything else. I'd try to say what mellified man is, but I can't put it as well as Roach. Let's just say it involves a lot of honey and 100 years.