Gerbil Stuffing

Gerbil Stuffing
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)
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 one 14-inch model
complete with two D-cell batteries, a plastic spatula, a 9-inch water
bottle, a deodorant bottle, a Coke 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 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 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 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 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 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. (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 a medical
meeting. That's pretty much been 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 thing sounds totally nuts, to me, and implausible to boot.
Whatever the case, take my advice and stick to mammals your own size.