UPDATED Aug 2024: We’ve all heard stories from A&E staff about strange items men have stuffed up their rear ends and pee holes. The phenomenon became common between 1993 and 2002: the University of Southern California General Hospital admitted one patient per month who had stuck and lost something up their butt for the first time.
In June 2020, a 30-year old man in China had emergency surgery to remove a rather large dead fish (a fully-grown one could be as long as 40cm) from his anus. His excuse? He “accidentally sat on it”. It’s not clear if the fish was dead or alive prior to entering his intestines, but it was dead when it came out – in fact, it was so stinky the med techs actually retched. Still, it’s probably not as crazy as that drunk guy (also from China) who stuffed 2 pond loaches up his bum back in 2017. Men, eh?
Here are some of the more memorable or mind-blowing insertion stories that have made headlines:
Up the rear end
Forget about carrots, cucumbers, and other organic kitchen items – these men have definitely gone where no man has gone before… Prepare to be horrified.
WWII-era munition: You read that right – a man went to the emergency room in the UK after getting a historic munition lodged up his rectum. It was epic because even the police and a bomb squad were called in (you know, in case it was still explosive since it normally belongs in anti-tank guns). According to The Sun newspaper, the guy told doctors he ‘slipped and fell’ on the device, which measured 17x6cm and was “a chunky, pointed lump of lead designed to rip through a tank’s armour.”
Pestle: A 40-year old man came into the ER with an entire pestle shoved up his rectum. He claimed that he slipped when he was preparing Malaysian food. What part of preparing Malaysian food involves putting the pestle anywhere near the bum?
Glass bottle: A 60-year old man in China shoved a 18cm-long glass bottle up his rectum apparently to ‘scratch an itch’. He claimed he shoved it ‘accidentally’ – the bottle’s tip reached the man’s intestines and the doctor who treated him said that you could feel the bottle when touching his belly. And the scary thing? He’s far from the only guy who’s shoved a glass bottle where the sun don’t shine.
Flashlight: A man actually had a flashlight stuck up his butt, which he claimed he accidentally fell on (cough). Apparently, the patient has had a history of ‘falling’ on objects that way.
Mobile phone: A lawyer in Georgia, USA, also claimed to have fallen onto his mobile phone while in the shower, resulting in his phone being shoved up in his colon. Yeah, right.
Lightbulb: There was also a guy who put a lightbulb up his butt – and it actually stayed intact! The doctors had to very carefully remove it.
Buzz Lightyear: In a bizarre move, a man shoved the entire Buzz Lightyear toy up his rectum, and the x-ray image is a sight to behold. To infinity and beyond!
Deodorant spray can: A 23-year old man in Saudi Arabia had stuffed an aerosol can up his rectum, and had to go to the hospital after complaining of lower abdominal pain.
Shower head: Doctors had no idea why a man shoved an entire shower head up his butt – and left the hose trailing behind him like a tail.
Instant coffee jar: For no apparent reason, a man pierced several pins into the lid of a jar of instant coffee, and then shoved the entire jar up his rectum. You won’t want to see the horrifying x-ray image.
Live eel: Inserting live eels into rectums seem to be a folk remedy in Asia. In July 2021, a man in Xinghua inserted a 20cm-long eel into his rectum in hopes of relieving constipation – and almost died after the eel entered his abdomen. The eel was still alive when it was removed during operation!
If you think that’s bad, previously a 50-year-old in Guangdong actually stuffed a live 40cm-long eel into his rectum (don’t ask us how) because he thought it would treat his constipation. However, he ended up in the ER with bowel inflammation instead when the eel bit his colon. No surprise there.
Not to be outdone, on 20 July 2024, a 31-year-old Indian national man in Vietnam nearly lost his life after inserting a 65cm-long live eel into his anus. The eel had bitten through his rectum and colon, requiring emergency surgery to remove the animal. Even more bizarre is that the surgeons also extracted a whole lime through his anus!
Live rat: The patient that truly takes the cake was one who actually decided to stuff a live rat in his anus. He put the rat in a condom to try and suffocate it, and then shoved it into his butt so its breathing would bring him ‘pleasure’… but the rat actually bit off a part of his colon, resulting in him going to the ER looking blue in the face. If the doctors hadn’t found a rat tail sticking out of his ass, he would have died (like the rat in his colon). Ew.
Research has shown that while some men who wind up with objects in their rectums are trying to hurt themselves, the majority of men who practice self-insertion generally do so out of sexual curiosity. As such, repeated self-insertion of colorectal foreign bodies came to be considered a paraphilic disorder – a fetish. This is why men have inserted a wide number of objects in there – including veggies, axe handles, keys, plastic toys, and of course, sex toys.
Into the urethra
Another orifice that people tend to stuff things in is the urethra – for some reason, people who stuff things into their pee hole and end up in the A&E are usually teenage boys. But that doesn’t stop grown men from inserting things in there too, like tweezers, chopsticks, a Barbie doll arm, 15 needles, headphone wires, and more.
It’s actually scary how many adolescent boys have tried to stuff things up their urethra in order to satisfy their sexual curiosity. Here are some cases:
Nylon string: In February 2022, a man in Indonesia managed to stuff 1.8m of a nylon string into his urethra for sexual gratification while watching a pornographic video. Apparently he watches porn everyday, but it was his first time with the nylon string, which doctors had to extract with forceps. At 37, he’s also older than most guys who stuff things into their urethras.
Acupuncture Needle: A 13-year old boy in China actually shoved a 10cm-long acupuncture needle (belonging to his grandmother) into his urethra in an apparent bid to ‘stay awake’. The needle was shoved deep enough that it was close to the bladder, but luckily it was safely surgically removed.
Sewing needle: A 14-year old boy inserted a 9cm long sewing needle so deep in his urethra that the tip wasn’t visible from the hole; it was then ‘uneventfully’ removed with forceps.
Safety pin: A 14-year old boy actually managed to insert an open safety pin (measuring some 7cm extended) blunt edge first into his urethra, which had to be surgically removed.
Wires: A 13-year old boy in Heilongjiang had inserted an end of a USB cable (with the tip cut off, thankfully) into his penis, and managed to get 10cm of it inside him when the cable got knotted up near his bladder. He had to get surgery to remove the cable.
Magnetic ball bearings: A 13-year-old boy in Xian, China inserted 29 magnetic beads (each 5mm in diameter) into his penis, and had to undergo surgery after enduring 3 months of the beads being lodged in his bladder. It’s apparently a common situation in China: a 12-year-old in Wuhan inserted 31 of these beads, a 14-year old nearly died from haemorrhaging after sticking 53 in, and an 11-year old actually had managed to stuff 70 of those inside him! These magnetic beads are sold as toys called Buckyballs, and the boys who’ve stuffed them into their penises admitted doing it out of ‘curiosity’.
At least in China, doctors encounter two or three similar cases per year with boys usually aged between 10 and 15; the inserted items include electric wires, needles, ball bearings, and more. Thankfully they seem grow out of that phase when they become grown men.
People are understandably curious when it comes to their own bodies, but these men must know that doing dangerous deeds like these in private will only thrust them into the spotlight when they need emergency medical help. If you like weird science-y stuff, what about weird jobs that medical scientists do?
