Delicious Ear Nectar

A recently surfaced 1864 letter provides a glimpse into a little-discussed affliction among Civil War soldiers – chronic masturbation.

The handwritten note by Confederate Lt. William Dandridge Pitts inquires about the condition of his brother Charles, who was discharged from the army in 1862 due to an unspecified “illness.” Charles was residing at the Western Lunatic Asylum in Virginia.

According to Charles’ doctor and accounts from fellow soldiers, his illness was a relentless addiction to masturbation. “I have had some conversation with the physician who attended my brother previous to his going to the asylum,” Lt. Pitts wrote, “and he advises me…that [Charles] was addicted to masturbation, while in camp.”

The letter highlights the mental health toll of the war, even before combat began. Soldiers forced to endure their comrades’ “self-pollution” no doubt developed deep psychological scars.

While masturbation remained taboo in the Victorian era, it was pervasive enough in the military to earn the nickname “Johnny Reb.” The irony of this affliction among troops from Virginia, the “state for lovers,” was surely not lost on the Pitts family.

The letter survives in excellent condition despite its delicate subject matter. This “director’s cut” offers intimate insight into secret struggles in Civil War ranks.

Male barklice of the species Neotrogla have a vagina-like indentation, while their female counterparts have a penis-like structure called a gynosome. This unique genital reversal was studied by a team of entomologists from Hokkaido University, who used micro computer tomography to create 3D models of copulating winged insects from Brazilian caves.

The gynosome is a complex organ with specific muscles and pipes that enable females to attach themselves to males for extended periods of up to 70 hours. One set of muscles unfurls the gynosome, allowing it to enter the male and suck up semen. Another set of muscles then contracts the organ, depositing the sperm into two storage slots inside the female’s body.

The team suggests that the evolution of the female penis was driven by sexual selection, favoring intense female-female competition. The females’ ability to stock up on double the amount of sperm may provide a clue as to why they are so active in their efforts to find semen. The sperm is packaged with nutrient-filled spermatophores, which may serve as a source of nutrition in resource-deprived cave environments.

The lack of reliable food sources in Brazilian caves may have facilitated the evolution of sex-role reversals in the species, where females have a greater incentive to seek out and consume nutrients through their copulatory behavior.

A 79-year-old man from Japan ended up with a 90-inch jump-rope stuck in his bladder after inserting it into his urethra. In a published September study in Urology Case Reports, doctors found that the rope became tangled in the man’s bladder, forcing him to seek medical attention for difficulty with urination. Medical professionals investigating the issue found a wire-like coiled foreign body in his bladder accompanied by acoustic shadows, leading to the man’s admission of what happened. The medical team found surgery to be the only way to remove the rope through an incision in the man’s abdomen. While the man did recover from the surgery, he is not the only person to suffer from penis-related issues, as another patient had a USB cable stuck in his penis in the same month.