My anti-confrontational nature began at birth. Most kids cry when ripped from the womb. I shrugged. So when, during my first post-college agency job, I was prepping for a face-to-face meeting with a client that, for lack of a more tactful way of stating this, hated my company’s fucking face, I was nervous. My palms were sweaty, my heart was pounding, and I remember feeling as though the entire universe had suddenly snapped back like it had exceeded the limit of its cosmic elasticity and it was now pulling back in on itself with me at the very center, suffering the pressure of billions of years of macrocosmic expansion…you know, normal nerves stuff. But the impending client firing squad paled in comparison to the sudden realization, just before stepping out of my office door, that I had no idea how to tie a tie. And worse, I was in no position to ask for instructions. At that time—a new job, bosses to impress, living on my own—I had committed to a facade of manliness that I had never attempted before. This was new, unnerving territory for me. Failing to tie my own tie would not only chip away at the delicate sports-loving, car-jargon-speaking veneer that I had created, but would likely send me relapsing into a life once again governed by sports-indifference and car-jargon illiteracy. I had worked too hard to risk that. (more…)
Category: Funny Learning Series
Funny Learning is creative series of humorous essays (with an admittedly non-creative series name) that aims to bring a few laughs to the world of science and history, while at times shamelessly leveraging the events of my own life to bring a sense of narrative to the experience.
Think comedian Mike Birbiglia meets science writer Mary Roach meets verbose poop humor. Learn about the origins of the vasectomy (as well as helpful tips I learned via my own vasectomy), the discovery of sperm (spoiler: it involves penises), and much more.
Be sure to subscribe to email alerts to be notified every time a new Funny Learning essay is posted
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It Takes a Man to Get a Vasectomy
The first successful–and purposeful[1]“Purposeful” is used purposefully as I fear eunuchs, given that they’ve lost so much, would take offense to not being given at least some credit as early vasectomy adopters. Medically … Continue reading–vasectomy was done on a dog. There’s no documentation to support any of the possible theories as to why a dog was chosen, let alone the specific dog. It’s possible that a dog’s penis is simply similar to a human penis and therefore suffices as an anatomical stand-in. It’s possible that an ultra-capitalist breeder ordered the vasectomy to artificially curb supply for the particular breed. I prefer to imagine that the dog in question had aggressive genes and that its owner, not willing to have it euthanized, agreed to either of two alternate options: 1) dog condoms or 2) experimental wiener surgery. The wiener surgery was ultimately chosen I assume because at that time, the year 1823, condoms were “made of fish and animal intestine”[2]Notice the important grammatical choice here of leaving off “intestine” from fish, meaning that condoms were not made of fish intestines and animal intestines, but of whole fish. Think about that … Continue reading and nobody wanted to be the guy to wrap sheep guts around a dog boner.[3]Marvin the village creep volunteered, but nobody trusted their dog to be alone with him. (more…)
Footnotes
Footnotes ↑1 “Purposeful” is used purposefully as I fear eunuchs, given that they’ve lost so much, would take offense to not being given at least some credit as early vasectomy adopters. Medically speaking castrated is not the same as vasectomized, but I’m not willing to make that point to someone who has already lost what many men consider their reason for living. Are you? ↑2 Notice the important grammatical choice here of leaving off “intestine” from fish, meaning that condoms were not made of fish intestines and animal intestines, but of whole fish. Think about that next time you claim that a condom is uncomfortable. Source: http://www.vasectomy-information.com/moreinfo/history.htm ↑3 Marvin the village creep volunteered, but nobody trusted their dog to be alone with him. -
Tiny People in Your Semen: The Discovery of Sperm
UPDATE: After reading about the discovery of sperm, why not check out my other work? My main focus now is YouTube videos about video games. Check out my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/calebjrossWe take for granted the simplicity of procreation. Sperm + egg = baby. Sure there are superfluous operations often wedged within the greater formula, generally including + alcohol, – inhibition, or / legs (and in my case so many nights spent as the remainder), but there are three sex laws we have always been certain of, right? 1) Spermatozoon hunts for ovum, 2) ovum receives spermatozoon, and 3) sex leans toward brevity, both in the bedroom and in the dictionary (before shortening further to “sperm,” “spermatozoon” had seven additional syllables and drove a NYC taxi).
But math isn’t so simple. Consider this: the number zero wasn’t always a thing. Think about that. There was a time when an adolescent me, charged with the question “so how many girls have you kissed?” would have been morally justified to simply shrug my shoulders and let implication lie for me. But those damn Babylonians had to invent the zero, making it impossible to ethically skirt not only pre-teen sex surveys (the unwritten entrance exam to so many cliques) but also slightly more important questions like “so how many sperms do you see?”
“Zero” would no longer be an acceptable answer after Dutch amateur lensmaker and lonely guy Antonie van Leeuwenhoek combined his microscope-making hobby with his other hobby in 1677 to magnify some human ejaculate. Microscope + semen + zero = sperm! (more…)
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Banging the Berlin Wall
You probably don’t know this, because I rarely talk about it here on this blog, but my novella As a Machine and Parts has been re-released. You probably also don’t know that bitches be crazy.
Case in point: Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer loves the Berlin wall. And I don’t mean loves as in respects it because it represents Cold War oppression (which would be a weird thing to respect, I agree). I mean loves as in wants to fuck it because it represents Cold War oppression.
Meet the Cold War kids, sons of Mr. and Mrs. Berlin Wall To be fair, I don’t know if that’s why she loves the wall. Maybe she’s a WWII era East Germany sympathizer. Maybe she’s a synesthete who associates the rough texture of concrete with her father’s hug. But again, of course, let’s not rule out that she’s possibly an aforementioned bitch who be aforedescribed crazy.
No matter what issues she has, the relationship between a person and a non-organic object is something I write about in my book As a Machine and Parts, and something I write about here, on my blog. I hope you’re a synesthete who associates my book with awesome. You should buy it. It’s funny.
Ick! I’ve Bin Enside Her
So this Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer has been married to the Berlin Wall for over 30 years, which means if you’re doing the math that Mrs. Berliner-Mauer was involved with the wall when it was torn down in 1989. If it’s not already obvious that her priorities are a tad misaligned, her reaction to the wall’s destruction should cement that observation. Rather than join the world in collective celebration, the widow-in-making declared instead “What they did was awful. They mutilated my husband,” marking the first time in the history of Schadenfreude that German husband mutilation resulted in legitimate, unqualified sadness.
I now pronounce you man and disappointed in-laws. After the non-organic wall’s demolition Eija-Riitta turned to something truly crazy: smaller non-organic wall love. What! Gross, lady.
Mrs. Berliner-Mauer keeps a model miniature depicting the former glory of her fallen husband. It’s the same way some women marry Hitler action figures except that in the case of the mini-Hitlers that never ever actually happened and would definitely be frowned upon by every person capable of frowning.
Does this count as a dildo? This isn’t the first time the Berlin Wall has caught the eye of an under-medicated woman. Erika Eiffel, who later traded up to the Eiffel Tower, once dated the Berlin Wall. Her reason for their break-up: The Wall just couldn’t divide her East and her West like it used to. At least that’s what I imagine the reason being. In truth, it was probably just an extension Erika Eiffel’s crazy college years, experimenting with the female Eiffel Tower after having been disappointed by the male Berlin Wall.
Stayed tuned to this blog for the next installment in this series of posts that I wanted to call “Humping the Berlin Wall and Other Primitive Techniques for a Hairless Vagina,” but I’m a man, so I don’t know much about vaginas. Rather, I forgo an official name for the series and instead just tell you to get my book, As a Machine and Parts. There’s isn’t any Hitler humping in the book, but I agree, there should be.
Click to buy this book. 
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Porking the Eiffel Tower
I wrote this book, a short novella called As a Machine and Parts, about a man who finds himself slowly changing into a machine, a la Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis but with fewer traveling salesmen and cockroaches. The As a Machine and Parts titular machine is concerned that as he becomes more metal and less human, he will eventually lose his ability to love his girlfriend (“awwwww” is the correct response to that plot).
At some point before the start of my story the Machine, before he went full toaster, was 100% human, and therefore entered into mutual relationship with his human girlfriend. However, with real-life inter-thing relationships, mutual consent isn’t always a priority. A lifestyle called object sexuality forces literally 10s of buildings, rollercoasters, and concrete walls into unhealthy relationships with crazy people every day.
Object sexuality is a real thing, apparently, and is defined as “a pronounced emotional and often romantic desire towards developing significant relationships with particular inanimate objects.” It’s perhaps important to acknowledge just how one-sided and kind of rapey object sexuality is. That’s why I’m giving voice to the vocal chord-less in this, a series of posts that I really, really wanted to call “Shut Up About the Dogs, Sarah Mclachlan! Buildings Are Getting Raped Out There!” but I’m not sure Sarah Mclachlan is relevant anymore.
The Eiffel Tower Needs Some Space
In 2008, 37 year-old San Franciscan, Erika Eiffel, married the Eiffel Tower. No, the shared last name isn’t to implicate an incestual relationship; she actually changed her name to Eiffel. Say what you will, but considering her exes—including an archery bow named Lance, the Berlin Wall for a brief period, and even an F-15 fighter jet during her time in the United States Air Force (a love affair for which she was eventually discharged from service; the F-15 got to stay—fucking misogyny), the Eiffel Tower is quite a step up.
What’s that stereotype about Parisians having small penises? Oh, that’s right, there isn’t one. There may be a few ladies out there with a Parisian persuasion who totally get what Erika sees in this 1,063 foot riveted beast of a land penis. Unwilling to lust over good ol’ fashioned red-blooded American culture boners like the Space Needle or the Washington Monument, these women say, “damn, I’d like to ride the lift up that shaft—” Stop! Turns out, El Eiffel is La Eiffel (I don’t know French definite articles…but I do know what a definite article is, so that’s got to count for something). That’s right, he is a she. And by the way Erika describes her wife—”Her structure is just amazing. You know, she’s got subtle, subtle curves…”—I almost don’t care that to appreciate those curves one would have to fly to Paris, buy a lift ticket, and pray for that .0001% chance that nobody is watching while you get awful with the Eiffel . But that’s not the kind of hope I was raised to believe in. I’d rather just eat cheese and jerk off to a Frank Lloyd Wright documentary.
The former soldier and current punch line to every joke made by every Air Force soldier since, organized “an intimate ceremony attended by a handful of friends” to solidify their bond. These were all Erika’s friends, no doubt. Erika mentions nothing about the rest of the Eiffel family—not Eiffel Pillar, Eiffel Rampart, not even the physically deformed cousin Eiffel Plateau who sadly isn’t long for this world; that’s what happens when glaciers from the same family get together.
Maybe the Eiffel family was invited, but perhaps the Eiffels just don’t agree with same sex marriage. I mean, it couldn’t possibly be the case that the Eiffel’s aren’t a real family because the Eiffel tower isn’t a fucking person.
No, Lance, your stabilizer is big but, come on, it’s the Eiffel Fucking Tower What would Eiffel’s parents say?
Considering that the Eiffel Tower’s erection (heh) wasn’t unanimously supported to begin with, original tower designers Maurice Koechlin and Émile Nouguier are probably happy that their baby is now loved, even if by dirty American porc.
During the tower’s planning phase a group of architects and artists, led by Charles Garnier drafted quite the heated condemnation of the tower, published by Parisian newspaper Le Temps in 1887 (yes, that Charles Garnier, the mind behind Panorama Français, The Cercle de la Librairie, and lesser known Bâtiment Stupide). The petition, though irrelevant considering it was written after the tower was already under construction (typical lazy artists), reads with a beautiful verbosity that, should my kid ever be called ugly by a stranger, might make me consider for a moment that perhaps my kid is ugly, and that strangers, despite their stinky vans and poisoned candy, maybe should be trusted. Who could argue with conviction like this:
“We…protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection…of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years…we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal”
Eiffel seems to have been the awkward nerd of 1880’s France. It makes you wish for a “Proud of My Honor Roll Tower” bumper sticker to slap on the back of the Nouguier and Koechlin’s new-fangled Daimler wire-wheeled car. Luckily, self-esteem for the lanky tower isn’t a problem any longer with Mrs. Erika Eiffel by her side.
Does all this Eiffeling get you excited? Check out my novella As a Machine and Parts for an equally classy exploration of a person-on-non-person action. At least click the above link and read about the book.
What’s the next person-on-non-person situation I’m going to explore on this blog? I’m not sure. Come back often to find out, or subscribe to never miss a post.
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The 5 Most Painful Masturbation Techniques You’ll Probably Still Try Because, Let’s Face It, Men Are Gross, and Sometimes Romance Can Be Just As Painful
UPDATE: I know you are here for weird masturbation stories, but why not check out my other stuff while you are here. My main focus now is YouTube videos about video games. Check out my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/calebjrossBuy this book. Girls will let you put your wiener in them. Ever since man discovered his penis he’s dreamed of sticking it into things. It seems unfair for a single extremity to have so much power over a person, but the way I see it, if it weren’t the penis it’d be something worse, like the brain. And you don’t want that; a man’s brain can be dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that it’s been known to drive men to stick their penises into strange things.
I know, that’s circular logic, but I’m not thinking so well right now. All this talk of penis-sticking is starving my brain of blood. And is it just me, or is the term “circular logic” just begging for a good pounding?
The inciting incident of my newest novella, As a Machine and Parts, involves a woman’s unfortunate hospitalization after unwittingly having sex with a machine. I promise you, the situation is nothing like you’re imagining…unless you’re imagining that this woman got her leg crushed by her boyfriend who is slowly, and inexplicably, turning into a heavy hunk of metal. In which case, I’m impressed.
So, what happens if you don’t have a cyborg boyfriend handy but you still yearn to hospitalize yourself in an incredibly embarrassing way? Do what these dummies did. I give you the Top 5 Reasons to Believe your Husband when he Says that he has “Urges that Need to be Fulfilled;” because only a true need would drive someone to plug a Bissell handheld vac, which brings me to #5 of my more accurately titled
The 5 Most Painful Masturbation Techniques You’ll Probably Still Try Because, Let’s Face It, Men Are Gross, and Sometimes Romance Can Be Just As Painful
#5 You Dirty Devil, You
Most household appliances involve some form of insertion, whether bread to a toaster, hot dogs to a hot dog toaster (which, come to think of it, should probably be on this list), or dirt to a vacuum cleaner hose. This latter scenario seems the most appropriate (if I can use such a word) considering not onlythe cylindrical opening of the hose, but the sucking force as well. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s entirely feasible that the vacuum was originally invented as a sex robot and only later went the way of dirty floors.
Typical man, he’d rather die than cuddle afterwards. Per a report in the American Journal of Forensic and Medical Pathology (Vol 9, No. 3, 246-247, 1988) as found at the aptly titled Masturbation Horror site, a woman found her 57-year old neighbor dead after doing the dirty in the dirt trap of a vacuum cleaner. The official cause of death was heart attack. But the official cause of coitus was love.
What’s even more odd about this story is that by judge of the image above, this man seems to have bypassed the hose attachment altogether, going right for the main sweeper. Is this the equivalent of anal?
#4 Georgia O’Keeffe would approve
This story comes from a reader submissions section of the Masturbation Horror site (selectively quoted for maximum hilarity).
“I had this flute-style glass flower vase, and it looked perfect for masturbation…I opened this old trunk I had and put it between the open lip and the lid. When I got on my knees it was the perfect height. Well, it was working great until I put too much pressure on the lid and it crushed the vase with my cock inside it…There was blood everywhere, and I had to have emergency surgery…”
And that is where the story should have ended. But no.
“…and I contemplated suicide many times, and almost did it once. I have lived with the terror and humiliation beyond all description.”
You’ve chosen the right way to curb humiliation, sir, by submitting your story publicly on the internet to a site called Masturbation Horror.
While this story cannot be validated by a fancy American Journal of Forensic blah, blah, I include it because, well, honestly I’m quite proud of the title I came up for it. Come on, O’Keeffe’s famous paintings of flowers that look like vaginas…sticking it to a flower vase…it’s poetic in a way.
Don’t let FTD charge you for two vases on Mother’s Day. That other hole is exit only. #3 Cleaning up with Tissues and a Staple Gun
I almost considered not including this one in the list. It definitely qualifies as “painful masturbation” but the way this gentleman remedies his self-pleasured/ -inflicted injury should elevate him to a different Top Five list altogether, perhaps a Top Five Things Chuck Norris Wishes He Were Man Enough To Do (is the Chunk Norris meme thing still relevant?…no…shit).
An article in the July 1991 issue of Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality (which I would love to subscribe to if magazines were still a thing) an “unmarried loner” had “begun the regular practice of masturbating by holding his penis against the canvas drive-belt of a large floor-based piece of running machinery” in the machine shop where he worked. I know what you’re thinking: this being a “regular practice” for the man should immediately nullify any harsh judgments. He’s practically a professional. Next story, right? Wrong.
One particularly non-concentratey day his “scrotum suddenly became caught between the pulley-wheel and the drive-belt, he was thrown into the air and landed a few feet away.” Okay, even David Copperfield has an off-night. Next story, right? Wrong.
“Unaware that he had lost his left testis…he stapled the wound closed and resumed work.”
Resumed work on what, is the question. I mean, he has all day to make widgets and metal whatevers, but his coworkers are going to be back from lunch any second! Better hurry up and finish literally rubbing that one out.
Bonus points for this guy, as his injury allowed all of us to learn that the singular form of testes is testis.
#2 Chuck Palahniuk Shows Us All How Sexy Swimming Pools Can Be
Between 2003 and 2007 author Chuck Palahniuk read his short story “Guts” aloud to numerous live audiences, resulting in over 60 people reportedly fainting during the readings. One particular aspect of the story is blamed/credited for the faintings: a character attempts homoerotic asphyxiation in a swimming pool, causing his rectum and lower intestines to prolapse when he gets stuck to the water intake valve at the bottom of the pool. Tangled innards ensues, followed by the narrator having to gnaw through the prolapsed accoutrement to avoid drowning.
But Caleb, isn’t this fiction? Well, according to Palahniuk this is a story he heard while shadowing sexual addiction support groups for his 2001 novel Choke. And I’m simply not willing to believe that sexually addicted people would lie, you know, except for claiming that they are addicted to sex.
If you want 100% truth, the eternally sexy swimming pool still delivers. In July 1994, the St. Petersburg Times reported in a blame-displacing and spoiler alert ignoring article called “Swimmer’s Penis Gets Stuck in Pool” that a swimmer’s penis got stuck in a pool. There’s not much more to the story. Man + Non-Human Hole + Florida = Well, it’s Florida.
Really, Florida itself is just a giant penis lured into the ocean’s sexy suction fitting #1 So it is Possible to do it too Much!
There’s this condition called Fournier’s Gangrene, which I will pray to the god of hilarious legacies is named after a real person, a la Lou Gehrig’s disease. But unlike the lifestyle neutral diagnosis of Lou Gehrig’s disease, Fournier’s Gangrene implies a lot about the hygiene and fap habits of our infamous Mr. Fournier. How so? Please continue.
Fournier’s Gangrene is, as Case Reports in Emergency Medicine defines, “a rare and often fulminant necrotizing fasciitis of the perineum and genital region frequently due to a synergistic polymicrobial infection.” In masturbayman’s terms: waking your junk so hard that the skin splits and those dirty, dirty germs from your dirty, dirty hands causes an infection that ultimately leads to the death of your undercarriage.
Who knew harry palms and blindness could be the least of your problems?
“It’s a coincidence, I swear” Feel free to leave your best tragic masturbation stories in the comments below. No, actually don’t do that. Please don’t do that.
But do give my novella, As a Machine and Parts a read. There’s one scene in which the main character mentions dreaming about injecting Twinkies with crème filling, which he interprets as a wet dream, so, that’s masturbatory enough to fittingly cap this article, right?
Click to buy this book. Girls will still let you put your wiener in them.