In this very first episode of Important Question? we ask, under what circumstances would you be enticed into eating the flesh of another human being? Cannibalism isn’t common and it certainly isn’t culturally accepted in most areas of the world, but surely you could be convinced, right?
Caleb J. Ross and Gordon Highland explore possible scenarios that might support having a bite or two of a fellow human being. One part peer pressure + one part devil’s advocate = one very Important Question?
So…a book club, huh, that I’m leading because, well, I definitely read this book. All of the words. So if you too read all of the words in Infinite Jest then join me as I extrapolate meaning and wonder from this book.
You probably don’t know this, because I rarely talkaboutithere 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.
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.
In my newest novella, As a Machine and Parts, a character named Ferret seals a pet llama for the purpose of creative taxidermy (he turns the animal into an IED of sorts, though only for show, not for explosions). The resulting missing llama posters that pepper the neighborhood are heartbreaking, in a sense, as most readers can sympathize with a missing pet.
But too often we allow sympathy to cloud rationale. Maybe the pets aren’t missing at all. Maybe the pets escaped. Maybe the owners didn’t deserve the pets to begin with. With that in mind I bring you The True Stories behind Missing Pet Posters
#1. Fraternity House Novelty Goes Missing; Says Pledge Responsible: “Now I’ll never get to do pushups in Alpha Chi Ro piss garbage.”
When you’ve got capslock-worthy testicles it’d be a crime to keep them to yourself. Our dear pretentiously named London Brown isn’t lost at all. He’s simply decided that after years of free-balling for spectators it’s time to start charging. London Brown now services peanut-butter-toting coeds on the Vegas strip, where his similarly capitaled FRIENDLY personality comes in handy to garner quite the word-of-mouth clientele.
#2. Slug-Cat Hybrid Goes Missing. Only Witness is a Retarded Five Year Old Opium Mule
This fever-dream of a therapist couch homework assignment implies two things: 1) the parent needs to stop hiding her emergency opium stash in the Frosted Flakes box, and perhaps more importantly 2) the parent did not want this pet returned, which is a shame because a pet cat is probably the only friend this high school prom afterthought of a child will ever have.
Mother: “Sure little Susie, draw your cat with no eyes, two legs, and a lower torso half-emerging from Wilfred Brimley’s abandoned swimming pool cocoon. That’s a perfect representation of, what’s your cat’s name again? Meow? Yep, that sounds appropriate to your mental disposition.”
#3. Missing Leg: Last Seen Attached to Four Identical Legs and What Appears to be a Lethargic Wad of Fur
Okay, I get this one. When you’re a three-legged cat with a processed-meat-based name you can at least take comfort in the fact that when you escape your home your owner will have a substantial collection of scrapbook Glamour Shots to choose from when posting your photo all over the Hobby Lobby calligraphy stamp aisle (and let’s not kid ourselves, one less leg isn’t enough to keep any sane cat from attempting escape from that hell).
Buy 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.
For all the upcoming and recent graduates out there, this video is for you.
I graduated from college about 5 years ago, and given that temporal distance I feel confident in helping you find out exactly what you want to be when you “grow up”, professionally speaking. If you interpret the word “be” as some metaphysical, transcendental state this video isn’t for you. Pot is for you.
Determining possible career options is easier than you think. Just consider these 3 aspects:
A career must involve something you enjoy.
A career should involve something you are good at.
A career should involve something you can do over and over and over again
Watch the embedded video for some much needed extrapolation.
