Tales of bizarre sex acts and ghoulish sexual mishaps routinely circulate through schoolyards, locker rooms, and other venues for uninhibited discussions. But unlike slanderous stories implicating Buddhist actors in bald-faced violations of California's gerbil laws, the following stories are all true. Each has been duly and soberly reported in professional medical journals.

Concrete Enema. A 20-year-old gay man climaxed an intensely imaginative session of "fooling around" by receiving an enema consisting of a half pound of freshly mixed concrete followed by a ping pong ball to hold it in. The warmth of the slowly hardening cement was pleasant, but as the hours rolled on, he gradually realized that he was pioneering new extremes of constipation. Fortunately, doctors at the emergency room were able to remove what they described as "a perfect concrete cast of the rectum" without further incident.

The Belt and the Staple. A 40-year-old machinist developed the habit of masturbating during lunch hour by rubbing himself against a running canvas drive belt. One day, while nearing a climactic moment, he leaned in a little too close. The belt snagged his scrotum and threw him a few feet. In shock, he hastily stapled his torn and bleeding sac shut, not even noticing one testicle was gone. The urologist who later successfully treated him commented, "I can only assume he abandoned this method of self-gratification."

Hydraulic Passion. In rural areas, men love their tractors. But one 42-year-old Asian man took it too far. He named his John Deere JD410 backhoe "Stone," wrote poems about it, and included a photo of it in his Christmas newsletter. But the extent of his passion remained unrevealed until he was found dead, hanging by his neck from Stone's shovel. Stone was more than a tool; it had been his owner's partner in autoerotic asphyxiation. He raised and lowered the shovel via an improvised remote control to get just the right amount of suffocation. Unfortunately, this time he got just a skosh too much of a good thing.

Mud and a Corncob. After dinner at his fiancée's house, a 19-year-old man begged out of a trip to the mall. As soon as his bride-to-be and her family left, he stripped, shoved a corncob up his ass, filled a hole in the back yard with water and wallowed in it until he was completely covered in mud. He then hung himself by the neck and ankles from a fence for a little bit of autoerotic asphyxiation, only to accidentally strangle himself. When his future in-laws made the ghoulish discovery a few hours later, undoubtedly their shock was tinged with at least a faint sense of relief over the cancelled wedding.

The Love Bug. Back in the early '70s, a Texas man liked to strip naked and chain himself to the rear bumper of his '68 Volkswagen Beetle. He'd rig it to slowly drive around in circles and then gleefully jog after the trundling Bug. His hobby came to light only when he inadvertently snarled the chain around the rear axle. Before he could extricate himself, he was dragged against the right rear fender and crushed to death.

John Marr is the publisher of Murder Can Be Fun.