Photographed by Lauren Perlstein.If you've managed to get this far in your sex life without a trip to the ER, congrats. According to an analysis by VICE News and MedPage Today, serious sex-related injuries are a lot more common that you might think (ouch).
The teams went through almost 450 reports of sex-related injuries collected over the past six years in a government injury database. These included the stories of a 19-year-old woman who suffered a dental injury after falling out of her sex swing. There's also the 62-year-old man who had to deal with a "penile crushing injury" following a homemade contraption gone wrong.
But stories like that seem to be pretty rare. According to the data, the most common injuries (over half of those in the database) involve foreign objects going or getting stuck in places they aren't supposed to be. That includes toys originally meant for sex and some that were...not. And, as you might imagine, the majority of these injuries occurred in the lower trunk and pubic areas.
"We see a ton of these. Patients delay and sometimes don't come in for a few days," Robert Glatter, MD, of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York told VICE and MedPage Today. But waiting often makes these cases more serious, possibly even leading to sepsis, he says.
So, for best results, please enjoy your toysin the way they were intended. And if something happens, act quick. For more data, check out the full investigation here.
This month, we're sharing steamy personal stories, exploring ways to have even better sex, and wading through the complicated dynamics that follow us into the bedroom. Here's to a very happy February. Check out more right here.
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