There’s nothing scary about sex, nothing at all. That is, until you wake up naked and facedown in a stranger’s bed, bald, blindfolded, gagged and handcuffed to the headboard, bleeding from at least two orifices and your newly pierced nipples, covered in leeches and dog bites and cigarette burns and missing part of an earlobe and a vital organ, with no recollection whatsoever of how you got there or why you smell like honey and have foreign currency and a note that reads, “Call me!” stuck to your ass.

FACT 835 During pregnancy, uterine volume expands from about one milliliter of fluid area to almost twenty liters.

FACT 836 The womb shrinks back to half its pregnant weight within a week of giving birth. The ass takes a little longer.

FACT 837 The word “taboo” is possibly derived from the Polynesian word for menstruation.

FACT 838 History’s most prolific mother was an eighteenth-century Russian who gave birth to sixty-nine children in forty years: sixteen pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets. For forty years, every time she stood up, a baby fell out of her vagina.

FACT 839 Vaginal prolapse occurs when the rectum, uterus, bladder or weakened pelvic muscles push on the vagina. In severe cases, the vagina can protrude from the body.

FACT 840 Vaginal dryness is a frequent symptom of menopause, as is vaginal atrophy, when the organ becomes thinner and less elastic.

FACT 841 The clitoris contains eight thousand nerve endings, twice as many as the penis.

FACT 842 The average vagina is three to four inches long but can expand by 200 percent when sexually aroused. It’s an optimistic organ.

FACT 843 Both vaginas and shark livers contain squalene, a natural lubricant.

FACT 844 Only a third of women have orgasms from intercourse alone.

FACT 845 Orgasms can lower a woman’s risk of heart disease, stroke, breast cancer and depression.

FACT 846 Orgasms can also strengthen a woman’s immune system, improve her sleep, regulate menstrual cycles, relieve menstrual cramps, lower stress levels and improve self esteem.

FACT 847 Pregnancy can cause vaginal discharge, an increase in odors, itching and a swelling of the vulva that has been dubbed “cheeseburger crotch.”

FACT 848 Uterine rupture during pregnancy occurs most often at the site of a previous C-section incision; it is a catastrophic complication with a high incidence of fetal and maternal morbidity.

FACT 849 The only mammals that experience menopause are elephants, humpback whales and human females.

FACT 850 Fourth-degree vaginal tears during pregnancy can damage the perineal muscles, the sphincter and the lining of the rectum.

FACT 851 Toxic shock syndrome (TSS) is a rare, bacteria-caused illness occurring mostly in menstruating women who use high-absorbency tampons. Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, high fever and drops in blood pressure.

FACT 852 In severe cases, TSS infection can cause kidney and liver failure.

FACT 853 You can get pregnant during menstruation: sperm can live inside a woman for three to five days after intercourse, and ovulation can occur during or shortly after the bleeding phase.

FACT 854 Over her lifetime, the average woman will spend roughly 3,500 days menstruating and use about 11,400 tampons.

FACT 855 Women’s periods tend to be heavier, more painful and longer during cold months.

FACT 856 In some parts of India, a woman indicates that she is menstruating by wearing a handkerchief around her neck stained with her menstrual blood.

FACT 857 Some scientists have suggested harvesting stem cells from menstrual blood.

FACT 858 The clitoris is the only organ in the human body that exists solely for sexual pleasure.

FACT 859 Clitoraid is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to repair the clitorises of victims of female circumcision, not a sports drink for women.

FACT 860 The average clitoris is around four inches in length, but, like a penis, the majority of the organ is hidden from view within the body.

FETISHES: SEX OUTSIDE THE BOX. WAY OUTSIDE.

We don’t mean to judge, but some of you need professional help.

FACT 861 The World Health Organization and psychiatry’s DSM-IV manual classify “fetishism” as a mental illness.

FACT 862 The World Health Organization describes a fetish as a “reliance on some non-living object as a stimulus for sexual arousal and sexual gratification.” The fetish object might “simply serve to enhance sexual excitement achieved in ordinary ways (e.g. having a partner wear a particular garment).”

FACT 863 Individuals with agalmatophilia are sexually attracted to mannequins, dolls or statues.

FACT 864 People who like to dress up in animal costumes for sexual gratification have ursusagalmatophilia, which nobody can pronounce, so they call themselves “furries” or “plushies” instead. Or “single.”

FACT 865 Individuals with osmolagnia are sexually aroused by bodily odors like sweat and flatulence.

FACT 866 Paraphilic infantilism is sex play while wearing diapers and pretending to be a baby.

FACT 867 Women with hybristophilia are attracted to “bad boy” types, which can include prisoners serving time for horrific crimes.

FACT 868 A fetish known as hematolagnia involves using or even drinking blood in a sexual way. “With the popularity of Twilight, I’ve seen an increase in vampire fantasies and biting,” says one sex therapist. Everyone else has seen an increase in suck.

FACT 869 Sexual arousal from biting is called odaxelagnia.

FACT 870 For people with mechanophilia, motorized vehicles and gadgets are central to the sexual experience.

FACT 871 If tears turn you on, you might be a dacryphiliac.

FACT 872 Teratophilia is sexual attraction to deformed or monstrous people; one form of this is acrotomophilia, sexual attraction to amputees.

FACT 873 Emetophilia involves vomiting or watching others vomit for sexual pleasure.

FACT 874 Crush fetishists enjoy watching small insects or animals being crushed to death. Inanimate objects like cigarettes, fruit or toy cars can also be crush fetish stimuli.

FACT 875 Klismaphilia is the fetish in which pleasure is derived from enemas. It is sometimes regarded as a form of anal masturbation.

FACT 876 Necrophilia is a sexual attraction to human corpses. This fetish can lead to grave-robbing and sexual activity with the dead body.

FACT 877 Squashing is a fetish that involves one person being squashed by a much heavier partner.

FACT 878 Balloon fetishists, or “looners,” are people who are sexually stimulated by and/or have sex with balloons, similar to those with latex fetish.

FACT 879 According to the TLC series Strange Sex, there are as many as half a million looners in the United States alone.

FACT 880 People with biastophilia enjoy acting out rape fantasies.

FACT 881 Acucullophilia is sexual attraction to hairless genitals.

FACT 882 A person with autassassinophilia gets turned on by feeling as though his or her life is in danger.

FACT 883 People with cross-eyed fetish are, as you might have guessed, attracted to others with crossed eyes. René Descartes was one. Actually, to his cross-eyed girlfriend, he was two.

FACT 884 Dendrophilia is a sexual attraction to trees, which is largely based on the notion of the tree as a phallic symbol.

FACT 885 Pyrophilia is sexual gratification from fire or arson.

FACT 886 Retifism is better known as a foot fetish, or sexual attraction to feet or shoes.

FACT 887 For individuals with taphephilia, sexual pleasure is derived from being buried alive. But then you’re all horny and stuck in the ground alone, so what’s the point?

FACT 888 Archnephilia is sexual attraction to spiders, especially daddy longlegs.

FACT 889 Frotteurism is sexual arousal by nonconcensual groping or rubbing one’s genitals against a victim, typically in crowded places like an elevator or concert.

FACT 890 Tamakeri is a Japanese fetish where men love to be kicked in the balls by women.

FACT 891 Oculolinctus involves licking someone’s eyeball for sexual pleasure.

FACT 892 Chrematistophiliacs get off on having to pay for sex or being robbed by a sexual partner.

FACT 893 Mysophilia is sexual gratification from smelling or tasting things like sweaty underwear, soiled clothing or used tampons.

FACT 894 Symphorophilia is sexual arousal from car accidents or other disasters, as portrayed in the 1996 film Crash (not the 2005 Oscar winner for Best Picture).

FACT 895 Smoking can shrink a man’s penis by up to a centimeter.

FACT 896 The longest recorded distance of a male ejaculation was more than eighteen feet. Who measures these things?

FACT 897 Sperm travel as fast as two hundred inches per second, or about 11 mph.

FACT 898 Congenital hypoplasia occurs when the penile glands are stuck directly to the pubic bone, resulting in a very small penis.

FACT 899 Despite what men might claim, only 15 percent have a penis longer than seven inches. Only 3 percent have a penis more than eight inches long.

FACT 900 The world’s largest recorded penis belongs to forty-one-year-old New Yorker Jonah Falcon, whose appendage measures 9.5 inches flaccid and 13.5 inches erect.

FACT 901 Handyman Charles Lennon has “suffered” through a perpetual erection since being fitted with a steel penis implant in 1996. The good news is, he doesn’t have to carry a hammer anymore.

FACT 902 Lennon sued the implant’s maker, Dacomed Corp., over his decade-long boner and was awarded $400,000 for pain and suffering. He used some of the money to buy bigger pants.

FACT 903 In a Spanish study on male attractiveness, women consistently disregarded looks and chose men who turned out to have the healthiest sperm.

FACT 904 One in every 400 men is flexible enough to give himself a blow job. The other 399 have tried.

FACT 905 The average male orgasm lasts six seconds; the average female orgasm lasts twenty seconds.

FACT 906 The impulse to ejaculate comes from the spinal cord; no brain is needed.

FACT 907 The most common cause of penile rupture is vigorous masturbation. If that happens, you’re doing it wrong.

FACT 908 Size might matter after all: a study done by the State University of New York found that the longer your penis, the better your semen’s chances of fertilizing a female ovum, particularly in the presence of competing sperm.

FACT 909 History’s busiest penis surely belonged to King Fatefehi of Tonga, who reportedly deflowered 37,800 women between 1770 and 1784, or about seven virgins a day. It’s good to be king.

FACT 910 There is no relation between penis size and race.

FACT 911 Circumcised foreskin can be reconstructed, but the process requires the use of plastic rings, caps and weights.

FACT 912 If a man claims he lost control of his penis, he might be telling the truth. The penis is controlled by his autonomic nervous system, which also regulates heart rate and blood pressure, so sexual arousal is mostly involuntary.

FACT 913 Heavy lifting or straining to have a bowel movement can also produce an erection.

FACT 914 A man’s penis is shaped like a boomerang: the root is tucked inside his pelvis and attached to his pubic bone.

FACT 915 One method of surgical penis enlargement is to cut the suspensory ligament that holds the root of the penis up inside the pelvis.

FACT 916 Surgical penis enlargement can only add an inch or so to the length or your penis. But for a guy with a one-centimeter schlong, an extra inch is a big deal.

FACT 917 One team of researchers reports that while 85 percent of women are satisfied with their partner’s penis size, only 55 percent of men were happy with their own size.

FACT 918 The same research team found that 0.2 percent of men surveyed would prefer a smaller penis.

FACT 919 A 2002 study published in Europe found that only 20 percent of women surveyed considered penile length “important.” Only 1 percent considered it “very important.”

FACT 920 Ninety percent of female respondents in a 2001 poll said that the thickness of a penis contributes more to their sexual pleasure than the length.

FACT 921 The largest penis in the animal kingdom in relation to size belongs to the barnacle, whose 40:1 penis ratio would give him a 240-foot-long organ if he were human. And he would still say it was 280.

FACT 922 In relative terms, the tuberous bushcricket has the world’s biggest testicles—a full 14 percent of its body weight. The same ratio on a two-hundred-pound man would give him a twenty-eight-pound set of nuts. And a backache.

FACT 923 During fetal development, the gonads for males and females are the same until about six weeks of age. The sex organs will become either testicles or ovaries during the first trimester of pregnancy.

FACT 924 Testicles sweat for a reason: the perspiration keeps the balls cool to ensure better sperm production.

FACT 925 The left testicle usually hangs lower than the right for right-handed men. The opposite is true for lefties.

FACT 926 Undescended testes are common in male babies, affecting a third of premature infants and 4 percent of on-time newborns.

FACT 927 Undescended testicles can cause infertility, sexual dysfunction and a higher risk of testicular cancer.

FACT 928 Testicles are sensitive because the body wants you to protect this vital reproductive area.

FACT 929 The nerves in testicles are connected to the abdomen, another reason why force to the area causes so much pain, and why that pain is felt in the stomach.

FACT 930 “Blue balls” is a real condition. If a male is aroused for a long period of time and does not orgasm, fluid builds up and cramping occurs.

FACT 931 Contact sports, like football, soccer and martial arts, can result in traumatic blows to the groin, affecting a male’s sperm production and fertility—and his desire to continue playing contact sports like football, soccer and martial arts.

FACT 932 Some blows to the groin can rupture the testicles, causing bleeding in the scrotum.

FACT 933 Orchitis is inflammation of one or both testicles and may be caused by bacteria or a virus like mumps.

FACT 934 Testicular cancer is most common in men between the ages of twenty and thirty-nine.

FACT 935 Factors that increase a man’s risk of testicular cancer include age, family history of testicular cancer, delayed descent of testicles as an infant, and abnormal testes development.

FACT 936 A man’s lifetime chance of having testicular cancer is about 1 in 270.

FACT 937 As testicular cancer is one of the most curable forms of cancer, the risk of death is low, at about 1 in 5,000.

FACT 938 The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2012 there will be about 8,590 new cases of testicular cancer in the United States.

FACT 939 Three hundred and sixty of those cases will be fatal.

FACT 940 Hitler and Napoleon each had only one testicle. Together they were two nuts.

FACT 941 At five hundred kilograms (eleven hundred pounds) each, the testes of the right whale are the largest in the animal kingdom.

FACT 942 An octopus’s testicles are located in its head.

FACT 943 During mating with the queen bee, the male drone’s genitals explode and snap off inside the queen.

FACT 944 The word “avocado” comes from the Aztec word for testicles.

FACT 945 The orchid’s name is based on the Greek word órkhis, literally meaning “testicle,” because of the shape of its root.

FACT 946 There are more than fifteen thousand videos listed under “hit in the balls” on YouTube.

FACT 947 Almost three-quarters of men age seventy are still potent.

FACT 948 In a 2007 MSNBC poll, 28 percent of married men admitted to having extramarital sex, compared to 18 percent of married women.

FACT 949 The same poll found that 15 percent of men and 7 percent of women have engaged in online sex or sexual webcamming.

FACT 950 Around 90 percent of the total male population say they masturbate, but only 60 to 65 percent of the total female population admit it.

FACT 951 This difference might be explained by the fact that many women don’t begin masturbating until their twenties or thirties, while men usually begin in their early teens.

FACT 952 Men lie more often than women about the number of sex partners they have had.

FACT 953 In a Cosmopolitan poll, only 25 percent of women and 12 percent of men reported being completely satisfied with their sex lives.

FACT 954 Fewer than 10 percent of women say they’ve participated in a threesome; 14 percent of men say they have.

FACT 955 A third of men polled say that having a threesome with their partner is their top sexual fantasy, but a quarter of men have no interest in a threesome.

FACT 956 Almost 10 percent of women polled say they have masturbated at work. Almost 10 percent of men say they have masturbated on work.

FACT 957 More men than women admit accessing porn at work, but not by much: 20 percent of men vs. 13 percent of women.

STDs: NATURE’S CHASTITY BELT

Because every good thing has a catch.

FACT 958 The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 340 million cases of curable STDs occur every year.

FACT 959 Many sexually transmitted diseases can remain asymptomatic for years.

FACT 960 Chlamydia is the most frequently reported bacterial sexually transmitted disease in the United States, with an estimated 2.8 million infections every year.

FACT 961 Because symptoms of chlamydia in women are usually mild or absent, serious complications that cause irreversible damage can occur before a woman ever recognizes a problem.

FACT 962 The CDC estimates that more than seven hundred thousand people in the United States contract gonorrhea every year.

FACT 963 Gonorrhea can affect the anus, eyes, mouth, genitals or throat.

FACT 964 Pelvic inflammatory disease, a serious complication of STDs like chlamydia and gonorrhea, can lead to internal abscesses—pus-filled pockets that are hard to cure—and chronic pelvic pain.

FACT 965 Gonorrhea can be life-threatening if it spreads to the blood or joints.

FACT 966 Drug-resistant strains of gonorrhea are increasing in many areas of the world, including the United States.

FACT 967 The merkin, or pubic wig, became popular in the 1400s among prostitutes who shaved off their pubic hair due to lice infection or who needed to cover up sores and other evidence of STDs.

FACT 968 Hepatitis A is an acute liver disease acquired from ingestion of even microscopic amounts of fecal matter.

FACT 969 Hepatitis B, which can lead to liver disease or liver cancer, is acquired by contact with infectious blood, semen or other body fluids of an infected person.

FACT 970 You can get Hepatitis C from contact with the blood of an infected person, primarily through sharing contaminated needles to inject drugs. The virus can lead to cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer.

FACT 971 One out of every six Americans aged fourteen to forty-nine has a genital herpes HSV-2 infection.

FACT 972 Visible open sores are not required to contract herpes (HSV-1 and HSV-2); transmission can occur from a partner who has no evidence of infection and may not know that he or she has the disease.

FACT 973 Herpes may play a role in the spread of HIV: herpes can make people more susceptible to HIV infection and can make HIV-positive individuals more infectious.

FACT 974 At least half of sexually active men and women will get HPV (human papillomavirus) at some point in their lives.

FACT 975 Untreated HPV infections can cause cancer of the cervix, vulva, vagina, penis, anus or oropharynx (back of the throat, including the base of the tongue and the tonsils).

FACT 976 Individuals who are infected with other STDs are up to five times more likely than uninfected individuals to acquire HIV infection if they are exposed to the virus through sexual contact.

FACT 977 Trichomoniasis is the most common curable STD in young, sexually active women. An estimated 7.4 million new cases occur each year in women and men.

FACT 978 In late stages of syphilis, the disease can damage the brain, nerves, eyes, heart, blood vessels, liver, bones and joints.

FACT 979 Syphilis can cause muscle coordination problems, paralysis, numbness, gradual blindness, dementia and death.

FACT 980 Most cases of syphilis occur among men who have sex with other men.

FACT 981 Condoms do not prevent STDs: you can catch diseases from skin-on-skin genital contact.

FACT 982 The STD lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV) was once rare but is now becoming more common in developed nations, and can be fatal.

FACT 983 Granuloma inguinale causes small, painless ulcers and warts that burst and spread, making it a dangerous STD infection if left untreated.

FACT 984 STDs aren’t limited to young people. From 2005 to 2009, the number of syphilis and chlamydia cases among Americans aged fifty-five to sixty-four increased significantly more than the national growth rate for those diseases.

FACT 985 In the Middle Ages, syphilis was treated with mercury, a highly toxic heavy metal that occasionally killed the patient. That’s one way to cure the disease.

FACT 986 Herpes has been around since ancient times. Roman emperor Tiberius banned kissing at public events to curb the spread of the disease.

FACT 987 Herpes was once thought to be caused by insect bites.

FACT 988 Syphilis infection of an unborn fetus by its mother can result in spontaneous abortion, stillbirth, or death in the mother’s womb. Birth defects are common for those babies who survive delivery.

FACT 989 In July 1981, the New York Times reported an outbreak of a rare form of cancer among gay men in New York and California after emergency rooms began to see a rash of seemingly healthy young men with fevers, flu-like symptoms and pneumonia. This was the beginning of what has become the biggest health care concern in modern history, the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

FACT 990 In 1984 there were eight thousand confirmed cases of HIV in the United States. By 1990 that number had grown to 1 million.

FACT 991 By the end of 2003, AIDS had orphaned 12 million children in sub-Saharan Africa.

FACT 992 An estimated 1.3 million Africans died from AIDS in 2009.

FACT 993 The first name suggested for AIDS, Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID), was rejected because it did not account for at-risk individuals such as intravenous drug users, recipients of blood transfusions, and heterosexual partners of AIDS patients.

FACT 994 The 2009 rate of chlamydia infection for women was three times that of men.

FACT 995 The 2009 rate of syphilis for men was more than five times that of women.

FACT 996 Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi all placed among the top five states for syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia cases in 2009. Mississippi ranked number one in two of the three categories. Alaska was the only non-Southern state to appear in any of the lists.

FACT 997 Women who read romance novels have sex twice as often as those who don’t.

FACT 998 After fingers and vibrators, candles are the phallic objects used most often by female masturbators. Unlit ones, hopefully.

FACT 999 When two people kiss, they exchange between 10 million and 1 billion bacteria.

FACT 1,000 Kissing is good for teeth: the anticipation of a kiss increases the flow of saliva in the mouth, giving the teeth a plaque-dispersing bath.

FACT 1,001 At the 2009 Masturbate-A-Thon in Denmark, a woman set the distance record by squirting her ejaculate an impressive 10.3 feet.

FACT 1,002 The world record for ongoing masturbation belongs to a man who pleasured himself for nearly ten straight hours at the San Francisco Masturbate-A-Thon in 2009.

FACT 1,003 For pain relief, sex is ten times more effective than Valium.