for anyone who needs cheering up: a brief note on the biomechanics of a human penis. also, walruses.

"[The steely feel of a true erection is] not exactly an exaggeration. The collagen fibers surrounding the corpus cavernosum of an erect penis are as stiff, by weight, a steel. I learned this in 1999, while interviewing Diane Kelly, then at Cornell University, the planet's lone expert on the biomechanics of the mammalian penis. The fibers are arranged in two layers, one perpendicular to the other, which keeps erections from bending or ballooning out of shape when they're squeezed. If you use enough force, however, a penis will buckle. "Penile fracture" is the preferred term. It refers to a ruptured corpus cavernosum rather than a broken bone. Humans don't have penis bones. Dogs do, and chipmunks and muskrat and various other mammals, all of them represented in the fabulous Smithsonian Institution penis bone collection that languishes, tragically, in an off-site storage facility. THe largest penis bone is that of a walrus. The Inuit call it an oosik and used it as a war club."

This brought to you by Mary Roach's Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Sex and Science, highly recommended to those who wish to spout curious facts about the history of cock rings, whether or not the clitoris is a subcutaneous penis, or the truth about tilting, which is, in fact, that it is perfectly normal^[1].

Also^[2].

^[1] "A comforting word about the crooked penis. Dr Hsu [surgeon specializing in, basically, ED] says it is rare to see one that stands perfectly straight. Actually, what he said was: "Most men are communists! Lean to the left! Second most common: bow down, like Japanese gentleman! Number three, to the right. Four, up! Like elephant!"

^[2] Footnotes.