We’ve heard many times about the miracle of childbirth. Sometimes it seems a wee bit more miraculous.
Lesotho, Africa is a small nation surrounded on all sides by South Africa. It has maintained its independence with a combination of being difficult to access (it is surrounded on all sides by mountains and rivers) and lacking any resources which are unavailable in other parts of South Africa.
This is not to say the country is unreachable, not in any way. It has access to the tools of modern civilization just as do most other African nations. It has its problems with poverty and crime, and it has access to modern medicine.
The last of those helped shine an international spotlight (however small) on the nation in 1988, when a fifteen-year-old bar worker gave birth. This, on its own, would not have been particularly notable. The details of the birth, however, were.
An article was written for the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in September, 1988 that was titled “Oral conception. Impregnation via the proximal gastrointestinal tract in a patient with an aplastic distal vagina” by Douwe A. A. Verkuyl.
In non-medical speak, the girl became pregnant through oral sex. How could the physician be certain? Because she had no working vagina.
Specifically, she was born with a physical abnormality that effectively “sealed away” any of her normally-external sexual organs.
Mindful of that, as her body had matured, she had turned to oral methods of gratification for sexual favors. Her name was not provided in the journal, but her case was. She worked in a bar. She had recently performed fellatio on a person she described as her boyfriend when another man, who she referred to as her ex, came upon the pair and attacked with a knife. A scuffle ensued, and all three of them wound up going to the hospital with knife wounds. She suffered shallow cuts to the hand and one deep wound that perforated her stomach.
Surgery was performed, she was sewn up, and the case was assumed to be over.
278 days later, she was re-admitted to the hospital. She was, in fact, pregnant, and the child had been carried to full term. Her body was trying to eject the child, but there was no way for it to do so. A caesarian section was performed, resulting in a healthy child and a very confused mother.
Analysis of the available images from the prior case showed that not only had the stomach been perforated, there had been incidental cuts to other internal organs which had been repaired at the time. During that period, some sperm which had just reached the girl’s empty stomach and had not yet been exposed to gastrointestinal acids would have had the opportunity to “hitch a ride” on the knife blade and be brought into contact with an ovum.
The result of all of this, beyond the moment of international fame? That’s also available in the original article.
The young mother, her family, and the likely father adapted themselves rapidly to the new situation and some cattle changed hands to prove that there were no hard feelings.
The one lasting, definitive answer this provides, though, is that without a doubt, oral sex IS sex. After all, under the correct (albeit highly unusual) circumstances, it can get someone pregnant.
Question of the night: What’s your best bar/club experience?
