Hoax Museum Blog: Sex/Romance

Pherotones — Pherotones are ringtones that will make you "irresistible to the opposite sex." They're basically like pheromones, but they work via sound rather than scent. They're also a hoax. According to NewsTrend.com, the website promoting them is part of a viral marketing campaign dreamed up by the McKinney-Silver ad agency. NewsTrend writes:

The first mentions of Pherotones began around December 30, on "Dr. Vanderhood's" Pherotones blog, where the good doctor began posting "an ongoing diary of the life of a scientist on the verge of a major breakthrough." The JoniMueller blog caught wind of the Pherotones blog and posted about it on January 16. The real story began to break on January 18th with an Oreilly interview with Vanderhood.

The strange thing is that no one knows what this stealth marketing campaign is for. It seems a bit useless to attract all this attention, and then blow it by not revealing what you're advertising. (Thanks to Thilo for the link.)

Woman Marries Dolphin — A British woman has married a dolphin. The touching ceremony took place at Dolphin Reef in the Israeli port of Eilat (which is, I guess, where the dolphin lives). The dolphin is named Cindy, but despite the female name seems to be a male. (That would have made it even more unconventional if it was a gay interspecies marriage.) No word on where the couple plan to honeymoon. And one can only speculate on whether this marriage will ever be consummated.

This may be the first human/dolphin marriage, but I don't think it's the first interspecies marriage. After all, I've posted before about Marry Your Pet, the website that provides a marriage certificate to those who want to wed their beloved animal. As for weird weddings, the other example that comes to mind (besides Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson) is that woman who married a dead poet.

The Husband Mannequin — Suzy Walker's husband is away from home, serving on the USS West Virginia. But you'd hardly know he was gone, because Suzy carries around a life-size mannequin of him:

Walker bought her stand-in man for $200 and she takes him everywhere. He's been to the movie theater, Victoria's Secret, and the gas station to buy lottery tickets. The couple attracts lots of attention.

The only thing that could make this creepier would be if it turned out she didn't have a real husband. Didn't William Faulkner write a short story with a premise like that?

Sexsomnia — I first reported about the phenomenon of sleep sex over a year ago. It's a rare disorder that causes people to engage in sexual behavior while asleep. It's also potentially one of the greatest excuses for sexual impropriety ever devised. Now there's a case in Canada in which a guy successfully defended himself against charges of sexual assault by arguing that he's a sexsomniac:

Jan Luedecke, 33, met his victim at a party on July 6, 2003, and both had been drinking, the Toronto Sun reported. The woman, who can't be named, fell asleep on a couch and said she awoke to find him having sex with her. She pushed him off, then called the police. Luedecke claimed he fell asleep on the same couch and woke up when he was thrown to the floor. Sleep expert Dr. Colin Shapiro testified Luedecke had sexsomnia, which is sexual behavior during sleep, brought on by alcohol, sleep deprivation and genetics. The judgment outraged women's groups, the newspaper said.

I'm willing to bet that as popular awareness of sexsomnia grows, it'll begin to be used as a defense more and more often. It'll be like the mirror image of the repressed memory mania (i.e. a mania of not remembering, instead of remembering). The phenomenon itself may be real, but it sure seems like it's a malady tailor-made for con artists.

Wait For The Bling — Sightings of a curious abstinence-promoting billboard are being reported throughout Iowa. The message that the billboard offers: Wait For The Bling. While teen pregnancy is obviously a serious problem, these billboards almost seem like a joke (and have a few people questioning if they're photoshopped). But they seem to be real. The fine print on the bottom of the billboard reveals that they're created by the Iowa Department of Public Health's Abstinence Education Program. Maybe they'll have the desired effect, though I doubt it. Seems to me like they could just as easily be interpreted to mean "Don't do anything until the guy gives you an expensive gift." (via Eschaton)

Date Bait — Match.com, an online dating service, has been accused of sending some of its members bogus romantic emails in an effort to get them to renew their subscriptions. But even stranger, it's also been accused of sending Match.com employees out on phony dates with subscribers:

The Match lawsuit was filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by plaintiff Matthew Evans, who contends he went out with a woman he met through the site who turned out to be nothing more than "date bait" working for the company. The relationship went nowhere, according to his suit. Evans says Match set up the date for him because it wanted to keep him from pulling the plug on his subscription and was hoping he'd tell other potential members about the attractive woman he met through the service, according to Leviant [Evans's lawyer]... Leviant said his client found out about the alleged scam after the woman he dated confessed she was employed by Match.

If Match.com really was paying a woman to go out with this guy, that would seem like an incredibly expensive way to generate a very small amount of publicity. It seems more likely that the girl made up the story about being a Match.com employee as a way to dump the guy.

Police Officer Declares Himself Hindu Deity — A male police officer in India has declared himself to be the reincarnation of Radha, the female consort of the Hindu god Krishna. Naturally, he dresses the part:

Devendra Kumar Panda, a 1971 batch officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS), presents an odd sight draped in female attire - complete with nose ring, lipstick, finger and toe nails painted red - and singing hymns in praise of Lord Krishna and dancing. "Lord Krishna has himself assigned me the role of Radha and whatever I am doing is in pursuance of his wishes," 57-year-old Panda told IANS.

However, his wife isn't buying any of it:

On Saturday, Panda chose to put up a full-scale performance before a host of TV cameras in his house. "I see nothing wrong with this. After all, I am carrying out the will of almighty Lord Krishna," he said. An unimpressed Veena has declared her husband as "fake" and refuses to believe his claims about divinity. "He is indulging in all other normal activities, and even chats on the Internet. I am sure all this façade is put up by him to find some excuse for remaining in the company of women, whom he describes as 'Krishna's gopis'," she alleged.

As strategies for picking up women go, that's a pretty elaborate one. I wonder if it actually works.

Yorkshire Man Raped By Dog — The following story has been circulating around, even getting posted in the hoax forum (warning: don't read it if you're easily offended):

Extract from the Yorkshire Evening Post:
A drunk who claimed he had been raped by a dog was yesterday jailed for 12 months by a judge. Martin Hoyle, 45, was arrested by police after a passing motorist and his girlfriend found a Staffordshire bull terrier, called Badger, having sex with him at the side of a road in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
Prosecutor Ben Crosland said the couple had stopped to help because they thought Hoyle was being attacked by the animal. But when they got closer they saw that he had his trousers round his ankles, was down on all fours and the dog was straddling him from behind.
"The defendant mumbled something about the dog having taken a liking to him," said Mr Crosland. "The couple were extremely offended and sickened by what they saw." Another passing motorist contacted the police and Hoyle was arrested as he walked with the dog down the road.
Hoyle, of East view, Marsh, Huddersfield, told police "I can't help it if the dog took a liking to me. He tried to rape me."
He repeated the rape allegation at the police station and added "The dog pulled my trousers down." Hoyle, who has had a long-standing alcohol problem, was jailed for 12 months after he admitted committing an act which outraged public decency.
His barrister said Hoyle had no memory of the incident because of his drunken state, but was now very remorseful and incredibly embarrassed.
Jailing him, Judge Alistair McCallum told Hoyle "Never before in my time at the bar or on the bench have I ever had to deal with somebody who voluntarily allowed himself to be buggered by a dog on the public highway. Frankly it is beyond most of our comprehension. It is an absolutely disgusting thing for members of the public to have to witness."

So is there any truth to this story, or is it just a joke? First, it should be noted that the story dates back to 1998 and has been attributed to various publications, including the Yorkshire Evening Post, the London Evening Standard, and The Sun. A Dec. 19, 1998 posting in the usenet group alt.tasteless claimed it was printed in The Sun on Dec. 1, 1998. I don't know why the story has suddenly started to circulate around again now.

I can't find the story listed in any electronic news archives. However, the Lexis-Nexis archive for the Yorkshire Evening Post only goes back to 2000, and The Sun's online archive (which goes back to 1996) didn't want to work for me (probably because I'm not a subscriber). So I can't rule out that the story never appeared in a newspaper.

In the story's favor, there is a Yorkshire prosecutor named Ben Crosland, as well as a Judge named Alistair McCallum (who has a history of making memorable remarks about the cases he's judging. In 1996 he stirred up controversy by referring to a case of sexual harassment as mere "horseplay.") The main factor weighing against it being true is how ridiculous it is. It definitely has shades of being another Hippo Eats Dwarf kind of story (right down to the detail of the bull terrier being named Badger), but until I can determine that it wasn't printed as news in 1998, I won't classify it as a hoax.

Update: After subscribing to The Sun's archive (at their lowest rate), I discovered that this story was indeed reported there on Dec. 1, 1998, though in an abbreviated form. See the comments below where I've pasted exactly what ran in The Sun.

Flirts For Hire — While searching San Diego craigslist for someone willing to clean my hardwood floors twice a month, I stumbled upon a "Flirts for Hire" service:

Is your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife not giving you the attention you deserve? Hire us, we will send someone over to bars, restaurants, clubs to flirt with you in from of them. They will get jealous in a heart beat. No physical contacts involved. No kissing, or any form of sexual activities. Just good clean fun.

I suppose this is a more real-life version of having an imaginary girlfriend. When I did a google search to find out if there were other Flirts for Hire services around the country, I found a 2003 article from news.com.au about a more sinister version of this practice:

Kirri Cleveland... is the 30-year-old going on 13 who is starting a "flirts for hire" operation that sounds like a schoolyard game, but actually is being put up as a legitimate going concern. With any luck, her enterprise - where female "spies" tempt men into being unfaithful and then dob on them - will be a dismal failure. But its very existence is damaging enough with the wedge it is attempting to drive between the sexes...
Professional flirts will be paid to deliberately cause other people grief. At least garden variety adulterers - even if they do ultimately hurt a third party - are not financially rewarded for their misdemeanors. Ms Cleveland denies her service is entrapment. Well, that is a matter of opinion...
Ms Cleveland says it is mainly women who want to engage a "flirt for hire"... She also claims 50 to 60 per cent of men will take the bait.

Grotica Search Engine — No, Google is not unveiling a new erotica search engine, despite what this press release posted on pressbox.co.uk (and now linked to by a number of blogs) claims:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – September 15, 2005 – Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today its plans to enter the lucrative adult content market with a new search engine that will be kept separate from its main line of search services.
Called Grotica, the new service uses sophisticated image processing tools to automatically categorize still photos and movies according to subject matter and degree of explicitness. Google's powerful keyword search functions have been further enhanced for this application with over 3000 synonyms for anatomical terms and erotic activities.

Dear Abby Dilemma — Last week a woman wrote in to Dear Abby with an interesting dilemma:

Dear Abby: My husband gave me a diamond and sapphire ring for our anniversary. Because it was too large, I took it to a jeweler, who asked me where it came from. When I asked the jeweler why he asked, he informed me that the sapphire was synthetic and the "diamonds" were cubic zirconia. I'm not certain whether to tell my husband. I don't want him to think I don't like the ring. It is beautiful, and I will love wearing it regardless. However, if he bought the ring thinking it was the real McCoy, he may have spent a lot more on it than it is worth. Because my husband has always given me exquisite jewelry, I suspect he doesn't know. Should I share this information with him or keep my mouth shut? - Stuck in Stone Mountain, Ga.

Dear Stuck: Tell your husband that you took the ring to the jeweler to have it sized and what he told you. Assure your husband that you love it and want to keep it "regardless." He may have bought it from the Home Shopping Network or he may have been taken advantage of. Either way, it will clear the air.

I suspect Stuck in Stone Mountain made two false statements in her letter. First, I doubt she took the ring to the jeweler because she thought "it was too large." She wanted to know if it was real. Second, there's no way that she thinks "he doesn't know." She's sure that he knows and is dying to let him know that she knows. (But my wife says I'm being too cynical and thinks the woman might really be concerned that her husband got ripped off... as opposed to being concerned that he was trying to slip a cheap gift past her.)

Gulliver’s Erotic Adventures — A Russian woman, Neonilla Samukhina, claims that the original version of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels was far racier, containing numerous explicit sex scenes... and she happens to have acquired a manuscript of this early version. She published a Russian translation of it last week.

The book features the hero of 18th century Irish author Jonathan Swift’s famous satire in physical encounters with tiny Lilliputs — who are only 15 centimeters tall — and in Brobdingnag, which is inhabited by 20-meter giants.

No experts seem to be taking her claims very seriously. Obvious signs that it's a hoax are that she refuses to allow anyone to see the manuscript, nor will she allow them to read the English text (she's worried about people reprinting it since Swift's work is no longer copyrighted). University of Ulster Professor Joseph McMinn comments that, "I think this is a clever way of selling an erotic text, by giving it the appearance of ‘serious’ literature, and inventing a mystery story about its origins." Of course, all those high-school kids who are forced to read Gulliver's Travels probably would find the erotic version more interesting.

Rainbow Parties — The recent publication of a novel for teenagers titled RAINBOW PARTY has revived debate about whether or not such 'rainbow parties' are real. As a recent NY Times article explained, "rainbow parties are group oral sex parties in which each girl wears a different shade of lipstick, and each guy tries to emerge sporting every one of the various colors." Such parties are supposedly all the rage with teenagers (kids these days!... what will they think of next?). In the book, a teenage girl has to decide whether or not to go to such a party, but the party ends up never taking place.

The concept of rainbow parties first gained widespread attention back in 2003 when a guest on the Oprah show claimed that all kinds of teenagers were going to these things. But the thing is, tales about rainbow parties always seem to be third-hand: coming from adults who are trying to raise alarms about teenage sexuality. The same NY Times article notes that "Many say rainbow parties are just a new urban legend -- suburban, actually -- not much more trustworthy than the old stories about alligators in the sewer."

I'd have to agree that the rainbow party concept is probably more urban legend than reality. It reminds me of the Jelly Bracelet tale (that teenagers supposedly wear color-coded jelly bracelets to indicate to other kids what kind of sexual acts they're willing to perform). But as always with such things, it may have started out fake, but give it enough time and someone, somewhere, is probably going to be inspired to make it real.

Greenlighting — The term 'greenlighting' refers to a secret fashion code that sexually promiscuous teenagers use to communicate with each other. Greenlighters wear green shirts with the collar turned up. When they see someone else wearing a green-collar-up shirt, they pull their collar down. This is the secret signal that means 'let's have sex'. The other person then signals their willingness by pulling their collar down, in turn. If they're not willing, they keep their collar up (which is called 'redlighting').

Of course, this secret fashion sex code isn't real. It's a hoax (or rather, an idea for a hoax), dreamed up by some people at WookieFetish.com. The idea was that they were going to fool the media into believing that this practice was really going on... just as the creators of the toothing hoax had done a year or so ago. But unfortunately for the WookieFetish crowd, their hoax got exposed before it had a chance to gain any momentum. Cyrus Farivar (an editor at MacWorld) outed it on his blog and also via a wikipedia entry. In an article on Salon.com Farivar tells how his exposure of the hoax then incurred the wrath of the would-be hoaxers, resulting in a few threatening emails and phone calls.

Actually, it doesn't sound like the WookieFetish people ever really threatened Farivar that much. I remember that after I exposed the 'Great UFO Hoax' being plotted by LUE (actually, I simply reported that it had already been exposed, but that distinction was lost on them) a few of them threatened to send thousands of empty boxes to my house. Strange threat, but nothing ever came of it.

Man Fakes Murder To Get Divorce — This seems like a needlessly elaborate way to get your wife to ask for a divorce:

Teddy Akin, 28, told his wife he had killed a hitchhiker and stolen his wallet, and later repeated the same story to investigators after police arrested him.
He claimed he hit the man on the neck, causing him to gasp and make a gurgling sound.
He said he buried the body in a forest.
Police eventually found the allegedly murdered man alive and astonished.
Mr Akin admitted that his murder confession was bogus, a police spokesman with the Sheriff's Office told the newspaper.
He told investigators he was having problems with his wife and was hoping the murder story would encourage her leave him.
He said he had found the wallet in the street.

I guess 'Honey, I want a divorce' never occurred to him.

A Case of Vaginismus — This is an Ananova story. Which means that it's not very likely to be true:

Bit of a fix for bride and best man...
Doctors had to be called to separate the bride and best man after they were caught in the act during a wedding in Croatia.
The couple were trapped together by a muscle spasm after a friend of the groom walked in on them as they had sex in the toilets.
Unable to be pulled apart, the couple had to endure a procession of wedding guests who came to see what they had been doing before doctors could turn up.
Unable to help, they had to transport the pair on a stretcher to the local hospital where she was given an injection to relax her muscles, allowing the best man to get free.
The wedding party in Varazdin, Croatia, continued after the groom announced the celebrations were to mark his divorce rather than his wedding, reported daily Slobodna Dalmacija.

Tales of 'muscle spasms' locking couples together have been circulating for centuries. I think they're an urban legend, although vaginismus itself is a real enough disorder.

A similar tale appeared in an 1884 issue of Medical News, penned by a Dr. Egerton Yorrick Davis, who was the pseudonym of Dr. William Osler, a famous Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Osler liked inventing strange stories like this and submitting them to medical journals using his Yorrick Davis alias. He did it throughout his entire career. If anyone has evidence of a real documented case of vaginismus locking a couple together, I'd like to hear about it.

Bride Audit — Here's a service that allows brides to make sure their guests give gifts that are of a high enough value:

Answer a few simple questions and we'll analyze the assets of your guests, decide their appropriate level of giving, and provide you with invoices that you can include in your invitations. It's not rude, it's helpful!

Unfortunately it's one of those joke sites that feel compelled to print a disclaimer ("this site is a parody. if you actually think this a good idea, there is something wrong with your priorities.") I often wonder why sites do this. I guess enough people actually fail to recognize when things are a joke to make it necessary.

Singles Wallpaper — If you live alone, then here's a product to alleviate your loneliness. It's Singles Wallpaper, which is basically life-sized pictures of people that you can stick on your wall, and then you can pretend that they're your friends. Unlike real people, who can be annoying and messy "The single-wallpaper is the complete opposite: it is always friendly and doesn't smoke, it likes watching "Friends" with you for the 100th time without ever complaining, it doesn't leave dirty socks lying around, it never protests against your ideas, and it always looks fresh and attractive ... even when, from time to time, you can't help losing your temper!"

Forget-Me-Not Panties — Here's something for the jealous, paranoid lover: forget-me-not panties. They're panties with a built-in gps device, so you'll always know where the wearer of them is.

This amazing device will answer all of your questions! These panties can give you her location, and even her temperature and heart rate, and she will never even know it's there! Unlike the cumbersome and uncomfortable chastity belts of the past, these panties are 100% cotton, and use cutting-edge technology to help you protect what matters most.

I think the site is one of the entries for the Contagious Media Project.

Runaway Bride Stuff on eBay — eBay has become like the internet's funhouse mirror for popular culture. Any widely reported event immediately gets reflected back in the form of strange eBay auctions. So with the Runaway Bride being the latest story in the news, it was inevitable that Runaway Bride stuff would soon show up on eBay. Here's a round-up of the most prominent of it:

Runaway Bride on Toast
Jennifer Wilbanks found on my morning breakfast toast. I still think her fiance did it !!! This is the one and only Toast Depicting The Scam Artict of the year Jennifer Wilbanks. Look at the eyes its her. Dont be fooled by others. Sold to high bidder shipping priority$3.85 Ebay tossed me off but im back!!! Just like Jen.

Authentic Wedding Invitation
Authentic Wedding Invitation for the wedding of Jennifer Wilbanks (the runaway bride) and John Mason.  the wedding was supposed to be on Saturday, April 30th.  Before she fled to New Mexico, we have this because we were invited to the wedding and are friends of the family.

Runaway Bride Kit
This kit will help any nervous Bride who wants to get away from all the pressure of getting married... Talking to your closest friends and family about your wedding day "cold feet" is a thing of the past! Get on that Bus and head out on a multi state joy ride across the country.