Sex, Death, and Maggots

I came across this story posted on LiveJournal. This may be an urban legend that's been around for a while, but I haven't heard it before:

Subject: The most disgusting thing I've ever heard. Ever.
So I know this girl. She has all these weird white things in the back of her throat, so she goes to the doctor thinkings she got some nasty STD of the mouth. Turns out its not an STD at all. She has f*****ng maggots growing in her throat. (I know this girl, this is not an urban legend) So the doctor asks how many people shes having sex with and she tells him only her boyfriend. She is told by the doctor that her boyfriend is either having sex with animals or with dead people. Her boyfriend works in a morgue.


Update: David Emery at About.com has a lengthy write-up about earlier versions of this story. So yes, it is an old urban legend.

Death Sex/Romance Urban Legends

Posted on Wed Mar 09, 2005



Comments

Oooh... Damn.. I *think* I know this one..

Ahhh.. here we go: /Anisakis simplex/, a roundworm parasite. Can result with eating undercooked fish, especially herring. Symptoms include severe abdominal pain and a tickling sensation in the throat as the little buggers wiggle around..

It may be that it's an actual report, exaggerated into a UL, or created entirely from whole cloth. Either way, it's a UL now.
Posted by Bobcat  on  Wed Mar 09, 2005  at  11:39 PM
Oh, nasty...I really hope it's just an urban legend. I can't even look at maggots. *shudder*
Posted by Lydie  on  Wed Mar 09, 2005  at  11:51 PM
This is an urban legend, for sure. Heard it being told in Holland, several times. Only in this version the woman in question has maggots in her stomach.
Don't worry about it !
Posted by Rachel  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  01:49 AM
Surely maggots need a supply of dead flesh in order to grow. You wouldn't find any in a healthy human throat. There would also be a finite number of maggots (unless flies were laying eggs in her throat), which surely the girl would have either swallowed without noticeing or just spat out.
Posted by Andy  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  02:15 AM
Surest sign of an urban legend: when the teller of the tale says, "This is not an urban legend."
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  02:39 AM
Funny how in the first message he knows the girl, then in his second, suddenly its a friend who knows her...
Posted by inphormed  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  03:05 AM
Snoping it, I got this:
http://www.snopes.com/risque/juvenile/corpse.htm

Mostly it's a variation where she has the maggots...um... down there, but there's also this version from 2002:

A friend of mine essentially told me the following story. He says he knows a girl whose sister is a real slut. She's at a party and meets a guy, and winds up giving the guy a blowjob. They part ways. Two days later, she's developed a rash around her mouth. She goes to the doctor and he takes some samples and tells her to find the guy. She goes back to the house where the party took place, and the guy who lives there tells her her boy's at work, and gives her the address. When she gets there she sees he works at a funeral parlor, but there's a big funeral going on, so she decides she'll contct him later. That night she gets a call from her doctor. He tells her that the rash is caused by a kind of louse that is most commonly found in the bodies of the recently deceased. When she goes to confront the necrophiliac the next day, she is told that he has died of an untreatable parasitic infection.

Minging, but untrue.
Posted by Boo  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  06:31 AM
I've heard too many similar stories to think it's even remotely true. There was also a story about a kinky couple that liked to use food during foreplay...an old jar of mayo later, the girl's got maggots in her hooha.

Maggots only eat dead/rotten things. Plus, in the instance of the throat, gravity (not to mention swallowing) would take over & down they would go. The inside of the throat isn't a very big space...she wouldn't have been able to see very far down on her own.
Posted by Maegan  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  07:39 AM
Oh, come on now. For maggots to be there, flies have to land there and spend enough time to lay their eggs. Maggots are, after all, just baby flies.

So, how many of you have flies flying in and out of your orfices on a regular basis? Or is this the new vacation spot for orphaned flies?
Posted by Rod  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  09:15 AM
For your enjoyment... Ear Maggots!
http://www.entusa.com/ear_maggots.htm

That would be a good name for a rock band.
Posted by Katey  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  10:57 AM
As if there weren't enough nasty (true) things you can get from sex (pregnancy, herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, AIDS, clamydia, genital warts, etc., etc.), some people have to go and fantasize about some new ones.

Live maggots ARE being used in medicine these days, though. Doctors put them in deep wounds to have them clean out necrotic tissue. I talked to one guy who was getting this treatment, and he said the wiggling was driving him crazy. For real.
Posted by Big Gary C, pedantic again  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  11:03 AM
If you want to look up something REALLY REALLY YUCKY, go to snopes.com and check out the real pic of the guy with maggots on his brain.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/maggots.asp

(Note: not for the faint at heart, or even the not so faint. I was grossed.)
Posted by winona  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  11:19 AM
Confederate hospitals had a higher rate of maggots in the wounds; and yet they were actually healthier. The reason: The maggots ate the dead flesh, not allowing for infections to occur.

I think that's pretty cool.
Posted by Citizen Premier  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  01:11 PM
I read a story one time (I'm pretty sure it was in Reader's Digest, but that means nothing in terms of proof) about a guy who was in a car crash in the mountains. He had gone off a steep embankment, and because of where he went off he left no tracks, etc.

He was pinned in his car for days, badly injured, before he was found.

He said the worst part about the experience was seeing maggots crawl around on his legs and not being able to touch them to remove them, and stated that if he could have found a way, he would have ended his life so the crawly feeling would end.

Now, I offer no statement as to whether or not this story was real. But this just reminds me of it.
Posted by Rod  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  02:13 PM
"her boyfriend is either having sex with animals or with dead people" - which raises the possibility that he was actually having sex with the maggots, and that they somehow became lodged in his foreskin, perhaps.
Posted by Ashley Pomeroy  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  02:20 PM
How about dead animals, Miss Bond?
Posted by Rod  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  02:41 PM
Greetings,

I can end this one quick...

If you do a little research on maggots you will find that they only feed on dead tissue...

End of story,
DC
Posted by DC  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  06:12 PM
Wow, nobody thought of THAT.
Posted by Rod  on  Thu Mar 10, 2005  at  06:16 PM
Sounds a lot like an urban legend to me, but it might be possible. I believe there are diseases that cause tissue to die in certain areas of your body while you are alive. In that case, there could be something for the maggots to eat. I agree the throat would be one of the more improbable places though.
Posted by Jause  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  02:30 AM
I had never heard this story, but I can imagine how it will evolve... One of these days someone will tell exactly the same thing up to where the girl goes to see where the guy works. And then... she finds out he died a week ago! Get it? It explains the maggots and it crosses with the popular urban legend where someone gives a lift to a girl that is already dead! I think it's brilliant!
Posted by corax  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  10:47 AM
True, maggots will only eat dead stuff.. but the roundworm parasites *are* real. You *will* cough up 'maggots' if you get them, since they love living in the throat tissues.
Posted by Bobcat  on  Fri Mar 11, 2005  at  12:15 PM
...But I think the point made a few posts ago is that flies must leave eggs behind in order for maggots to be anywhere...maggots are baby flies. So, if you've swallowed a flie (and we know the old lady did!), and you don't know why, I guess you'll die.
Posted by Maegan  on  Sun Mar 13, 2005  at  06:16 AM
Bobcat, I've seen a cat cough up roundworms on at least two occasions, and the roundworms looked nothing at all like maggots. Roundworms are much bigger, longer, and altogether more disgusting. They look sort of like living vermicelli. Maggots are more like moving brown rice (I shouldn't write these things when it's almost lunchtime).
I guess maybe you could confuse them, though, if you'd never seen either before and you had no idea what either looked like ...
Posted by Big Gary C  on  Mon Mar 14, 2005  at  02:22 AM
ULs are great. The version that I came across, had the girl celebrating her 21st birhtday at a bar and picks up the bartender. They go home (have only oral sex...it's so much safer), the next day they part ways. The girl starts to get these blisters/pimples in the back of her throat. So she goes to the doctor and the doctor tells her there's good news and bad news. The good news is that she doesn't have an STD and the bad news is that she has a parasite that is normally only found on dead people. So she goes back to the bar, to find the bartender and is told that he is at his other job. He amazingly works in the LA county coroner's office. Hmmmmm
Posted by Chris  on  Fri Aug 19, 2005  at  03:08 AM
Same thing as maggots,ticks, or ants in your ear.it`s not a lie I saw them in ears in some pics.
Posted by Yuyen  on  Sun Apr 27, 2008  at  07:58 PM
Hasn't anyone heard of the human botfly? Using female mosquitos for transportation they burrow into and readily devour healthy human flesh. (They do not dine on rotten or infected flesh: they are a classy sort of maggot). Of course they wouldn't be found just squirming around in plain sight and certainly not in anyone's throat like the ones in this UL. Still, good gag potential.You can learn all about them here creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/misc/flies/human_bot_fly.htm
Posted by pam  on  Mon Sep 01, 2008  at  11:40 PM
a few years ago i was living at a friends house which was unclean rats roaches ants and stuff i needed a place to live for up to 3 months i live with a girl friend i ate at the house with i should have not it seem like after i started living with my friends i became sick when one day i could get out of bed i was sick like i was going to die sick my throat felt weak i felt weak i just started coughing up maggots they felt like there were running through my body all over food was left out over night at time not covered up and cooked the next day do anyone have any idea what happen to me i went to the doctor but don't recall what happen i was 15 at that time i am 27 now married and living a happy life.
Posted by vicky  on  Sat Jan 10, 2009  at  11:14 PM
Did I go to school with this person. Girl from my school had this exact same story, practically word for word.
Posted by Ano  on  Sun Oct 18, 2009  at  08:02 PM
I don't see it as a symptom or a disease that came from having sex from his boyfriend..maybe she got it from foods that she eats..
Posted by STDnoobs  on  Mon Dec 21, 2009  at  05:05 AM
The importance of knowing your STD symptoms will make you knowledgeable on the present condition of your body. STD testing is one way to know if you are really STD infected.
Posted by Kiara Mont  on  Sun Jan 03, 2010  at  09:43 PM
Commenting is not available in this channel entry.