Ocean Romance Gets Couple 'Stuck'

Claim:   Couple hospitalized after becoming stuck together while copulating in the ocean.

PROBABLY FALSE

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, October 2014]

Origins:   On 15 October 2014, Italian tabloid Il Mattino published an article about a

mortifying sexual mishap off the coast of Porto San Giorgio, Italy. According to the article, two unnamed beachgoers became amorously inclined while swimming and decided to engage in an aquatic quickie.

At some point during the seaside sexcapade, however, their liaison went downhill: Reportedly, underwater suction caused the couple to become "stuck" together and forced them to sheepishly request assistance. A rough translation of the Italian-language article indicated that the embarrassed lovers were forced to somehow swim to shore in flagrante delicto, where they happened upon a convenient doctor:

Several other web sites aggregated the single-source, medically noteworthy claim as real news despite a number of red flags in the story. Most notably, the tale closely matches the oft-repeated penis captivus urban legend, which has a notorious lack of corroborating evidence across decades of medical literature.

As is common to earlier versions of similar stories, the couple in the report were purportedly whisked away to the emergency room for separation. But no mention was made of how such a complex medical transport might have occurred. Were they lifted into an ambulance by paramedics? Did they somehow manage to walk to a vehicle for the journey? Was any provision made to avoid an embarrassing spectacle or to shield the pair and onlookers? And if treatment wasn't rendered on the scene, why was a doctor called upon to remove the couple to the emergency room rather than standard EMTs?

The lack of detail given in the original news report and its subsequent repetitions are also suspect. While one might expect patient names to be withheld due to the sensitive nature of the claim, the name of the hospital to which the pair was transported did not appear in any reports, nor were any of the treating doctors identified by name or quoted. Moreover, the date of the incident given in the original source was specified only as "yesterday," with no time of day mentioned at all.

Finally, the story concluded with the administration of a "drug given to pregnant women to dilate their uteruses," but the efficacy of such an approach is questionable — a simple muscle relaxant should have been able to rectify the situation had it really occurred.

In short, proof that an unlucky Italian couple really experienced unfortunate sexual suction during a seaside tryst is scant, and decades of medical literature and several logistical inconsistencies suggest the tale was, at best, shakily sourced.

Last updated:   20 October 2014

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