Inspired by our fellow Art Attack writer Craig Hlavaty's take on the weirdest entries on Wikipedia, we decided to trot out our own list.
Maybe we're jaded from years of Rocky Horror and two days' worth of dildo research, but we're intrigued by entries that make you say, "Why on Earth would you tell people that exists!?"
Restoration device: We are not even going to get into the pros and cons of circumcision, but we are going to say that it doesn't matter if a harem of Zooey Deschanels from various alternate universes knock on our door and offer us a banquet of depravity if only we'll undertake the restoration of our foreskin, you aren't getting that device anywhere near our dick.
Kidnapping of Colleen Stan: In the late '70s, Colleen Stan was just a normal 20-year-old girl hitchhiking to a friend's birthday party. She got into the car of Cameron Hooker, who she deemed safe since he had his wife and baby along. Thus started seven years of being held captive under the couple's bed as a sex slave for Hooker, a stint that included torture and brainwashing her into believing she was being watched by an all-powerful, sadistic organization named the Company. We ran across this page while researching the name of local band Black Leather Jesus, and haven't been the same since.
Slow slicing: Though the punishment was likely talked up to much longer and worse than it actually was, slow slicing in China still involved methodically cutting your condemned prisoner one slash at a time, possibly while removing things that are definitely supposed to stay attached to you. Some emperors are reported to have ordered the punishment to continue for three days.
Dyatlov Pass incident: In 1959, a group of skiers was killed by "a compelling unknown force" while on the Eastern side of a peak called, we're not making this up, the Mountain of the Dead, in the Urals. The group apparently left their tent in their underwear in -30 C weather, four of them had fatal crushing injuries cause by who knows what, a woman was missing her tongue and, what the hell, all their clothes glowed in the dark from radiation.
Anorexia mirabilis: Unlike the more commonly known Anorexia nervosa, this version of anorexia was practiced by nuns who did so as a form of religious self-denial. All they would eat was the Eucharist. Oh, and scabs. Seriously, Catherine of Siena drank pus from tumors, and Angela of Foligno ate scabs and lice from patients.
Kuchisake-onna: You knew we'd get to Japan sooner or later. Kuchisake-onna is an urban legend about a woman who approaches people with her face covered in a surgical mask. She asks you if she's pretty, and you say yes. She removes the mask and you see she's sporting a Chelsea Grin. She asks if she's still pretty, and whatever you say she kills you with a pair of scissors. Belief in this demon was so strong that it caused a mild panic in the '80s.
Bridgewater Triangle: If you thought the Dyatlov Pass incident was freaky, we're about to top it. Massachusetts has a portal into Hell just sitting there calling Lovecraft unimaginative. Things that have been reported in the triangle include Satanic rituals, mysterious black helicopters, over a dozen homicides, a giant snake, a mysterious tomb covered in red ochre that dissolved in the light and that apparently can't be photographed because the film won't develop, ghosts, UFOs, Big Foot and a fucking pterodactyl.
RapeLay: RapeLay is a Japanese video game starring a rich man's son who kidnaps a mom and her two daughters and rapes them throughout the course of the game. Really, that's all there is to it, but someone has covered the mechanics of the game in horrifying detail in this page.
Vorarephilia: You think you're kinky with your handcuffs? Vorarephiliacs get off on the thought of either cannibalizing another person, or themselves being cannibalized. That's what creams their Twinkie. If you were wondering if this ever plays out in real life, the answer is yes, and THAT GUY ALSO HAS A WIKIPEDIA PAGE!