Many birds do not have penises, and mate by touching genital openings -- called a "cloacal kiss". But some species of duck and ostriches do have a penis.

The longest bird penis discovered belongs to the Argentine lake duck (Oxyura vittata), measured at around 42.5cm, an astonishing dimension matches the length of an adult male, and compares to the length of an ostrich penis. If the Argentine lake duck were human, we could boast 5 - 6-foot penises!

Guinness World Records lists Maxi Mounds as the holder of the record of the "World's Largest Augmented Breasts".

See:

• Largest human penis
• Largest penis in animal kingdom

See:

• Longest human clitoris
• Longest (animal) clitoris

Most of us know that semen has the remarkable ability to help start babies. But this is only one of the powers attributed to the mysterious substance.

One idea is that semen has a "magnetic" effect those who retain their semen i.e. refrain from sexual activity, are able to draw both men and women to themselves. It has often been assumed that semen has mystical or religious powers. Thus a subsect of the Gnostics mixed the fluid with the sacramental draught in their religious ceremonies. And in the so-called Black Mass, semen has served as holy water.

In the "normality spread," as shown, for example, in Kinsey (p.123) some girls began growing pubic hair as early as eight years of age.

This is very young to begin such growth yet cannot be considered "abnormal." The real records relate to instances of sexual precocity often, as we have seen, connected with (sometimes fatal) abnormalities. Hugh Jolly noted instances of pubic hair in babies, in one case a girl of only one month old had hair growth around the genitals.

Human sperm were first discovered by a student of Antonij van Leeuwenhoek in 1677 in the city of Delft. The name of the student is not known for certain: he is variously written up as Ludwig Hamm, van Hamm or von Hammen. According to some writers he is a Dutchman, to others a German. One day he brought to the acknowledged master of microscopy, Leeuwenhoek, a bottle containing semen and pointed out that small animals could be seen moving about in the ejaculate.

The medical literature abounds with descriptions of the various types of hermaphroditism.

Sometimes a good nonmedical description is produced. Perhaps the best is that in Henry Spender Ashbee's "Catena Librorum Tacendorum". The "woman,' was fairly attractive. Ashbee said -

The idea of an effective sperm bank has appealed to eugenically-minded individuals for a good few centuries.

Such arrangements have only recently become practically feasible. The first two sperm banks, set up in Iowa City and Tokyo, both began life in 1964.

There is long pubic hair and there is pubic hair that is thick and expansive in the general abdominal area. Walter (of "My Secret Life"), an evident connoisseur in such matters, talks with clear delight of a fine bush of "Scots red" pubic hair - "The bush was long and thick, twisting and curling in masses half-way up to her navel, and it spread about 5 in. up her buttocks, gradually getting shorter there."