Did You Hear About The Girl Who . . . ?: Contemporary Legends, Folklore, and Human Sexuality

Chapter 9: The Stolen Kidney, Leaping Crabs, and Other Dangers of Sexuality

9 THE STOLEN KIDNEY, LEAPING CRABS, AND OTHER DANGERS OF SEXUALITY ❏ Stolen Organs I heard a story about nine or ten months ago about a man in Dallas, Texas who went out for a night on the town with a couple of friends. After several drinks he is aware of a beautiful girl watching him and following him. She approaches him, introduces herself, and explains that she is from out of town. He is very attracted to her, and she seems taken with him. Before long, the man tells his friends to go on without him, that he is going to see this beautiful woman home. The man returns to the woman’s hotel room and they share another drink. She is really coming on at this point, and he likes it! The last thing the man remembers is sitting on the bed in the hotel room. Then he awakens, feeling very groggy. He is now in bed, and tries to sit up, but his back is in excruciating pain. He reaches back and is bandaged around his lower back. Looking around, he realizes that he is not only in a different hotel room (in another hotel), but the beautiful girl is gone and it is two days later. He immediately calls the 159 front desk and has them call an ambulance and the police, realizing he has been assaulted in some way. He is taken to a nearby hospital and thoroughly examined. Upon returning, the doctor explained to the patient that he would be fine, but that his kidney had been professionally removed. The doctor explained that people have been robbed before for their vital organs, as they sell for several million dollars on the black market. This particular man was lucky though, as his life was spared; many aren’t as lucky. If the “Welcome to the wonderful world of AIDS” legends have lost their impact in warning men against sex with strangers, these theft for transplant stories infuse fear of new dangers into one-night stands. In the past there have been numerous stories of men being robbed after sex, often having been drugged, but being robbed of an organ brings these stories up-to-date. As in the previous version, other versions emphasize the danger of a man straying from his buddies: It supposedly happened to my friend’s T.A.’s friend. A group of friends went to Atlanta for the weekend. They decided to go out to one of the clubs for dancing and drinking. One of the guys told his friends he was leaving for a couple of hours and he would meet them back at the club. A few hours went by and he didn’t return to the club. The friends decided he would probably just meet them at the hotel, so they left. When they woke up he hadn’t returned and they started to get worried. About noon they got a call from their friend at the hospital. They went to pick him up and he told them a horrifying story. He thought he was going to the girl’s apartment. Before they got there, he got really tired. When he woke up he was in an empty warehouse alone. He moved to get up and felt a sharp pain shoot through his lower back. He felt the place where the pain came from and there was a huge cut there. He found his way out and took a taxi to the hospital. During the night he had been drugged and his THE STOLEN KIDNEY 160 kidney had been removed. Apparently there is an underground market for vital organs. He was just the latest victim. This story has made its way through oral tellings and the Internet in a number of forms, often with information or commentary that may convince readers that it is a true story. Some versions report that a friend or relative is a paramedic in a particular city in which this activity has occurred and that the paramedics have all received training in treating victims of these organ thefts, as in the following example of commentary that accompanied a recounting of the story found on a listserver: This is not a scam or out of a science fiction novel, it is real. It is documented and confirmable. If you travel or someone close to you travels, please be careful. Sadly, this is very...