> When [Sacks] woke up in the middle of the night with an erection, he would cool his penis by putting it in orange jello.

This is a remarkable sentence, and it appears suddenly in the article without context or explanation.

Naturally, there are questions. Was it necessarily orange jello? Does orange refer to the flavor or the color? What property of this particular jello made it preferable to other flavors and colors of jello? Did he prepare the jello for this particular purpose, or did he have other uses for the orange jello? What were they? Did he reuse jello or discard it after one use? Most important though: why would he do this??

The article does not say.

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conductr 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

It says why in the quote, to “cool” it. I have never tried it myself but it seems like it would be effective for that purpose.

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fsckboy 3 days ago | parent [-]

your comment in the context of jello makes me think of Cool Whip, but that takes us to "You must whip it: Whip it good!" and here we are full circle.

	▲	dredmorbius 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I've heard (though cannot find any supporting references) that Devo's song "Whip It" referred to "whippets", nitrous oxide cannisters which could produce a brief but euphoric high. <https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/what-are-whipp...> Context was a stage performance (not by Devo) roughly 20 years ago, referring to late 1970s / early 1980s youth culture. The song itself was released in 1980: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whip_It_(Devo_song)>

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fsckboy 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

orange the color is a reference to orange the fruit. prior to the fruit coming to europe, that color did not have it's own name

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/orange-fruit-color-ori...

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c-c-c-c-c 9 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It is a great article.

	▲	rendall 9 days ago \| parent [-]
		It is. I might sound critical, but my criticism is not of the article. Nor of Sacks and his jello, really.