If you decide to have sex with vegetables be sure to wear a condom.

Surgeons at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in the capital city of Costa Rica removed a yuca (cassava root or manioc) measuring 45 cm of length (about 18 inches) from the anal cavity of a 55-year old man, who is currently in stable condition.

According to a report filed by Manuel Estrada of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the patient was rushed to the emergency room after one of the two latex condoms wrapped around the Manihot esculenta, which had an estimated girth of eight centimeters (more than three inches), ripped inside him.

As previously reported by The Costa Rica Star, yuca and other tubers can grow to significant sizes with certain cultivation techniques.

The surgery lasted more than an hour, and it included reconstructive procedures to alleviate the man’s anus and part of his intestines, which became compromised after the tuber was exposed inside the patient. Thankfully, the rectum was not perforated, a situation that may have resulted in a dangerous secondary peritoneal inflammation and infection.

Photographs of the surgery were posted by Diario Extra on its digital edition. One of the photographs shows that the yuca had been carved into a phallic shape, thus making the manioc a sort of an organic sex toy or vegetable dildo.

Mauro Fernandez, a renowned sexologist in Costa Rica, was interviewed by Diario Extra with regard to this incident. Mr. Fernandez explained that sex with vegetables is a fetish (a paraphilia) that is not so uncommon. Food play is a sitophilia whereby individuals can be aroused by situations that involve edible matter.

Emergency rooms around the world have admitted patients whose sitophilia sessions compromised their health due to lack of precautions or clouded judgments.

According to a 2014 article in Women’s Health Magazine, emergency room nurses in Chicago explained that females patients are sometimes admitted due to vaginal insertion of cucumbers, bananas and hot dogs. The most common problem emanates from pieces of these foodstuffs breaking off inside the reproductive tract, a situation that may lead to infection and toxicity.