Annie Sprinkle, the Mary Hartman of porn, brought them out of the closet for the first time, using the stainless steel contraptions to show audiences from L.A. to Berlin her cervix. Jeremy Irons played a gynecologist who crafts a horrific set of them in the David Cronenberg film Dead Ringers, using them on unsuspecting patients. And post-modern-porn misogynist Max Hardcore, who uses a specially-made plastic set with a built-in electric light for better viewing, has made a living from shoving them up the pussies and butt-holes of his well-paid, school-girlish models.

We're talking about speculums, those devices used by a lady's ObGyn to spread wide the walls of her vagina to check what might be up her chimney.

But why should doctors have all the fun? Surely every het male and bi/lesbian female wants to see what's up his/her partner's cunt. There's voyeuristic fun to be had inspecting the secret caves of all those women of porn willing to stick their ankles in stirrups and allow their glorious holes to be aired out.

It's a specialty fetish, to be sure, and not for the faint of heart. Should you happen to get a diseased slice of flesh pie on your hands, you might be spurting out the pea soup like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. And even if it's all natural -- say the squawly's on the rag -- the smell factor might make you gag.

Nevertheless, there are more and more sites on the Internet devoted to this growing obsession. Just stick the words speculum and pussy into your favorite browser and you'll be studying those gaping red maws or admiring the belly-button-like pin-prick hole of the cervix in no time.

While you're at it, check out Speculum Frenzy for a direct link to some of the sweetest gashes on the net. There's also a site called Let's Play Doctor where you can pretend to be a gynecologist by using "Gyno Zoom." This allows you to zoom in tighter and tighter until you're deep inside the sanctum sanctorum, right up against the os -- that's what they call the little eye of the cervix, which will open for neither penis nor tampon. Only childbirth will dilate the sucker.

There's something about staring at a cervix that makes you wanna go berserk -- like some episode of Star Trek where Capt. Kirk boldly goes where he friggin' shouldn't, or a scene from a David Lynch film where you cut from the killer's face to some pink thingee wiggling in time to a Philip Glass composition.

But there's nothing to be afraid of. No vagina dentata's going to bite your hand off -- especially if you're online.

In fact, take a peek at the Society for Human Sexuality. Among the many delightful articles is a how-to on doing a cervical exam.

It's fun. First, get a speculum from a full-service pharmacy -- one connected to a hospital is best. Or you can buy a nice one over the Net for anywhere from $21.00 to $24.95.

Then you need a willing female partner. Get her naked, have her lie down and spread her legs. Lube her and the speculum up with some K-Y. Make sure the spec is warm and has been sterilized properly. Nothing worse than a cold, dirty speculum. Slip it in. Easy now. Be gentle.

Clasp the handles together to open up her love canal. Have a flashlight handy and shine it in there. You should be able to see the cervix. With the aid of a mirror, the chick can look, too. Overall, the inside of a cunt appears similar to the inside of someone's wide-open mouth. Without the teeth.

In any case, speculum-play is nothing new. The S/M world has a whole subcategory of medical scenes in which participants engage in enemas, faux exams, anal probes, etc.

There's even a Psych term -- iantronudia -- for those who are aroused by undressing in front of a doctor. But what about a term for those obsessed with speculums and cervixes? Speculumania? Cervicalphilia? They better come up with one soon. Between the Internet and Max Hardcore, the whole world may be on the road to speculum fever!

Stephen Lemons is a full-time writer and sex-fiend who contributes frequently to New Times L.A., the Los Angeles Times, Art Connoisseur, and SOMA magazine. He lives in Burbank and dreams constantly of female flesh.