This Week in Sex
by Grant Stoddard

Perhaps Chechen rebels would be a little easier to subdue if Captain Damir Ilyasov held a higher rank in the Russian forces. The captain received a two-year suspended sentence for battering his subordinates with a ''black latex baton shaped like a male sex organ,'' known in some Western circles as a dildo. According to the Russian paper The Gazeta, the story came to light after Private Ruslan Machnev deserted from the unit's base. Once captured, the soldier explained that he fled to escape Illyasov's relentless taunting with the rubber love-truncheon. Prosecutors investigated the soldier's claims, and discovered that the captain carried out so-called ''night formations'' in his unit, waking the soldiers and dildo-whipping those who weren't taking care of their uniforms. In court, the captain pleaded guilty and apologized. Loyal, possibly sadomasochistic members of the battalion told the military court that he ''only hit them lightly.'' Ilyasov has also been stripped of his officer's rank and removed from his post — although it remains unclear whether his post was removed from him.