Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Sex
Hymenology
Not the Goddess Hymen. But after fruitlessly wading through hundreds of naughty images this morning to find a picture of the Goddess Hymen, I decided Ceres was close enough.
This morning, I opened my New York Times Book Review (March 25, 2007) to find Alex Kuczynski’s review of Virgin: The Untouched History, by Hanne Blank. Reading it purely for its Continuing Medical Education merit, I was struck by the following:
Blank’s thorough scholarship is to be commended, even if I found my eyes glazing over during passages about the Protoevangelion, an apocryphal Gospel from the second century A.D. that describes the courtship of Joseph and Mary; the rise and fall of convents; and the difference between annular and fimbriated and crescentic hymens. While the author admits that, as pieces of tissue go, the hymen is “really awfully dull,†she nevertheless devotes an entire chapter to it.
Annular? Fimbriated? Crescentic? Clearly I have major holes in my education! A quick google led me to the discovery that there are, per Our Bodies, Ourselves, six different types of hymens. I also discovered that the procedure to rebuild a hymen, hymenoplasty, heretofore common only in those retro corners of the globe where men still care about such things, is on the rise in America:
For her 17th wedding anniversary, Jeanette Yarborough wanted to do something special for her husband. In addition to planning a hotel getaway for the weekend, Ms. Yarborough paid a surgeon $5,000 to reattach her hymen, making her appear to be a virgin again.
“It’s the ultimate gift for the man who has everything,” says Ms. Yarborough, 40 years old, a medical assistant from San Antonio.
This, too, is still one of the dark places on Earth.
As a surgeon, this gives me the creeps. You might assert that a hymenoplasty is no different than any other type of cosmetic operation, but I don’t think the argument holds up to inspection. Cosmetic surgery is all about correcting deformity or restoring beauty. Hymenoplasty reconstructs a bit of tissue for the sole purpose of destroying it all over again.
And then there’s Ms. Yarborough’s claim that this is the ultimate gift for the man who has everything. Has your man had everything, Ms. Yarborough? Have you given him that threesome he so fervently desires? Would cost a tad less than $5000, I imagine.
I think a guy who would allow his wife to undergo unnecessary surgery just for the once-in-a-lifetime (until the next hymenoplasty) opportunity of ripping through the surgical site, maybe that’s a guy who doesn’t deserve everything.
My hymen-google also led me to Wikiality, the Truthiness Encyclopedia — yes, Stephen Colbert has his own version of Wiki! This is from Stephen’s article on Virginality:
According to many Youth Ministers, what we’re trying to avoid having to actually having to talk about here is far more than just the act of “doing It.” While the liberal media wants to undermine virginality and corrupt America’s children by insisting that virginality concerns sex alone, the truth of the matter is quite different. Virginality affects your entire essense as a person; that’s why it’s so shameful to talk about It. Virginality is not available to godless liberals, gays, lesbians, terrorists, or people who have non-abstinent sex before they are married. Virginality is only for Christians, Republicans, and Amerisexuals.
And what does Stephen have to say on hymens?
I read somewhere that your hymen will grow back in one to two years if you don’t have any more non-abstinence “sex” and don’t do masturbation. LikeaVirginality can happen much more quickly for boys, who don’t have to worry about that pesky hymen in the first place.
There ya go, Ms. Yarborough. This from a doctor — Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, no less. If your husband wants a hymen-bearing wife so much, make him wait for it.
***
My opinion? We waste way too much energy worrying about virginity and the loss of innocence, and put way too little energy teaching our kids about love, about what it takes to maintain a successful relationship.
But that would require teaching by example, which is beyond most people.
D.
Who’d wanna live in a world without wood?
Today’s Smart Bitches Day post brings us Summer Devon’s Futurelove, an ebook I’ve wanted to read ever since I heard the premise. More on that in a moment. As those of you who have tried to get me to read your pdfs and ebooks know, I’m hopelessly slow at reading things off my computer. Dyslexic, in fact. I keep wanting to turn the page. The fingerprints are a bitch.
With the advent of my Blackberry, Summer’s erotica opened up to me like a nubile vixeny refugee from Barely Legal. Come to me, Summer! Show me your stuff!
Here’s the premise. In the future, I don’t know how people reproduce, but it doesn’t involve penises or vaginas. Clones, perhaps, or test tubes. Maybe they duplicate particularly attractive people using a transporter, just like they did in those old Star Trek episodes, Captain Kirk, Space Queen, and Good Kirk, Bad Kirk. I don’t know. Summer doesn’t tell us, and I don’t care, because this is erotica, not science fiction, and in erotica no one bloody cares how anything works as long as people with hot bodies are getting laid and getting laid frequently.
In the future, all manner of physical defects have been genetically engineered out of the human race. The men all have hot bods, they’re super-strong, they don’t fart or snore or leave their dirty socks lying around or ignore their girlfriends just because Monday Night Football is on and if they’re eating anything in bed, it sure ain’t crackers. They lack all of those 21st Century flaws — which would be cool, of course, except for the nonfunctional penis problem.
Early morning shout
. . . goes to Erin O’Brien for her provocative review of Liquid Love, the G-Spot Explosion. The intertubes need more high quality film analysis like this. Oh, and she’s raffling off the film, too, now that it’s, ah, used.
Speaking as a physician, I haven’t made up my mind about female ejaculation, and since I’m not an ob-gyn, I guess I’ll never have to have a professional opinion on this. But in all the documentaries I’ve viewed*, this stuff looks voluminous. Unbelievably voluminous. Nevertheless, according to the Wiki, it’s not urine. And Aristotle knew about it, the old dog.
More information can be found at the-clitoris.com. Of course.
D.
*But as Wikipedia points out, these documentaries have a commercial interest in creating spectacular visual effects, and thus are a dubious source of clinical data.
Thirteen things I learned from Cosmo, Part Cinq
Pity me. As you read this, there’s an excellent chance I’m a mile above America, wedged between George W. Bush’s Last Vocal Supporter and a Moonie behind on his conversion quota. Times like this, I wish I knew some relatively obscure foreign language — Yoruba, perhaps — in which I could repeat, “I don’t speak English.”
See, no matter how badly you pronounce, “I don’t speak English,” some wag will point out that you are, in fact, speaking Engish. Yuk. Yuk. So I need a language — something guttural, something phlegmy. I mean, a guy can pretend to be asleep for only so long.
*please please please no coughing sneezing children oh PLEASE*
. . . because I always catch stuff on planes, too. Bad enough that snot rockets are a hazard of my profession. Gaaaah, enough kvetching already — let’s find out what’s new in this month’s Cosmo.
Dangerous love
How far would you go for love?
Note: for the purposes of this post, and because I’m a guy, sex = love. The two are interchangeable. No, don’t bother to argue with me.
World Sex Records tells us, “Menstrual blood, placenta, and genitals have all been devoured to increase sexual prowess. Semen was also popular. (“The semen of virile young men should be mixed with the excrement of hawks or eagles and taken in pellet form.”) Chinese eunuchs, seeking regeneration of their lost sexual organs, would hopefully eat the warm brains of newly decapitated criminals.”
Sex is not without hazard. Heart attacks, seizures, and ruptured aneurysms number among the risks. And whatever else you do, don’t take “blow job” too literally. Blowing into the vagina during cunnilingus can result in air embolism and sudden death.
There’s risk, and then there’s risk; autoerotic asphyxiation is one well known way to off yourself in the throes, but the Darwin Awards site has many more creative ways of turning the little death into the Big One. Whether it’s inadvertant carbon monoxide poisoning, sex at 80 mph, or sex in the road, cars and sex don’t mix. Exceptions granted for the back seats of parked cars in dark, secluded places.
Needless to say, membership in the Mile High Club is only granted to survivors.
Fortunately, some horror stories are only urban legends. A man did not electrocute himself by masturbating into an electrically-stimulated cow heart, Catherine the Great was not crushed to death having sex with a horse, and [insert name of most hated rock star or starlet here] did not get a gallon of semen pumped out of his/her stomach. Damn. I always liked that tale. At least it’s true that Marilyn Chambers really was the Ivory Snow Girl.
Happy Valentine’s Day, droogs.
D.
What is the world coming to? *updated*
I don’t know how Blue Gal does it . . . how she tolerates wading through right wing blogs for Grade A tripe like this (emphasis mine):
There is a new chapter in the story of Yale’s continuing descent into the depths of moral degradation. Two days ago, Jonathan Holloway, the master of Calhoun College at Yale, sent out the following note:
“OK, well THIS is the most awkward college-wide e-mail I’ve ever had to send….
“The college showers are to be used by individuals for hygenic [sic] purposes only. They are not to be used by couples engaged in intimate activity–especially that kind of activity that leaves the showers in a decidedly less hygenic [sic] state.
“Several times since the start of the spring term some Hounies have come across a couple having the time of their lives in a shower stall. Last night the shower flooded and the bathroom could not be used for over 90 minutes. To the as yet unidentified couple, this may be pleasureable [sic] and exciting for you but it is a violation of community standards. Please stop.
“I really don’t want to explore this matter any further as I respect your individual privacy. But such continued brazen public displays of affection will only invite public embarrassment. I beg of you, let’s not go there.”
I can first of all confirm that this is a real memo, not a prank. It is not merely unfortunate but pathetic and disgusting that the Master needed to send such a note to us. I certainly wish that Master Holloway had not had to involve himself, but in the moral vacuum that has been created by Yale intellectuals, students seem to be left without even the most basic guidelines for proper and decent behavior.
Where to begin. The author, Dan Gelernter, strikes me as one of those Angry Virgins: I’m not getting any, but that’s okay because SEX OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE IS EEEEVIL and all those people engaging in intimate congress in the showers are going to burn in H-E-Double-Toothpicks! But that’s an ad hominem argument based on little evidence other than Dan’s tone, his hyperbole (descent into the depths, yata yata), and his uber-fussy paranoia that we not think him capable of spelling errors — hygenic (sic)!
I think it’s fair to ask what sort of person feels the need to post this Puritanical bile-dripping screed. Any sane college student should be pissing his pants over the Administration’s plans for the Middle East. If he wants to vent his moral outrage, he would have ample material in what we as a nation have wrought with respect to Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, the erosion of American civil liberties, the rape of our nation’s wealth, the bastardization of science to serve corporate interests, and so much more.
But no. A couple of students get nasty in the shower and plug it up (Blue Gal’s right. How do you do that? Go through a box of condoms and flush ’em down the drain?) and Dan’s panties are in a wad.
Read the comments to Dan’s post. Lots of lefties are trying to slap some sense into the boy. I doubt it will work, but it’s good fun while it lasts.
UPDATED:
Gotta love this comment from “On higher moral ground,” who leaves his flatulence without any website linkback (so we can’t, you know, show him some love):
Any correlation between the deepening depravity at Yale and the ever increasing 28% Jewish enrollment figures?
People have referred to the Jews as ‘mud people’ for centuries, is there perhaps some truth to this?
As a credit to Dan’s commenters, only one person rose to the bait. Two, if you count me.
D.
PS, aren’t you proud of me? I resisted the urge to title this post, “What is the world cumming to.”
Walnut, licensed sex therapist
Well, not quite, but closer than you might think.
Recently, I learned (but have not been able to confirm) that in 2007, the American Board of Sleep Medicine will allow physicians to sit for the Boards exam without first doing a 12-month fellowship in sleep medicine. In other words, pass the test and you’re in. If this is the case, and assuming I pass the test, I could do a few things I can’t presently do.
ENT docs have a share in this turf since we treat snoring and obstructive sleep apnea. Sleep medicine also includes treatment of insomnia, a subject near and dear to my heart, and parasomnia, which is the subject of today’s post.
Parasomnia is a catch-all term which includes a variety of inappropriate sleep behaviors: restless leg syndrome, sleepwalking, sleep-talking, sleep-eating, and yes, sleep-screwing, also known as sexsomnia. We’re not talking about porking the mattress in the middle of the night. Every guy does that. (Don’t bother to deny it. You were asleep — how would you know?) No, we’re talking about behavior that can break up families and land you in jail.
Here’s one of the seminal papers (*cough*) in sexsomnia. The linked page includes eleven case reports of sexsomniacs. Yeah, I thought the whole thing was a laugh, too, until I read the reports. It’s one thing to make unwanted advances on your spouse, quite another thing entirely if one of your kids is sleeping in your bed. This is scary stuff.
I have to wonder about the 16-year-old whose mom found him downloading male porn off the internet while asleep, but if you can fix yourself a ham and cheese sandwich while asleep, googling is a piece of cake.
You’ll be glad to hear this is a treatable condition which does not require a full body condom. Some of these folks were treated with clonazepam, some with CPAP (the mask device we use to treat obstructive sleep apnea).
Somehow, I always knew I had a future in sex.
D.
Performance anxiety
Ack! The clock is ticking. I’m running out of time for Renee’s Global Orgasm Day contest. But sex isn’t funny; it runs the gamut from exhilarating to pathetic, but funny? It takes someone of Roald Dahl’s talent to make orgasms funny (see “Bitch,” in his collection Switch Bitch).
Upon rereading, I see it doesn’t have to be a funny orgasm story. Just has to be an orgasm story. ‘Kay, I can do that. I’ll give you a pathetic orgasm story.
In the dorms, my roommate used to screw one of our fellow dormies. (These were co-ed dorms, you see. We even had co-ed bathrooms.) I didn’t mind it so much, even though I had a thing for her, too. But once, my asshole roomie screwed her in OUR room with ME in there, too. Guess he figured I would sleep through it.
I lay there listening to them. They tried to make as little noise as possible, so all I could hear was the thumping and the squeaky-spring-squeaking and it was — well, when I could get past being pissed off at my roomie, I had to admit it was arousing, too. I, too, tried to make as little noise as possible; I didn’t want to distract them.
I wanted to see (hear, really) how this would end.
It didn’t take long. Sorry, Joe, but I’m not going to lie for you. I’ll bet you would like me to claim I lay there for over an hour, wondering if it would ever end, but in truth, I barely had time to figure out what I would say to you the next day*.
Five minutes? Okay, six. I’ll give you six.
When it was over, I heard the first non-thumping, non-squeaking sound from them: her disappointed whimper.
If you ever read this, gorgeous, will you please tell me why you only screwed the losers? Were you one of these women who had a bad-boy fetish or something? I hope you’ve wised up since then.
One way or another, I would have left you satisfied. I consider it a point of honor.
D.
*Oh, it was quite the zinger, just what you would expect from an accomplished Man of Words.
“You know, I heard you two last night.”
“Um. You did?”
“Yeah. I did.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
In any case, it never happened again.
On behalf of all men with latex allergies . . .
I would like to register a complaint.
Would I want to be a condom-tester? Would I ever! (That would be my first choice of dream jobs, followed shortly by Gynecologist Specializing in the Age 18-24 Demographic, or the ever popular Purveyor of Moustache Rides.) But there’s one small problem: we’re not talking about just any condom.
Our team is developing a type of spray can into which the man inserts his penis first. At the push of a button it is then coated in a rubber condom. It works by spraying on latex from nozzles on all sides. We call it the ‘360 degree procedure’ — once round and from top to bottom. It’s a bit like a car wash.
Damn it, I’m allergic to latex. Spray this sh!t on me and my groin will become a giant welt. Nevertheless, I’m intrigued, and I can imagine dozens of gorgeous female UC Berkeley engineering students clamoring to be the first to see this device in action, crying, Oh, Walnut, pick me! Pick me! and, Omigod! New technology is SUCH a turn-on.
The manufacturer, Vinico (the people who brought you the Multi-Orgasmus-Kondum, 2 Kondome+penisring), wants men:
We are looking for 30 Condom-Testers. Your job is testing the new condom. We are looking for men with a penislengh* from 9 until 12 cm and 15 until 20 cm. Men between 13 to 14 cm are welcome, too**. You should have experience with condoms and beeing almost 18 years old. Your data will be kept very safe. If you have any questions, please contact us.
I have experience with condoms and I beeing almost 18 years old, or at any rate I beeing more 18 years old than 99 years old. But that latex business, oooh. Ouch. Hives are such a buzz kill.
Hat tip to the lovely May, who discovered the spray-on Kondome at Tim Worstall’s place.
Porno Gingerbread Men (see post below) and spray-on condoms. Any more holiday gift ideas?
D.
*Oh, those clever Germans and their made-to-order compound nouns . . . but I’m pretty sure the word is Shvanzelangen.
**Karen, quick! Where’s our metric ruler!Â
Five millimeters, cut
Or is Mr. Gingerbread Man uncircumcised?
No matter. A little nibble will fix that foreskin problem! (Click photo if you would like your very own Gingerbread Man . . . or anatomically correct G-Woman.)
Hat tip to Blue Gal for pointing me towards this “controversy.” Religious Floridians are all astir over the six naughty “pornaments” marketed by Spencer’s. Says Hillcrest Baptist Church Rev. Jim Patterson,
“It is just sad they have to stoop to this kind of thing to defame Christmas. It says we are nothing more than sexual acts or psychical being and we are much more than that. We are spiritual beings and this is a spiritual holiday. And, why bring it to that level. It makes no sense to me.”
Proving yet again that these dopes lack a sense of humor. When I think how I nearly pissed myself laughing over what South Park did to Judaism (Jews worship Moses, a spirit inhabiting a giant spinning dreidel, by coercing their children to make macaroni art projects at Jewbilee Camp), a reindeer with a boner is the least the religious right could endure. Hey, guys: Spencer’s didn’t even mess with Santa Claus, let alone Jesus. I call that respect.
These guys hate sex. Hate it hate it hate it. Will someone with a better understanding of the history of Christian sex-hatred please explain this to me? I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with Jesus, and I seem to recall St. Augustine was an ex-libertine turned prude. Was it Augie’s fault?
D.