Salon.com > Mike Perry

Exposing sexual dysfunction

Tue, 06 Jun 2000 19:30:00 +0000

From Rudy Giulianis prostate to Tom Greens testicle, mens private parts have been on public parade of late. In the opening pages of his new book, "Sexual Health for Men: The Complete Guide," Harvard endocrinologist Richard Spark ties the new willingness of men to publicly discuss the fallibility of their love tackle directly to the 42nd American president and a little blue pill.

Using the randy commander in chief and Viagra as a jumping-off point, Spark delivers an encyclopedic guide to all things male, from discolored semen to the viability of alternative erectile treatments. "Sexual Health for Men" is instructive, calming and frequently entertaining.

During a recent interview, Spark discussed his version of the Clinton legacy, shifting attitudes about male sexual health and alternatives to Viagra. Oh, and then theres the one about Dr. Brindley and his performing penis ...

The first paragraph of your book mentions President Clinton. The second paragraph mentions Viagra. Can you talk a little bit about the pivotal part the president and Viagra played in opening up the discussion of male sexuality?

Backwoods E.R.

Thu, 11 Nov 1999 17:00:00 +0000

A while back in these parts, a man was accused of molesting a child. One day after he had been charged, he was sitting in his truck when he was approached by the child's mother. She asked him to extend his hand. He did, and she quoted him some scripture: "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off," she said. Then she reached into her purse, drew out a pistol and
blew a slug through his palm.

Several years later, I was at the wheel of the local ambulance, racing to a
hospital some 14 miles away. The man in back was having seizures, maybe a
heart attack. His wife was in the passenger seat beside me, clutching her
purse and a hefty, well-worn Bible. I was trying to focus on the road, and
she kept cursing and praying and pestering me to join in.

Back at the
house, she'd been hysterical, screaming and grabbing at her husband. One of
the emergency medical technicians had pulled her aside. If you can't contain yourself, you can't ride
with us, he'd said. It sounds cold, but it is dangerous and irresponsible to
let a frantic family member loose in a speeding ambulance. Now she
was getting agitated again. "Ma'am," I said sternly, over the siren, "you
promised. You have got to let me drive."

Sharing your life

Wed, 21 Jul 1999 16:00:00 +0000

When highway robbers killed Reg and Maggie Green's 8-year-old son during a family vacation in Italy in 1994, the couple found themselves whisked from a holiday outing to the waiting room of a Messina hospital. A neurosurgeon informed them that their son, Nicholas, was brain-dead. Faced with a decision every parent dreads, the Greens were about to set in motion events that would become known worldwide as the Nicholas effect. In his recent book of the same name, Reg describes the moment:

Then one of us -- we don't remember which, though, knowing her, I'd guess Maggie -- looked at the other and asked, "Now that he's gone, shouldn't we give his organs?"
"Yes," said the other and that's all there was to it. We told the doctors and signed the forms and left. It was the least difficult major decision either of us had to make: The boy we knew was not in that body anymore.
On the face of it, organ donation seems so proper -- so right -- that we need only be reminded of it the way we might remind a child to share his M&Ms. Even the tag line on the Coalition for Donation Web site sounds like a mother's gentle admonition: "Remember, share your life."
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Stop that damned ringing

Thu, 06 May 1999 16:00:00 +0000

In parts of rural India people believe that if your ears are ringing, you
are hearing the voice of God. If this is so, then "God" is no longer
speaking to William Shatner. For a while there, God wouldn't shut
up. God's voice made William Shatner go very nearly mad. William Shatner
was ready to do anything to rid himself of the Lord's reverberations. Even
kill himself. But in 1996, before he could be driven to suicide, William Shatner met Dr. Pawel J. Jastreboff.

Jastreboff cast the Lord out of William Shatner's ears.

Audiologists have a specific term for Shatner's affliction: tinnitus.
Pronounced tin-NIGHT-us or TIN-it-us, the term refers to ringing or other noises in the ears or head. Tinnitus is one of the most widespread
disorders of the auditory system -- and with a battery of recent studies
demonstrating that our aging ears are paying the price for noisy lives in a world that keeps getting noisier, tinnitus is on the increase.
According to the American Tinnitus
Association, 50 million Americans
suffer from "annoying" tinnitus. Of these, 12 million find their tinnitus
so distressing that they seek medical intervention.