Manhood: The Rise and Fall of the Penis (16 page)

Research in the 1940s by Kinsey and his associates showed that between 25 and 75 per cent of all adult males in the United States had an ejaculation within two minutes of penetration. That research was far less reliable than the recent multinational research led by Dutch neuro -

sexologist Mark Waldinger. He is regarded as the ‘inventor’ of the use of the stopwatch in research into pe. The man is asked to press the button on a stopwatch at the moment of penetration so that the time it takes to reach ejaculation can be calculated exactly. In the jargon researchers speak of the Intravaginal Ejaculation Latency Time or ielt.

Waldinger and his team asked 491 men, with no ailments, from Norway, Spain, Turkey, the United States and the Netherlands to participate in the stopwatch research. The average ielt turned out to be 5 minutes 40 seconds, with extremes varying in either direction from a few seconds to almost three-quarters of an hour. On the basis of the distribution curves the researchers felt able to assert that men who always climax within a minute can be regarded as ‘patients’, at least if they are troubled by the condition.

In any case pe is the most frequent sexual ailment in many countries. However, men seek help with it less frequently than with erectile dysfunction. Not every man sees it as a problem: for some it is a part of themselves, but with others the repeated fear of failure has a 78

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disastrous effect. People devise all kinds of tricks, varying from consuming large amounts of alcohol beforehand to thinking of rotten eggs, a herd of plodding elephants, barbed wire or blue envelopes.

Another ruse is to masturbate before intercourse and hope that the second ejaculation will take slightly longer. For this purpose the man sometimes comes up with the excuse of wanting to shower before making love. Of course this makes a difference, but the disadvantage is that afterwards the arousal level may have decreased considerably. In addition, for an older man at least it takes longer to achieve a second ejaculation. None of this need be catastrophic provided the man in question ensures that his bed partner derives sufficient pleasure.

We know little about the psychological and physiological processes which cause a man to reach orgasm too quickly, though many pre suppositions have been put forward. One of the first explanations was a psychoanalytical one, namely a latent hatred of women. Later psycho logists decided that someone’s first experiences of coitus in hasty or tense circumstances were at the root of the ‘problem’. Equally, there is lack of adequate biological explanations. It is true that, for example, some rats are also ‘quick off the mark’. Very probably pe is more a freak of nature. There is quite simply a gradual transition from men who come to orgasm very quickly and those who take a long time. The majority of men with pe are mentally, physically and sexually healthy and have a happy relationship with their partner. Most have no need for psychotherapy. Psychological treatment is required only if men cannot handle their pe, if the ailment has become an obsession or if their relationship with their partner has come under great pressure.

pe-sufferers can often be helped with medication, in the form of a tablet or a desensitizing cream or spray. Since the 1940s attempts have been made to make the glans and the penis less sensitive. Nowadays we use emla cream, usually applied to children’s skins to anaesthetize them before a blood sample is taken. emla contains lidocaine and prilocaine, two anaesthetics. The cream must be applied at least ten minutes before intercourse, and must be wiped off in good time to prevent the partner from also becoming genitally anaesthetized. A condom can of course also be used. One annoying side-effect of the cream is that when urina -

ting after intercourse the man may be troubled by a burning sensation at the end of the urethra. In addition the cream may cause skin rashes on the penis and the glans. Sex shops also sell anaesthetic sprays; years ago women carried similar-sized spray cans of ‘intimate deodorant’, which women’s magazines had convinced them they needed.

It was not until the early 1970s that a medication appeared on the market that could delay ejaculation and had few side-effects. Its trade name was Anafranil and its chemical name clomipramine. Although it 79

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was easily available on prescription, little use was made of it in sex o logy.

Only in the 1990s did treatment with pills attract widespread interest.

Up to then many sexologists felt that this was simply a ‘symptom -

suppressant’ medication, and that underlying mental problems had to be dealt with. The only snag was that in most cases there was no underlying psychological problem.

At the end of the 1980s selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (ssris) came on the market for the treatment of depression, the best-known examples being Prozac and Seroxat. In some men and women treated with certain ssris it was found that ejaculation or orgasm was delayed, and a number sometimes did not climax at all. In any case effect and side-effect are only words, interpretations of the result of medication. What is desirable for one person may be called a major effect. What is not desirable is quickly dismissed as a side-effect. This is what happened with ssris, although they are not officially indicated for pe. These types of medication should therefore be used under the supervision of a doctor.

Testicles as an aphrodisiac

Almost two thousand years ago the Latin writer Pliny recommended the eating of testicles in cases of poor sexual performance. Testes are on the menu in many countries. In Spain this delicacy is called
cojones
(with the same connotations of courage and manliness as English

‘balls’). Fighting bulls from the arenas are of course the best suppliers.

In the famous Florian restaurant in Barcelona they serve testicles, giving the name of the bull, its weight, a brief description, the pedigree, place and time of death and the name of the bullfighter responsible. Cojones taste of sweetbreads, but that’s all that can be said: it’s an illusion to think that they can be used to raise the testosterone level, since virtually all the remains of the testes will go down the drain, and the tiny amount of testosterone that is absorbed by the intestines will be immediately broken down in the liver.

Scientists

Not until the Renaissance did our knowledge of hormones and sexuality start to progress, and Paracelsus (1493–1541) became the most important scientist of the age. Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (his real name) hailed from Switzerland, and his greatest achievement was to demonstrate that many diseases could be treated and that sufferers did not always need to endure passively. He introduced mercury treatment for syphilis, the aids of the sixteenth century.

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In the eighteenth century the English surgeon John Hunter (1728–

1793) did very important and original work, being the first to observe that the testes of animals slaughtered in the autumn were smaller than those slaughtered in spring. (The reason for this has only recently been discovered. The pineal gland at the base of the brain produces more melatonin when there is more sunlight, again boosting the production of hormones in the hypophysis, which in turn prompts the testicle to produce more testosterone and sperm.) Hunter also conducted experi -

ments with animals. After transplanting a section of a cock’s testicle into a hen, he saw the hen assuming male characteristics, for example, acquiring a coxcomb. Unfortunately Hunter omitted to publish most of his findings, so that there are only sparse references to him in medical history books.

The German physiologist Berthold demonstrated in the mid -

nineteenth century (1849) that when he reinserted the testicles of a castrated cockerel the creature once again developed a large comb and began behaving in a cockerel-like manner. Berthold, a professor at the University of Göttingen, wrote prolifically on every conceivable medi -

cal topic. What was his precise method? In an operation he removed the testicles of four cockerels, turning them into capons. Then he opened up the abdomen of two of the birds and implanted one testicle in each, so that that they were no longer attached to their previous nervous system. If they were to function, it would to be through the bloodstream. Berthold was incredibly lucky: antibiotics were still unknown and the capons could easily have succumbed to an inflammation of the abdominal membrane. But they survived, and the grafting of the tes ticles was successful. While those castrated birds in which no tes ticles had been replaced remained fat pacifists, the others turned back to cockerels in all respects. In his book on the male hormone Paul de Kruif puts it beautifully: ‘They crowed like the proud cocks they were, they fought till the feathers flew and they chased the females enthusiastically. Their beautiful bright-red combs and dewlaps went on growing.’

This was conclusive proof that the testicles fed a masculinizing substance into the blood.

Rejuvenation

Around 1900 average life expectancy increased. This was mainly due to better nutrition and hygiene. More and more people lived into middle age and beyond. Rather in the same way as in our own time, many people at the turn of the twentieth century felt the need to combat the decline that accompanies old age. It had been known since the eunuchs of Roman times that human potency is linked to the testicles, 81

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but around 1900 it was thought that vitality was also linked to them.

A Viennese physiologist, Eugen Steinach, assumed that ‘youth’ was a product of the puberty glands, the testicles, and wrote various books on the subject.

The testicular function in older people could lead to a second youth. It wasn’t really an original idea, since the celebrated physio -

logist Edouard Brown-Séquard (1817–1894) had already aired the same notion. He was certainly not a quack. Far from it: in his heyday the Frenchman was famed for his pioneering work in endocrinology and neurophysiology. However, the scientist could not bear the thought that he was ageing, and at the age of 70, in a desperate attempt to regain his youth, he injected himself with an extract he had made from minced rams’ testicles. He immediately felt his skin tightening and firming and his mind becoming more youthful and of course recommended everyone of his age to have a jab, but was laughed out of court by his fellow scientists for having treated himself and what’s more for presenting it as science.

In 1912 Steinach began his experiments with old rats. The creatures looked in poor shape, were thin and had lost their appetite for sex. Their seminal ducts were supposedly limp and empty, which made Steinbach decide to tie off their ducts and the accompanying draining blood vessels. He expected that this would result in the blood flow through the testicles increasing with a proportionate rise in testosterone production. Judging by the photos in his book, his male rats proved him right. They grew more hair, became more alert and aggressive, and their sexual interest also returned. If the treatment failed to produce the desired result, he implanted the testicles of other, young rats in the abdominal cavity or wall of the old animals and observed some degree of improvement. The rats lived twelve months longer than their usually allotted span of three years.