Sex—the miracle drug

Jun 28, 2015 Features / Columnists, My Column

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It is amazing at what people study and the findings they produce. This past week I found an interesting article on prostate cancer. As fate would have it, I am always provided with headlines and stories carried by Yahoo. Some of these stories actually end up on the news networks in the United States.
For example, there was this vignette about a rabbit taking on a snake that would normally make a meal of the rabbit. This rabbit, a doe, had some young ones when the snake came along. People often say that mothers can be extremely dangerous when it comes to protecting their young ones. Perhaps it is this realization that makes all of us love our mothers to death.
The rabbit fought the snake, even using what we would say were karate moves and caused the snake to slither away. Of course the story does not have a happy ending, because the snake had already killed two of the babies.
Another story I found had to do with a man who walked at least 21 miles each day to and from work. He couldn’t afford a car so he walked and he did this for years. He barely had time to sleep before he would be up and off to work again. Rain and snow did not deter him.
When I read that story I thought about us here in Guyana who not only stayed at home when there was the slightest shower, I thought about those who would not walk two miles to get to work. I could empathise with this man because I had to do the same way back in the 1980s. I walked with my children two miles each way five days a week.
They were going to St Mary’s on Brickdam and I worked a block away at the Ministry of Information. We just did not have money for bus fare and that was cheap—a mere fifty cents one way. Children were afforded tickets that cost five cents.
To think that this man recognized the importance of his job to the extent that he would put his body through such a beating was astonishing to say the least. The news media got hold of the story and before long the man got a car. Strange, but true, his boss did not even know how his worker managed to be early at work each day.
There was a funny side to this story. The man had a woman somewhere and she had the gumption to make a claim on some of the money the man collected by way of donations. I know many women like that in Guyana.
Then there was the story about twin sisters—one black and one white. That story kept the networks alive for a long time. And so it was that I came across this story on prostate cancer. It said that one way to avoid prostate cancer was to ejaculate at least five times a week.
For some of us in our 20s and 30s that is possible but for people my age, that is an impossibility because in the first instance, there is not the all-powerful urge to have sex every day. I am happy if I could get any twice a week. Does this mean that I am a candidate for prostate cancer? Perhaps.
Perhaps the people who made this ‘discovery’ are saying to me that I should masturbate frequently. I would think that this is a cheap way to avoid prostate cancer but for a lot of men, this could become a chore like heading to the gym daily.
There was another story that said that people who have sex regularly (it did not say what regularly was) end up looking ten years younger than they actually are. This could put many plastic surgeons out of business.
But the best of them all was about penis size. From small, boys had an obsession with penis size. People spread rumours about others. There was always fantasizing. Fantasy surrounded Black men who are touted to be more gifted than men of any other ethnic group.
So there was this survey that examined the members of men in a number of countries. It concluded that the standard penis size was just over six inches and that most men were just over five inches. I am not sure how this went down, but I can bet that many men went racing for a ruler. Some would have come away disappointed.
Perhaps a few would have headed to the bathroom where someone would have posted a sign that read, ‘Go closer. It’s shorter than you think.’
There must be something to all these scientists chasing after things sexual. There was one joke I read somewhere. It stated that a group of scientists were in this laboratory when one of them pulled out a gun and shot the other. This act shocked the others until the killer explained, “He found a substitute for sex.”
Now why did these things catch my eye? Look at it this way; we are all captivated by this thing called sex which is used to advertise everything under the sun, from energy drinks to alcohol, to cars and even to aircraft seats.
There was a time when sex was used to sell cigarettes and not in the manner I saw some women using cigarettes in strip clubs. For some it is a spectator sport, hence the multitude of voyeurs. And these days it is not only confined to heterosexual activity. The United States opted to broaden the net, much to the consternation of many. Gay unions are now perfectly legal. To each his or her own.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there is another mad rush for visas.

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