Mark Leyner - Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini

Announcer A:Marvelous touch. You sense he has everything to gain and nothing to lose.

Announcer B:One caution here. You want to avoid the computer and the books over there—

Announcer A:I think we’re reaching critical mass, Bobby.

Announcer B:They don’t come much better than that, Chris. Absolutely marvelous shot!

If an aroused male is unfortunately the victim of a spinal cord injury, the ability to have sexual intercourse depends on the level of injury. In men there are normally two types of erections, psychogenic erections, which result from sexual thoughts, and reflex erections, which result from direct physical contact.

Psychogenic erections develop from the nerves of the spinal cord that exit toward the bottom of the spine at the T10-L2 levels. Generally, men with an incomplete injury at a low level are more likely to have psychogenic erections than men with high-level incomplete injury. Men with complete injuries are less likely to experience psychogenic erections.

Reflex erections arise in the sacral area of the spinal cord. Many men with a spinal cord injury are able to have a reflex erection with physical stimulation if this pathway is not damaged.

It pains us to say, but this is true. There is no bone in your “bone,” but you can rupture the penis, which is called a penile fracture. Sudden trauma or bending of the penis in an erect state can break the thick fibrous coat surrounding the corpora cavernosum tissue that produces an erection.

This happens most frequently during sex. Don’t expect to get a cast and crutches, though. This injury is an emergency and requires surgery to prevent sexual dysfunction. Ouch!

As a doctor, there is a great deal of medical research to read. Piles of The New England Journal of Medicine and the Annals of Emergency Medicine surround the house. Rarely does this drudgery cause excitement, unless you stumble across the April 7, 2004, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association .

As a young boy you get bombarded by the fear that masturbation can cause stuttering, blindness, or hairy palms. Even if you escape these maladies you can still be left feeling like a degenerate if you engage in self-love too often. Fear no more. In the article “Ejaculation Frequency and Prostate Cancer” you finally find out that whacking off may be good for you. This article states that ejaculation frequency is not related to increased risk of prostate cancer and that the group with an ejaculation frequency of greater than twenty-one times per month had a lower risk of prostate cancer. Great! And no hairy palms.

Dr. Billy’s young cousin’s friend asked him this one, another common question. There are many different opinions about what constitutes losing one’s virginity, but most experts agree that women lose their virginity the first time they have vaginal intercourse.

This question mainly revolves around the idea that only an intact hymen (a fold of tissue that partly covers the entrance to the vagina) proves that a woman is a virgin. It is possible for a woman’s hymen to become stretched open during activities like playing sports or masturbating. Hymens have at least one opening that will allow menstrual flow out of the body. Tampons may stretch the hymen a little bit, but they don’t usually stretch it open all the way. Either way, most people in the modern age believe that the condition of the hymen does not have anything to do with the definition of a virgin.

Small muscle cells arranged cylindrically within the nipple are responsible for the nipple becoming erect. This occurs when they are stimulated by cold temperature or sexual arousal.

A penis whose flaccid length when stretched is more than approximately 2.5 standard deviations below average size for his age group is referred to medically as a micropenis. This is not a title that any self-respecting man wants to put in his bio, but perceptions of penis size can be deceiving.

Cold air, cold water, fear, anger, or anxiety can cause the penis, scrotum, and testicles to be pulled closer to the body, thereby shortening it to micropenis lengths.

Warm conditions on the other hand can cause the penis to lengthen. Although the size of the nonerect penis differs widely from one male to another, this variation is less apparent in the erect state. Even Seinfeld weighed in on the shrinkage issue.

Some penis reference points:

1. The Kinsey Report, 1948: average length of 6.20 inches (15.25 cm) with a standard deviation of.77 inches (1.96 cm).

2. Study by Wessells et. al., 1996: average length of 5.1 inches (13.0 cm).

3. Other studies: average length of 5.7 inches (14.5 cm).

The debate over circumcision has been going back and forth for years. Some American medical experts believe that all newborn males should be circumcised. The side in favor cites the decreased rate of urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases among circumcised men, and the other emphasizes the pain and stress inflicted on a baby during circumcision. Others believe that the benefits of circumcision are not great enough to justify the possible complications of the procedure. In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Circumcision found potential medical benefits of circumcision, but decided that the evidence was not strong enough to recommend routine circumcision. But, more important, back to sex.

There are several studies found in urology literature that look at the effect of male circumcision on male sexual satisfaction. These studies found conflicting answers.

The effect of male circumcision on the sexual enjoyment of the female partner was also examined in a study in the British Journal of Urology . The authors concluded that “women preferred vaginal intercourse with an anatomically complete penis over that with a circumcised penis.” Interestingly, the authors of the study also wrote and published a book entitled Sex As Nature Intended It . They also recruited some of their volunteers for the study from an announcement in an anticircumcision newsletter. We mention this not as circumcised males but as impartial interpreters of the medical literature.

Interesting circumcision facts:

The twelfth-century physician and rabbi Moses Maimonides advocated male circumcision for its ability to curb a man’s sexual appetite.

Male circumcision was introduced into English-speaking countries in the late 1800s as a method of treating and preventing masturbation.

Male circumcision, the most commonly performed surgery in the United States, removes 33 to 50 percent of the penile skin, as well as nearly all of the penile fine-touch neuroreceptors.

Everyone has a preference.

President Clinton revealed on MTV that he preferred boxers.

Kramer on Seinfeld said, “I need the secured packaging of jockeys. My boys need a house!”

The question is whether or not there is any science behind making this decision.