Sex, Sleep or Scrabble

by Hammond, Phil

  Can you really burn your ear if someone phones when you’re ironing?

  Yes. Men are more likely to burn than women, partly because they’re not used to ironing and partly because we find it hard to multi-task. We can iron or answer the phone, but not both at the same time.

  I’ve only come across it once, in a sound engineer. I met him at a circumcision voiceover (enough said) and I spotted he was only using half his headphones. Some do this to look trendy. Others do it to allow the skin to re-grow.

  He was cagey at first – as if being a sound engineer who can’t differentiate between the hiss of a steam iron from the ring of a telephone was something to be ashamed of – but we gently managed to coax the truth out. Embarrassment is a very personal thing and often completely unjustified. An iron looks a lot like a phone, and he’s not the first person to have made that mistake. He was too ashamed to visit a doctor, but the wound’s healing well and all I could advise him was to take the phone off the hook next time he’s ironing … or carving the turkey/stoking the fire/plunging the toilet.

  The human and economic toll of accidents is vast. Seven and a half million people a year take their mishaps to casualty, including one in five of all the children in the UK. However, most are not a result of unlucky twists of fate, but rather ignorant, stressed or foolhardy Brits in a hurry. Which is why they’re embarrassing. At school, there was a boy called Jack with no middle finger. He and his Dad were sorting out a very long string of Christmas lights and, without realising what the other was doing, they each put a plug on the end. Dad finished first, flicked the switch and you can guess the rest.

  How much of my body should I shave?

  As little as you can get away with. We’re all African Apes and we’re meant to be covered in hair. And no one ever said on their death bed: ‘I wish I’d spent more time in electrolysis’, or having a Brazilian, which I gather can be a touch painful, even in the best hands. Attempts at full-body stripping go in cycles of fashion, largely because women are made to think (by other women and manufacturers of hair-removal products) that men find body hair a turn off. Some probably do, but there are plenty who love a rim of lip hair and a forest of tight curls.

  Back in the seventies, the bible of sexual fulfilment was The Joy of Sex by Dr Alex Comfort. The graphic line drawings were of a hirsute and strangely flexible man and his long-haired un-shaven companion. It contained fabulous advice such as:

  Women used to chop off their armpit hair, or they did until a new generation realised it was sexy … In fact, the armpits should on no account be shaved, as they can be used instead of the palm to silence your partner at climax. If you must use your hand to clasp over his mouth, then make sure you rub it through the aromatic hairs in your own and your partner’s armpit first.

  Sadly, the 2008 reprint of The Joy of Sex has lost much of the hair and the pit tip. But cut off all your hair and you’re missing out on one of nature’s finest aphrodisiacs. Where do you think musk comes from? I know it says ‘extracted from the musk glands of Himalayan musk deer’ on the bottle, but at least half of it is the sweat and smegma of any old hairy mammal. And a fine and enticing smell it is too. Sex expert Dr Ruth K. Westheimer is a keen advocate of armpit sex; a surprisingly enticing alternative when you fancy something a bit different, apparently, and all the better for a clump of moist, sweaty hair. You can’t get pregnant that way but you’d be wise to use a condom in a pandemic, when those caught short without a tissue sneeze into their armpits. If swine flu and Chlamydia mix, we’re all going down.

  Shaving or hot waxing the genitals is now de rigueur for a generation brought up on a diet of hairless porn. Men and boys do it in the hope they’ll look an inch longer, women I’m not so sure about. Some claim it makes the vulva easier for a man to find his way around but the pre-pubescent look is deeply disturbing. Pubic hair is nature’s buffer for the bump and grind of life, and to remove it all can make sex uncomfortable. Plus, you end up with shaving rashes and nicks that take ages to stop bleeding, and look ridiculous with little squares of tissue paper on them. Every bush occasionally needs a back comb or a trim but genitals were not made to be stripped, buffed and polished.

  Body hair removal is time-consuming, expensive, uncomfortable, unnatural and embarrassing (as any man who’s had his ‘back, sac and crack’ done will testify). Life is all about difficult choices. If you’re in a relationship, ask your partner if she’d prefer you to spend your disposable cash on the new-you eunuch look, or a nice meal out, followed by four hours of armpit sex. When did you last celebrate the joy of hair?

  Can black pudding mimic the signs of bowel cancer?

  Yes, and at both ends. The congealed pig’s blood in black pudding can mimic human blood in your stool, in a well-known chemical screening test called the Faecal Occult Blood or FOB. This is the one where you have to collect a small dollop of your poo from pan or paper and smear it on a card. If it changes colour, you’ve got blood in your stool, either your own or your pudding’s.

  Do I have to have been to public school to find bowel screening acceptable?

  No. But when FOBs were first trialled it was noticeable that those who’d had the benefit of a private education were more at ease with collecting and smearing their poo. However, it’s actually very easy to do and, because bowel cancer is so common (it happens to one in twenty of us, and 16,000 people still die every year from it), it’s worth trying to pick it up early. The NHS currently offers FOB screening automatically to everyone aged 60–69 every two years, and to anyone over 70 if you phone the helpline and ask for it (0800 707 60 60).

  Why do I smell?

  Because everyone else does too. In my teens, I read a Monty Python manual (easily the best source of medical information) that had a whole page on body odour. There was a self-help feature on better foreskin hygiene (‘It pays to look after your penis’), a quiz (‘Which vaginal deodorant does Cliff Richard use?’) and a song to help break that awkward news to someone you love (‘Honey, you smell’).

  We all have our own idiosyncratic tincture, often so faint that it can only be detected by those who rub up against us. A few unfortunates give out signals at six feet, but whether or not these are deemed unpleasant depends on cultural norms as much as wind speed. What’s not acceptable in Kidderminster could be flavour of the month in Kettering.

  If you believe Darwin, there has to be an evolutionary advantage to smelling or it would have been chlorinated out of the gene pool. The female Emperor moth (Eudia pavonia) puts out a pheromone that can be picked up by a male 6.8 miles away, and its survival depends on it. No smell, no baby Emperors. For humans, it’s probably got something to do with keeping the flies off your tucker or tracking your partner down in the dark. Perhaps it encourages us to mate with the same species. Some couples admit to finding each other’s scent a turn on, but then sex has a remarkable capacity to make erstwhile vile smells and tastes alluring (if only for ten minutes.)

  So, what actually causes us to smell? Sweat itself is largely blameless, unless you’ve pigged out on garlic, onions, curry and alcohol (hence the Sunday morning stinker). It’s the colonisation of sweat that’s been hanging around for several hours by chemical-releasing bacteria that’s the problem. Sweat tends to congregate in areas from where it can’t escape in polite society (genitals, nipples and armpits). These areas are also blessed with a special type of sweat gland, the apocrine gland, which produces sticky, milky fluid containing fats and proteins. These glands become active in adolescence and their fluid is said to be pheremonal. Unfortunately, it’s also a bacterial feast. The other type of sweat gland (eccrine), is mostly concentrated on your forehead, palms and soles. Socks, gloves and woolly pom-pom hats provide an enclosed, airless environment for sweat-rotting bugs.

  Clearly, if we didn’t sweat, we wouldn’t smell, but it’s essential to control body temperature and stop you overheating. The average torso boasts two million sweat glands which churn out over three litres every twenty-four hours (2.1 mls a m
inute). Most of it evaporates easily. Hot weather, alcohol, exercise, obesity and agitation up the production, and humid conditions slow down evaporation. Some people sweat buckets even when they’re cold, sober, slim, stationary and stress-free. Although upsetting, this isn’t harmful unless it’s combined with other symptoms which suggest something else is responsible, e.g. weight loss, weakness, trembling, increased appetite and bulging eyes (over-active thyroid gland or orgasm), night sweats, cough and weight loss (infection or tumour) or irregular periods (menopause)

  So, how can you cut down on BO? The text-book advice to wash all over and change your pants, socks and any skin-hugging clothes every day seems condescending in the extreme. However, only a third of men wash behind their foreskin every day, while the majority are either too lazy or just enjoy their own smell. Some people with scrupulous personal hygiene still seem to sweat or smell excessively, and accusing them of skimping on the soap isn’t particularly helpful. Others lack the mobility to reach under their armpits or perhaps can’t afford the hot water. Using an anti-bacterial or anti-septic soap, particularly in your apocrine areas can help, but avoid over-washing as it can remove healthy skin bacteria and make the problem worse. It’s a good idea to dry carefully after bathing and pamper yourself with talc as bacteria prefer moist skin. Tight or synthetic clothes and night garments are out; go for baggy cottons that allow the sweat to evaporate and sleep in the raw. Shower promptly after exertion, wear cotton socks, rotate your shoes round, go easy on alcohol and try not to pile on the pounds.

  Deodorants alone just mask the smell and don’t cut down on sweat rot. Choose wisely; the heady mix of BO and cheap perfume can be worse than BO alone. Go for one containing an antiperspirant too. These work by either stopping the bacteria from rotting or, rather perversely, by preventing the sweat from evaporating and holding the sweat and smell in. Experiment with a few to find which type and method of delivery suits you best. Some can cause irritation and you’d be unwise to apply them to broken skin or your genitals.

  If this doesn’t work, your doctor may prescribe a strong antiperspirant containing aluminium chloride. This reduces the amount of sweat you produce, but tends to cause skin irritation. Some people sort the smell but still get great lakes under the arms. In extreme cases, you can have the sweat glands surgically removed. Or just wear black shirts.

  6

  Forbidden fruit

  Some of these questions are ridiculous and some are very rude indeed, but they’re all my fault for suggesting ‘there’s no such thing as a stupid question.’ Gonad games are a gas, so long as you know when to stop. Be gentle, take your time and always pause to consider: ‘Am I rimming responsibly?’

  GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

  Can you have sex in a body scanner?

  It’s a tight fit, and there’s no room to laugh, but it has been done before. Dutch researchers (who else?) at the University Hospital in Groningen invited couples to copulate inside their very expensive Nuclear Magnetic Resonance machine: a) to see if it was possible; and b) to see what happens to the genitalia in amazing detail. And, for the icing on the cake, they asked three single women to masturbate alone.

  This is, I should point out, legitimate research and the pictures have been published in the British Medical Journal rather than Dirty Wet Wipes (although they may get the sell-through rights). Actually, the photos aren’t horny at all but really rather unnerving. I doubt very much if the ‘midsagittal image of the sexual response of a multiparous woman in the pre-orgasmic phase’ will ever grace the Pirelli calendar. So why bother?

  The researchers claim to have got the idea back in 1991 when they saw a scan of what happens to the throat of a professional singer when he sings ‘aaa.’ Then they remembered Leonardo da Vinci’s epic drawing The Copulation (1493), which depicts all the inside bits during vertical copulation.* Was he accurate in his sketching? Clearly not, since in his view, the semen comes down from a man’s brain via a channel in the spinal cord. Nice try, but no banana.

  Talking of which, da Vinci drew the penis going in relatively straight, whereas our researchers found that ‘during intercourse in the missionary position the penis has the shape of a boomerang and a third of its length consists of the root of the penis.’ It’s worth remembering this when faced with a penis that doesn’t look much from the outside – it could just have a very long root (that’s my excuse, anyway).

  Unsurprisingly all the men who had scanner sex managed to achieve an orgasm but only half the women. Was it the missionary position or the huge noisy magnet that put them, off? We’ll never know. Those who got there described the orgasm as ‘superficial’, whereas the women who went solo all achieved a good climax. This rather begs the question ‘Are men really necessary (for orgasm in an MRI scanner)?’ And as for the anatomical changes in women, the authors conclude that: ‘During female sexual arousal the uterus was raised and the anterior vaginal wall lengthened, but the size of the uterus did not increase. ‘

  So there. This study is one of a series of oddities that started back in 1933 with a man called Dickinson. He made a glass test tube in the shape of an erection and had good peek inside female subjects who were aroused by clitoral stimulation. Then came Masters and Johnson, who also used an artificial penis and ‘direct observation.’ They deduced that your uterus increases in size by up to 100% during arousal, a fact disputed by the Dutch study.

  Perhaps the most extraordinary feature about this study has been the correspondence that has followed it. The British Medical Journal is not known for its agony column, but a retired chiropractor decided to write in and discuss his orgasmic difficulties following prostate surgery. Then there was a debate about whether the boomerang shape of the penis was down to the body scanner, rather than nature. In MRI scans, the body is placed inside a massive cylindrical magnet weighing 500 tons and subjecting the body to 60,000 times the earth’s magnetic field. This excites the nuclei in the body’s atoms which produce signals that can be recreated into pictures. Could such a force not bend a penis?

  The answer is apparently not, unless the penis had something metal in it. Going into a huge magnet with a Prince Albert would be suicide. Then came a letter from an earnest American professor explaining why only half of the copulating women achieved orgasm:

  The missionary position may be responsible. Human sexual anatomy seems to be designed for rear entry as practised by lower mammals where, presumably, greater stimulation of the anterior vaginal wall occurs and the semen is deposited closer to the cervical opening.

  Needless to say, this professor is male. An alternative explanation for the poor arousal rate came from a (female) colleague of mine.

  MRI scanners are incredibly noisy and claustrophobic, you’re not allowed to move and you know there’s a load of boffins in the next room scrutinising your anatomy. Now some women might get off on that, but it’s my idea of hell.

  In fact, all the couples were willing volunteers and the researchers did their best to make them comfortable. As the BMJ article explains ‘Participants were assured confidentiality, privacy, anonymity and the possibility of withdrawing from the study at any time …’

  Is sex better for you if you do it outdoors?

  It’s not better for those watching, so always aim for somewhere remote. There’s some evidence that being surrounded by nature is good for your mental health, but most people who have sex outdoors are trying to get it over with as quickly as possible, rather than taking time to smell the roses. If you’re caught having sex so blatantly that it couldn’t possibly be confused with searching for a contact lens, then in the UK you can be charged with indecent exposure in a public place (Town Police Clauses Act 1847). This could mean a £1,000 fine or, at worst, fourteen days in jail (though you’d need to be really going some up the Shed End). If you were genuinely looking for a contact lens and just got a bit carried away, you can still be done for breach of the peace though this is very noise dependent. As a rule, no more than one orgasm per contact lens. Britis
h police tend to be more lenient if they stumble across you by accident (unlucky on a remote grassy knoll) than if you’ve been shopped by humourless hikers. In Saudi Arabia, any public display of affection is outlawed and you’d be wise to pack a spare pair of contact lenses.

  Things to do:

  • Keep as many clothes on as mechanically possible;

  • Lie very still in the presence of Labradors;

  • Call a time-out to remove twigs.

  Things not to do:

  • Try to fit two of you on a child’s swing;

  • Padlock yourself to railings in the dark;

  • Find a nice spot covered in condoms and needles.

  Things to say when you’re caught:

  • ‘Ah, there it is!’

  • ‘Lovely evening, officer.’

  • ‘Down, boy.’

  Things not to say when you’re caught:

  • ‘Do you know who I am?’

  • ‘Climb aboard, Jack, there’s room on my horse for two.’

  • ‘Here comes the money shot.’