Manhood

by Driel, Mels van.

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  a i l m e n t s o f t h e p e n i s Similarly in the ancient Hindu culture, from approximately 4000

  to 1000 bc, the solution to erection problems was sought not so much in the man himself as outside him, for example in eating a mixture of sesame seed, salt, pepper, brown sugar, eggs and buttermilk. The Hindus had many remedies for impotence, which were written down in the Ayur Vedas, meaning literally: ‘Poems on the Knowledge of Life’.

  The best-known of these is the ‘Sushruta Samhita’. In the Indian sex manual Kama Sutra, written in ad 400, great attention is given to the dimensions of the sex organ. On the basis of penis size men are divided into hares, bulls and stallions, while women can be hinds, mares or elephants. The Kama Sutra argues that the combination of a hare-man and a hind-woman leads to better sex than the combination of either of these two with a larger animal. Anyone wishing to follow this advice, though, encounters a practical problem: how many partners do you need to experiment with before you find the right size? In ancient India weak erections or overshort penises were also tackled with an ointment made of equal parts of myrrh, arsenic, aniseed and boric acid, mixed with sesame oil.

  When, many centuries later, Frederick of Prussia lay on his deathbed debilitated by disease, his personal physician prescribed the company of a young woman. However, this was not a matter of potency. The doctor assumed that the spirit of a young person could pass into an older person, causing a kind of rebirth. At the time this phenomenon was called sunamitism after the Sunamite maid of King David in the Bible.

  It is said of the legendary first emperor of China, the Yellow Emperor, the patriarch of the race of Han, from whom all Chinese are supposed to be descended, that he became immortal by going to bed with a thousand young virgins. The emperors who succeeded him all believed that the more sexual partners they had the longer they would live: hence their thousands of concubines. The first emperor of the Qin dynasty, Qin Shihuuangdi is said to have sent a Taoist priest and five hundred virgins across the sea in search of the elixir of immortality.

  According to legend the Japanese are the descendants of this priest and the five hundred virgins on the mission.

  Nowadays the view is that the invigorating effect of young people on the elderly is mainly psychological in nature. Sometimes a young woman feels attracted to an older partner, sexually as well as in other ways. That can reach the point where it could be seen as pathological: a condition that until recently psychologists described as ‘geronto philia’.

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  Impotence in the Middle Ages

  In the Middle Ages witches were often accused of having caused impotence. They could do this, for instance, by putting a spell on the member so that it disappeared completely into the abdomen; German witches especially were regarded as very skilled at this. The first person to link impotence and witchcraft was Hincmar, the archbishop of Rheims, who lived the ninth century. One of his pronouncements was that a man was not allowed to remarry after a divorce on the grounds of proven impotence from physical causes. However, if the impotence was the result of witchcraft, the victim was free to enter into a new marriage.

  In addition witches were also charged with having sexual intercourse with the devil. The snag with this was that the devil’s penis differed from that of a normal man. Some witches said that it was divided into two at the tip, forked and lithe as the tongue of a snake. This enabled it to be inserted both vaginally and anally, very like the method used by gynaecologists to examine their patients. The devil’s member was remarkable in several respects. Stories circulated about how his penis was scaly and covered in barbs. Descriptions of the length of the member differed: from that of a little finger to that of an arm. Besides the shape, the composition of the organ was described as abnormal: it was icy cold, as hard as stone, half horn and half iron.

  It goes without saying that vaginal contact with such an organ was not much fun! The prince of darkness’s copulations, it was assumed, produced ever more little witches and caused his power to grow accordingly. In the Middle Ages there were hordes of incubi and whore devils, demons who in the shape of a man or a woman crept into someone’s bed and copulated with monks and virgins, servants and mistresses.

  The publication of Der Hexenkammer (The Witches’ Chamber) in Cologne in 1487 is generally regarded as the beginning of the witch hunts, though in fact persecution had begun much earlier. This book, written by two notorious inquisitors, includes the story of a man whose penis had been whisked away by witchcraft, a case that today would be considered as an illustration of passing psychological impotence.

  Briefly summarized, the story is this: after ending his affair with a girl a young man promptly loses his member. His body has become completely smooth in the place it once occupied. He subsequently meets a woman in an inn who asks why he is so terribly sad. Her advice is to make the girl in question give him back his member, if necessary by force. He follows the advice and asks the girl to lift the spell.

  When she pleads her innocence, he almost strangles her and says:

  ‘If you don’t give me back my member, I’ll kill you.’ The girl proves 152

  a i l m e n t s o f t h e p e n i s intelligent enough to play along. She puts her hand between his thighs and says: ‘Here it is again,’ From that moment on the young man has his penis visibly and tangibly back in place. The psychological origin of this impotence is clear, though the inquisitors interpret it in their own way: the penis has not been torn from the body, but has been magicked away by the devil!

  In De Praestigiis Daemonum (1563) the Dutchman Johannes Weyer (also known as Wier) was one of the first to criticize the witch hunts. Impotence was also dealt with: Weyer demonstrated that this generally had a natural cause, for example the eating of certain herbs.

  In the event of impotence, he believed, one should not therefore base oneself on spells or accuse innocent people. Weyer did not deny that the devil can damage a man’s reproductive capacity, but argued emphati-cally that Satan did not require any old women for that purpose. Weyer had no time either for miraculous cures for impotence. On hearing of a man who regained his potency after rubbing himself with raven’s gall, Weyer’s wise conclusion was that superstition can obviously not only harm but also benefit a man.

  One can admire the psychological insight of this individual, who was able to put an end to the madness, not by saying that the devil was a fiction, but by taking him seriously and hammering home the message that with his lies about witchcraft he had played a nasty trick on mankind. In Weyer’s view it was not the women indicted for witchcraft who were under the devil’s spell, but their accusers: a sublime turning of the tables, which saved the lives of countless women. Weyer’s name lives on in, for example, the Johannes Wier Foundation, a Dutch organization of obstetricians, doctors and nurses who oppose the violation of human rights and in particular defend the interests of asylum seekers.

  While studying a fifteenth-century document found in Montpellier in France the medical historian Sigerist found an interesting treatise on impotence. It includes the statement that there are people incapable of coitus by reason of enchantment by the devil. If this befalls a man, he should address himself to God, who will grant him mercy. However, because there are different forms of spells, the writer of the manuscript feels obliged to deal with them all separately. Some spells are cast with the aid of animal substances, such as cock’s testicles. If these are placed under the marital bed together with the blood of the cock, sexual inter -

  course becomes impossible. Another method is to cut a nut or an acorn in two and place it along the way to be taken by the married couple after the wedding. Another kind of charm is to hide letters written in bat’s blood, and raw beans are also used, being most effective if they are placed on the roof or above the doorway.

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  Should the bride or bridegroom be the victim of one of the above-mentioned charms, it is better to ta
lk about it than to remain silent, since those afflicted are disgracing not only themselves but also their relatives and are sinning against the Holy Ghost.

  A few freely translated remedies:

  A spell by means of letters can be recognized from the fact that the bride and bridegroom are not affectionate with each other. One must search both above and below the doorway, and if one finds anything one must take it straight to the bishop or the priest. If a nut or acorn is the cause, the woman must divide a nut or acorn in two, after which the man and woman, each holding one part in their hand, must stand opposite each other on the road, then walk towards each other and put the two pieces back together for at least seven days.

  After that they will again be able to have intercourse. In the case of a spell involving bones, this can only be lifted with the help of God.

  The gall of a male dog cleanses the house and prevents it from being afflicted by any spell. If the walls are sprinkled with the blood of the dog the spells will also be annulled. If the bride and bridegroom collect fish gall and carry it in a basket made from the branches of a juniper bush and scatter it on the hearth in the evening, the spells will also be banished.

  If the above measures did not work, the couple should consult a priest.

  After making confession the couple had the opportunity to take Holy Communion on Ascension Day. After partaking of the body and blood of Christ, the married couple were supposed to give each other the ‘kiss of peace’. They were then blessed and sent forth with the urgent advice to refrain from any attempt at intercourse for three days and three nights, after which success was guaranteed! Centuries later the celebrated sexologists William Masters and Virginia Johnson were to incorporate the latter exercise in their therapy.

  One may note in passing that doctors or would-be doctors are not exactly famed for their fantastic sexual prowess. They have plenty of excuses: busy, irregular working hours, the great emotional demands made by their work, and so on.

  Back to the Middle Ages: Nicolas Famel (1330–1418), a celebrated scholar at the University of Paris, was both an exorcist and an alchemist. He believed that rotting wood was extremely effective with impotence-related problems, but it must be first soaked for three days in the urine of a sixteen-year-old virgin.

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  a i l m e n t s o f t h e p e n i s One of his other remedies was as follows:

  Take some burdock seed; place it in a bowl; mix it with the left testicle of a three-year-old billy-goat, a pinch of powder made from hair from the back of a completely white dog which you have cut on the first day of the new moon and burnt on the seventh day. Pour all this into a bottle half filled with brandy; leave this uncorked for twenty days, so that the stars can do their work.

  On the twenty-first day exactly, the first day of the next new moon, boil everything until the mixture thickens to a paste; then add four drops of crocodile seed and strain the mixture through a cloth.

  After collecting the liquid in a bowl, you need only rub the parts of the impotent man with it, and he will perform wonders. This mixture is so effective that there have been cases where women have become pregnant simply through the intimate rubbing of the man.

  Since crocodiles are quite rare in Europe and since obtaining the seed of this animal is extremely difficult, it may be replaced with the seed of various kinds of dog. Apparently that is possible because dogs are so strangely agile in eluding the eager jaws of a crocodile. On the banks of the Nile these dogs are very common. In any case, we are assured, the above experiment has been repeated several times and up to now it has always succeeded, with both dog and crocodile seed.

  Medication

  In the last century it was also believed that certain medicines could adversely affect potency. Roubaud described how in the treatment of tuberculosis with iodine vapour he saw four cases of impotence develop. Saltpetre also acquired a bad reputation. The use of bromide compounds mainly affected sexual desire. Camphor dulled the sensitivity of the genitalia.

  Today it is mainly medication for lowering blood pressure and psycho active drugs that have a bad name. The same applies to a number of drugs to counter arrhythmia, Parkinson’s disease, certain medi -

  cation prescribed for excessive stomach acid production and drugs used in treating prostate cancer. Some of the drugs mentioned adversely affect the desire for sex, others impede the stiffening of the erectile tissue compartments in the penis or lead to a ‘dry’ climax, meaning that sperm is forced into the bladder. Doctors call this phenomenon 155

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  retrograde ejaculation. It is always worthwhile discussing with the prescribing doctor whether alternative medication is available.

  Within the medical profession itself there is an ongoing debate about whether it is or is not advisable to point out possible unwelcome side-effects to patients before medication treatment starts, especially with side-effects of a sexual nature. It is desirable to ask about the patient’s sex life before starting treatment, so that the patient knows that the doctor is prepared to discuss the subject. Apart from that, it is a way of establishing whether or not the man has problems in this area. If it is necessary later to check whether there is a possible connection between sexual problems and the drug, this information can be useful.

  On the other hand it is not fanciful to suggest that even the mention of, for instance, possible erection problems when using medication to counter high blood pressure, may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. These days, however, patients read the package inserts and ask questions on their own initiative about possible side-effects. In such a case the doctor will point out that these phenomena are quite rare, and it is impossible to predict who will suffer from them. As has been said, in the event of side-effects it is sensible to confer.

  Yet it still happens that patients make a connection between their sexual problems and the drugs they are taking, but do not dare to raise the subject. They may even discontinue taking the medication without telling their doctor. Because, say, their blood pressure is not dropping sufficiently, they are prescribed a higher dosage or more medication, which they still do not take, and so on . . . Asking about sexual side-effects now and again in check-ups can provide an opening for a full discussion, and will undoubtedly benefit the patient’s adherence to the treatment.

  Alcohol and drugs

  Quite a few men believe that a steady intake of alcohol heightens potency – but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Chronic excessive alcohol consumption can lead to all kinds of sexual problems. Alcohol attacks the body in various ways: in the long run both the central and the peripheral nervous system can be affected. The substance also has a toxic effect on the testicles. Besides that less testosterone is produced and the liver is progressively less able to break down oestrogen (men also produce a small amount of this female hormone).

  In the nineteenth century the effect of various kinds of wine was a serious object of study. The German physician V. G. Vecki believed that the heavier dark-red wines like Bordeaux, Dalmatian and Californian wines and some Spanish varieties have a positive effect on potency.

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  a i l m e n t s o f t h e p e n i s Champagne was in his view pernicious, increasing the libido but harming the erectile apparatus.

  The porter’s famous description of the effects of alcohol in Macbeth still rings true: ‘It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.’ Shakespeare’s point is still valid: excessive drinking is bad for the erection mechanism. It is sometimes said of impotence that it is a matter of wanting but not being able. In the case of excessive alcohol consumption, however, the reverse usually applies: one is able, but doesn’t want to.

  Nicotine reduces potency through its vascular constrictive effect, meaning simply that the blood supply to the penis is reduced. Research with dogs, which were required to inhale a fixed quantity of nicotine, proved this beyond question. The effect of recreational drugs depends partly on the way in which they are used (smoking, snorting or int
ravenous injection) and the level of the dose. In addition, it is not exceptional for several drugs to be used simultaneously. Marijuana, methadone and heroin not only lower the testosterone level in the blood, but also result in a raised prolactin level. An excess of that hormone (which triggers milk production in nursing mothers) reduces the desire for sex.

  Too high a prolactin level in the blood is fortunately only very rarely the result of a prolactinoma, a tumour affecting the hypophysis.

  Depending on its size it must be treated by medication, radiotherapy or operation.

  Congenital abnormalities

  Some years ago there was a discussion about whether someone born with a serious disorder of the external sex organ could have a satisfactory sex life as an adult. When a survey was conducted among adult men with an ‘open’ bladder ( exstrofia vesicae) and the accompanying seriously abnormal (short) penis, it was found that seven of the eleven were satisfied with the way they functioned sexually, though the other four were clearly not. There is very little research of this kind to be found in the scientific literature.