July 2012 Archives

Many guys have had the experience of getting an unwanted boner on public transportation. Awkward. Imagine if it wasn't a bus ride across town, but a cross-Atlantic flight.

That's what happened to Jeremy Renner, star of The Hurt Locker and the upcoming sequel in the Bourne film series, The Bourne Legacy. (He also played serial killer Jeffery Dahmer in a biopic, but let's not go there.) While on a flight from L.A. to London, he accidentally took a Viagra instead of a sleeping pill.

Hoping to avoid jet lag, he downed what he thought was an Ambien, but turned out to be a Viagra tablet "given to him by a friend". A friend with a warped sense of humor? Apparently some Ambien pills share a similar blue hue with Viagra, but  who wouldn't recognize the tablet's distinctive diamond shape? In any case, it was pretty surely not intentional on Renner's part, and it sounds like he was pretty miserable the whole time.

The flight crew were made aware of the situation, and did what you would normally do to keep any swelling down - offering ice packs. And probably blankets to help keep it under wraps.

Renner said he didn't get any sleep during the trip, which can take 10 to 12 hours, and  had to endure an embarrassing walk of shame if he needed to use the loo.

A cautionary tale for any of you thinking of trying to use Viagra to set some kind of Mile-High Club record,

Viagra helps men who have lost their erections. But what about guys who lose, well, a critical part of their equipment?

Such is the dilemma of a Chinese villager who had his penis pilfered.

Fei Lin is a rural migrant worker in a village in eastern China. Judging from photos, the 41-year-old seems a pretty average looking guy - not the type you'd expect to find the ladies falling over. But apparently he got around with the gals, enough to rile up their husbands and boyfriends, who are suspected of snatching the victim's penis as revenge.

He says while he was sleeping, four masked men came into his room in the wee hours, put a bag over his head, yanked down his pants and cut off his penis. He didn't know what happened until he realized he was bleeding.

As John Wayne Bobbit demonstrated, all is not necessarily lost in this type of situation. Bobbit was able to have his penis surgically reattached. However, emergency medical staff tried to find the missing member to no avail, and unfortunately, there isn't much Viagra can do to help Mr. Lin get his erection back either.

Does Viagra have any effect on a man's ability to father a child  - either long term or short term use?

This might seem an odd question, because your first instinct would be to say that Viagra would most certainly increase a man's likelihood of fathering a child - for obvious reasons. However, you have to look beyond the hydraulics here. Even though a man may be able to successfully complete an act of intercourse and ejaculation, it may not matter if his output is compromised.

Taking Viagra certainly doesn't mean a guy will start shooting blanks. However, there is some evidence that Viagra can damage sperm in a way that will make them less likely to be able to fertilize an egg.

Each sperm has a little cap, called the acrosome, that is composed of enzymes that help it break through the egg's outer wall and penetrate it to achieve fertilization. But exposure to Viagra can cause the acrosome to break down too early, leaving sperm stranded on the outside.

The damage to the sperm was evident after a single exposure to the equivalent of one 100mg tablet. Researchers also voiced concerns there could be long term cumulative effects, especially for younger men.


What's ironic is that some sperm banks have been giving donors Viagra to help them make their contributions. A prescription for higher production may in fact produce an inferior product.

On the other hand, there's evidence that women experiencing infertility may be helped by Viagra in some cases. Some women are unable  to conceive is because they can't build up a robust enough uterine lining to support the zygote. By increasing blood flow "down there" Viagra can help thicken the lining, giving the developing embryo a better chance of being carried to term.

So, if you and your female partner are trying to conceive a child, consider giving her the Viagra instead.

Everybody feels a little violated by the Transportation Security Administration claiming the right to touch your junk in the defense of national security. To make a point, there's been at least one prankster who's taken Viagra before getting a TSA pat down. Some folks, on the other hand, don't need any help in that department for setting off the TSA's alarms.

What happens when the guy with the world's largest schlong steps through one of those full-body scanners? Jonah Falcon (yes, that's his real name) is that guy. And he had a recent run-in with the TSA. The actor (Yes, he's a legitimate actor. Please. He refuses to do porn.) was traveling through San Francisco International airport, when he was waylayed by security agents.

As he went through the security area, Falcon said he had his "stuff" strapped down, but its bulkiness drew the immediate attention of guards, who asked him if his pockets were truly empty. After proceeding through the X-ray scanner, Falcon was asked if he had some sort of "growth".

Well, yes. You could call it that. It's a growth that's 9 inches flaccid and 13 inched erect.

Falcon said that he was subjected to an extensive pat down in which the male screener felt all all around his "area".

He says that next time he'll just wear bike shorts, so there will be no question as to the nature of his carry-on.

Or, to make it absolutely, positively clear, he could follow the example of an Oregon man who stripped naked in the Portland airport to protest the TSA's invasiveness. John Brennan was acquitted today of charges of public indecency when a Multnomah County judge ruled that his disrobement was an act of protest protected by First Amendment rights to free speech.

If that whole presidential thing doesn't work out for Mitt Romney, we've got another career path that he can fall right into.

Expert analysis of stock video footage of Romney in action reveals he'd be a natural for promoting Pfizer's flagship brand. The folks at Buzzfeed make their point by simply superimposing a Viagra pill and the "Talk to your doctor" tagline over gifs of Romney going about his business.

Romney comes across like a more manly and vigorous Bob Dole - an active, successful baby boomer who's confident and at ease, having dealt with his ED. Whether shooting hoops, piloting a speedboat, driving a tractor or riding horses with his lovely blonde wife, Romney has an aura of nonthreatening WASP-y virility that should play well with potential Viagra consumers.

He also has exactly the right look to be a JCPenney menswear model, but I think he missed the boat on that one back in 1978.

Truffles, a pricey fungus, have reputation as an aphrodisiac, but now they've been outstripped in both cost and potency by another fungal wonder: cordyceps, or the so-called Himalayan Viagra. If you take cordyceps as a supplement and you don't know its origin, you might want to stop reading here, because it gets kind of gross.

Cordyceps is a parasitic fungus that infects a species of caterpillar, kills it ats a mushroom out of its head. Then it's harvested, dried, and ground into a powder. You might wonder why people would go out of their way to ingest the stuff, let alone pay for it, but people also pay a premium price to drink coffee that got pooped out of a civet's butt, so go figure.

These days, there's a critical shortage of the caterpillar fungus, probably due to a combination of overharvesting and climate change. As a result, the price has skyrocketed to about $11,000 a pound for the premium grade. But Chinese herbal experts say those who are sitting on stockpiles of the supplement or buying it up as an investment are misguided, because it doesn't keep that well.

Somewhat like the housing market, or tech stocks, the price of the remedy has has its ups and downs. But this shortage is also having an impact on the Tibetans who harvest the fungus for their livelihood, and on the environment of the region. If someone could figure out a way to sustainably farm the parasitic fungi, they could stand to make a killing.

When you think of a Viagra ad, what do you picture? A middle aged couple dancing a tango and putting the zing back into their marriage? It goes without saying that it's a heterosexual couple, though, right? Keep the scenario the same, but imagine it with two guys. That's the premise of a new online support community gayed.org - that gay men get ED too.

Most people assume the average Viagra user to be a straight male. You only hear about gay men using Viagra in the context of partying - using Viagra as a recreational drug, often in combination with ecstasy or amyl nitrite (poppers).

But gay men get erectile dysfunction for the same reasons heterosexual men do: prostate cancer, low testosterone, diabetes, and other physiological or psychological conditions, including normal aging. And for various reasons, including gay culture's emphasis on youth and sexual performance, this can present challenges to getting support or treatment. A lot of money and energy has gone into education and treatment for STDs among gay and bisexual men, but ED has largely been overlooked as a gay men's health issue. The site says that ED is "one of the least discussed and least treated conditions among gay men."

Gayed.org is a side project of Malecare, a men's cancer support and advocacy group. Malecare has been around since 1998, but the Gay ED site is brand new, so there's not a lot there yet. Will gay men come out of the closet with ED? Keep an eye on the site and find out. 

A lot of global citizens share a similar feeling about politicians: they're big dicks. A South African political cartoonist gave that a more literal interpretation, by depicting the country's president, Jacob Zuma, as an erect penis.

The kerfuffle started with a satirical painting of Zuma called "The Spear". Artist Brett Murray portrayed the president in the style of socialist artwork, in a pose reminiscent of Lenin. Also with his penis hanging out.

Zuma was suing the displaying gallery to get them to remove the canvas.

The painting was recently vandalized by two men who came into the art gallery with cans of paint and brushes. Were they anti-Zuma, anti-nudity, or just radical art critics? It's hard to tell, but they painted over both Zuma's face and exposed genitals.

In the act of trying to cover himself, Zuma's legal suit against the artist attracted the criticism of a well-known South African political cartoonist, Jonathon Shapiro (aka Zapiro).

Zapiro's comic features Zuma as a giant walking penis in an art gallery, frowning at itself in a mirror, accompanied by a limerick describing him as a dick for trying to suppress the painter's freedom of expression. The African National Congress' Women's League responded that "The Zapiro cartoons rely on their shock value to make an impact, but calling the president of this great nation a 'dick' is unacceptable."

Zuma's defenders cry foul on flaunting the president's privates, calling the images racist and denigrating the politico's dignity in a manner reminiscent of pre-apartheid's dehumanization of blacks. Zuma's critics say it has more to do with his personal life and public comments. He practices polygamy and has had extramarital affairs, and has stated that showering after sex can reduce the risk of getting HIV (Zapiro depicts Zuma with a small shower over his head for this reason).

No word on whether Zuma is a Viagra consumer, but with a track record like that, it would be a surprise if he wasn't.

This unusual headline caught our eye: DARPA kickstarts research into robot Viagra. Robot Viagra? Maybe it's some kind of a Terminator tie in.  Terminator came out almost 30 years ago, and Ahnold is hitting 65 this month, the age where men often turn to the blue pill for backup.

No, as much as we'd like to see Schwarzenegger pitching our favorite pharmaceutical product (think how much mileage they could get out of that "I'll be back" catchphrase), this has nothing to do with Skynet.

Rather, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking for ways to make our mechanical minions more powerful and efficient. They're looking for ways to give robots more juice - more bang for the buck from their batteries, so to speak. And find more efficient ways for them to move, maximizing the potential of their energy usage. Their project's goal is "achieving a 2,000 percent increase in the efficiency of power transmission and application in robots".

Wow. It will be interesting to see what happens as our future robot overlords take this quantum leap and power up.

Autocorrect and voice-to-text are famous for putting words into people's mouths - and putting certain other things into their mouths, or hands, or -  well, you get the idea. Sometimes it seems like autocorrect is responsible for as many erections as Viagra, plus a healthy dose of hilarity.

It helps to get off to a good start in life.

It may twist your words, but autocorrect cannot tell a lie.

So that's why everyone goes there for their honeymoon.

Thanks, I'll just use the GPS.

This doesn't seem like a fair trade.

When you gotta have it, you gotta have it?

Well, that probably would be a surprise for everybody.

And now...a few choice words courtesy of Siri....

I guess some people prefer natural remedies.

That must be some recipe.

Despite the misunderstandings, she'll help you find a happy ending.