Sex, Sleep or Scrabble

by Hammond, Phil

  If you sat inside an ‘orgone energy accumulator’, it could apparently cure you of common colds, cancer and impotence, as well as improving your orgasms. The orgone box sadly didn’t work for Dr Reich, who died of a heart attack in November 1957, in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary, while serving a two-year term for distributing his unproven invention in violation of the Food and Drug Act.

  Where can I get me some Yab-Yum?

  From your partner, although you’ll both have to work for it. Yab-Yum is a Tibetan term for the mystical oneness and wholeness achieved by sexual intercourse, where the male and female combine in an ideal cosmic oneness that resolves all dualities. For many couples, Yab-Yum is more mystifying than mystical. Especially if your partner has just rolled over, farted and fallen asleep.

  Should I hand wash my merkin?

  Yes. Pubic wigs are not just for those who over-shave or wax, and then feel the chill, but also for dancers and actresses who want to take their underwear off and still comply with certain nudity laws. A merkin can also be used to surprise a male partner by a sudden change of hair colour, and perhaps make him focus a bit more on the vulva (until it attaches to his chin like a goatee limpet and he freaks out).

  The merkin was originally devised in 1796 to recover those who’d lost their hair after smallpox, scarlet fever and, later, mercury treatment for syphilis. Others shaved all their body hair off to give the lice less to cling to. When Jenner discovered the smallpox vaccine, the merkin remained popular amongst prostitutes to give clients a choice of bare or hair, and in a range of colours. It’s not unheard of to find a confused louse or crab in a merkin, so cleaning is important. However, a merkin is a delicate beast and can easily disintegrate in a hot wash or mate with your partner’s football shorts. So tepid hand-sponging is advised.

  Whose idea was the missionary position?

  The missionary position has been around long before missionaries, but was strongly advocated during Christian excursions into the South Pacific and Africa from the eighteenth century onwards. This was a bummer for the indigenous populations, who had long ago figured out more adventurous and satisfying sexual practices. The missionaries could have learned a trick or two, had they not been beholden to the theory that man was created first, so he had to go on top to show his primacy over woman in all things.

  The position only remains popular today because it’s the easiest to do in the dark on a lumpy mattress, and it’s rare to fall off. A woman usually won’t climax during the standard two-minute missionary, but neither does she have to bare her arse in the mirror. It can be spruced up with the Legs Up, the Plough, The Grip and The High Rider (see Wikipedia for pictures). These at least give a woman more to do, other than admiring her nails.

  As with all positions, success depends largely on how you approach it. Couples who still love each other can do plenty of caressing, touching, affirming, gazing into each others eyes and breathing in unison. Those who are just going through the motions can easily avoid all clitoral, emotional or eye contact. A Feminist Dictionary doesn’t rate it very highly: ‘The missionary position is unknown and unmissed in many cultures.’

  What’s the best sexual position for losing weight?

  Why not try the wheelbarrow? If you just want the exercise, you can take it in turns to be the barrow or the boy, if you want to have sex as well, it’s probably best for a man to do the pushing.*1 You need to be reasonably strong and fit to work up a proper head of steam but it encapsulates all the best bits of making love (teamwork, sudden releases of air and borderline hysteria). If you’re really good, you can have sex and walk around at the same time. Just don’t go past your Mum’s house.

  Is it possible to come without looking like a wounded orc?

  No, unless you’re faking it for the big screen. In Hollywood, beautiful couples (or their body doubles) pretend to climax in magnificent unison with a dazzling white smile and a short-lived squeal. In reality, most men make the orc face in under fifty strokes and many women don’t come at all. On the big screen, nobody goes down like a thirsty Labrador or puts a condom on the wrong way round. Brad Pitt doesn’t get cramp or keep missing his entrance. And he never slips out and stubs his knob as he gets up to speed. Real sex is ridiculous, stop-start and clumsy. All that matters is that you all enjoy it.

  Should you brush your teeth before oral sex?

  After is probably a better idea. Very few genitals notice garlic breath, although I can see the point of protecting your own taste buds with a minty-mouth. The theory goes that brushing before can open up cracks in the gum, making it more likely that infection can pass through but I haven’t seen any proof of this. It’s safest to suck/blow/spit/slobber/lick through a condom, either whole (on a penis) or cut into a latex square (over a vulva), in which case a dollop of toothpaste helps takes the taste away of the rubberised strawberry. And the frothy mix of saliva and Colgate you can trick a bloke into thinking he’s already come.

  ‘Look. There’s the proof.‘

  ‘But how did it get through the condom?’

  ‘Magic.’

  ‘But why does it smell of peppermint?’

  ‘Never mind that. Your turn!’

  My granny used to say: ‘Long and thin goes too far in, short and thick does the trick.’ Was she right?

  Wow. What a granny. And she’s right. The most excitable part of the vagina is the outer third, and the vulva is more sensitive still, so there is no reason for humans to have evolved penises more than three inches long (and indeed, many of us haven’t). Many sex toys have a little side shoot, like a mutant carrot, which is far more likely to hit the G spot than something the size of a baby’s arm holding an apple.

  My granny used to say: ‘With a tongue like a cow, you can make them go wow.’ Was she right again?

  Yes.

  What’s Peggy Lee syndrome?

  It’s the feeling of disappointment experienced by many young women upon losing their virginity; so named because of Ms Lee’s hit song, ‘Is that all there is?’ If only we’d listened to the B side – ‘Foreplay, foreplay, foreplay’, featuring a fifteen-minute tongue solo.

  SEXUAL DILEMMAS

  What should you do if someone dies on you during sex?

  First you need to spot that they’re unconscious (rather than asleep or in post-orgasmic shell shock) because you may be able to bring them back from the brink. Death during sex is rare, but it usually happens to men, particularly when they’re very excited and not terribly fit (e.g. the unfortunate ‘motel mid-life crisis reverse cowgirl with a stranger’ episode). It’s generally a cardiac arrest that causes death, unless you’ve been playing asphyxiation games, choked on an aphrodisiac or you’re allergic to nuts.

  Spotting imminent death is not easy because a man’s orgasm face may be very similar to his cardiac arrest face. Also, you may have to stop focusing on your own pleasure and open your eyes to figure out what’s happening. Often you have a heart attack before your heart stops, so take all chest pain seriously, stop what you’re doing, phone 999 and take an aspirin (it halves the size of the dead heart muscle). Not everyone gets chest pain, but any man who complains of not feeling well during sex is likely to be seriously ill.

  If you’re not sure if a man’s unconscious or asleep, squeeze his balls. Hard. If you get no response at all, assume his heart has stopped. If he’s on top of you, roll him back and forth until he slides off (not always easy, but more likely to succeed than a turtle flip.) Phone 999 and say you think your partner has had a cardiac arrest. Open the door for the paramedics. Call for help if you can, and try to get him on his back onto the floor (Note: you should have let go of his balls by now).

  Assuming he’s bare-chested, kneel beside him and start chest compressions. Put one hand over the other, interlock your fi ngers and press down hard in the centre of his chest at the level of the armpits. You need to push in further than you think to get the heart pumping again (around 4 cm should do it, and don’t worry if you hear the odd bone crack). If y
ou do this to the tune of ‘Nelly the Elephant’ or ‘The Archers’ theme, you’ll be at roughly the right speed (around 100 compressions a minute). ‘Stayin’ Alive’ works too. ‘Another one bites the Dust’ is not so funny if it’s read out in court.

  When you’ve done thirty good chest compressions, you can do two mouth-to-mouth breaths. Tilt his chin forward and his head back, pinch his nose, open his mouth, take a deep breath, make a good seal with your lips and blow in hard for a second. Do it twice and then do another thirty compressions, repeating this cycle until the crew arrive (hopefully in eight minutes or less, by which time you’ll be absolutely pooped). Don’t waste time ferreting around in his mouth for bits of denture/peanut etc. If there’s vomit around and you just can’t face mouth-to-mouth, continue the compressions until help arrives.

  If there’s just one of you, you may find it easier to do chest compressions kneeling at the head end. Quickly slip some pants on, or it may look awkward when the paramedics arrive. On the other hand, if he comes round it’s a win-win.

  Resuscitation rarely happens when people collapse, even if it’s got nothing to do with sex, because so few of us can be bothered to learn how to do it properly. There are loads of courses out there, but even when we’ve learnt, you can never be sure how you’ll react when shit happens. Time is of the essence. So to recap: Man on top not moving? Squeeze balls hard. If he wakes up, apologise. If no response, roll him off and phone 999. Put your pants on if you can (but don’t waste time with his). Call for help (may not be practical). Repeat cycle of thirty chest compressions and two breaths until help arrives. If the mouth is full of unmentionables, just keep doing the chest compressions.

  If your partner has a stroke, his or her speech may become incomprehensible and the face strangely asymmetrical (again not always easy to spot during sex). Sudden weakness down one side the body is definitely abnormal. Phone 999. Fast.

  NOTE: The French have a phrase called ‘mort douce’, (sweet death). It can mean death during sexual intercourse, the warmth and calm that follows a (living) orgasm or voluntary euthanasia. Worth knowing if you’re calling for help abroad.

  Can a corpse have an erection?

  See above. Even if sex doesn’t kill you, you can still appear to have a hard-on if you die face down, due to the gravitational pooling of the blood, muscle stiffening from lactic acid build up (rigor mortis) and bloating from bacterial gas release. The result is pretty impressive, known in America as ‘angel lust’ and down my local undertaker’s as ‘Satan’s club’. The observation in the seventeenth century that a hanged man could get angel lust led to a (mercifully brief) fad of deliberate asphyxiation as a cure for erectile dysfunction. Other treatments are available.

  Should the NHS pay for erections?

  I think so, but not everyone agrees. Sex is important to many (but certainly not all) couples and treating erectile dysfunction can save relationships and keep families together. But the British have hang-ups about sex and pleasure, so treatment is ridiculously rationed and only given to those with listed diseases. As one tight-arsed manager told me:

  I don’t think the NHS should pay for Viagra.

  I mean, sex is fun but you can do without it. It’s not

  something you have to do, like cutting the lawn,

  which I find distinctly unpleasurable. In fact, if

  the state is going to pay for men to have sex, they

  ought to pay for someone to cut my lawn. That’d

  give me far more pleasure than a handful of

  blue pills.

  My pro-treatment view was shaped by a wonderful nurse specialist called Sister Nolly: ‘A penis is not for stirring the tea. I give men erections.’ And with a strike rate of over ninety per cent, few people could argue with her claim to be ‘a tool hardener’. Nolly’s clinic is unusual in that she runs it without a clumsy doctor sticking his beak in. She’s got a very understanding reception team and an angle-poise mirror to help plump men locate their penises. After that, it’s all down to Nolly.

  ‘For the first consultation, I don’t lay a finger on them. I just listen.’ Nolly has amazing stories of men who haven’t managed an erection for twenty years of married life but have never had the guts to seek help, or even known that help was available. Often, there’s a great outpouring of missed opportunity. Nolly encourages partners to attend, and frequently the women are as guilt-ridden as the men. ‘The men blame the women, the women blame themselves, and the whole marriage falls to pieces.’ However, the effect of treatment can be equally profound. Couples go in with hunched shoulders and leave walking on sunshine. I don’t know many NHS treatments that manage that.

  What is the minimal acceptable firmness for an erection?

  Sex therapists talk in terms of marshmallow, tofu, banana and cucumber. I suspect tofu is for the middle-class clients, but the bottom line is if it works, it’s firm enough. If you’re not sure, keep an emergency courgette under the mattress.

  Can a postage stamp spot an erection?

  The stamp test is used to separate those men who have trouble getting hard most of the time (usually a physical cause), and those who get very anxious during the day but swell up in their sleep. You put a strip of stamps snugly around the penis on retiring and if you go hard, the perforations break. And you can still use the stamps afterwards, with an amusing PS. ‘Here’s one for your collection’ or ‘You’ll never guess where these have been!’

  Does the size of an erection pill matter?

  Only if you can’t swallow it. There are three different tablets you can take for erectile dysfunction (more on the way) Sildenafil, trade name Viagra, is a blue diamond. Then there’s Vardenafil (Levitra, orange circle) and Tadalafil (Cialis, mustard yellow egg). There have been no ‘head-to-head’ comparisons between the three so it’s hard to say which is best and it’s down to which works best for you. Overall, they work in about seventy per cent of men, seventy per cent of the time. None of them are aphrodisiacs – you have to be in the mood to kick things off.

  Cialis hangs round in the blood stream for longer, which may mean you can have sex more than once in thirty-six hours (perish the thought). Levitra claims to have a slightly better strike rate the first time you use it. Viagra needs to be taken an hour before sex and the effect can be delayed by food. Levitra is swallowed at least twenty-five minutes before the off but can be delayed with a high-fat meal. Cialis doesn’t seem to be affected by food and you can take it thirty minutes before sex, but you might find another erection pops up twenty-four hours later, which may not always be convenient.

  Viagra is the iconic brand leader and some men find just having the little blue diamond on the bedside locker is enough to give them a psychological fillip. However, it is very recognisable and if you’d rather be more discreet about your pharmacological enhancement, you might be better choosing an alternative that looks like a multivitamin.

  You can’t take these tablets if you’re on other drugs called nitrates and get advice if you’ve recently had a heart attack or a stroke. All men get erectile dysfunction occasionally (e.g. when you’re asked to do it again before you’ve had a kip) but if it persists, your penis may be telling you something important, like you’re clinically depressed, drinking too much or your arteries are furring up. If you’re worried about the reception you’ll get, tell the receptionist it’s about your cholesterol.

  Does anyone inject his penis anymore?

  Yes. Men with erectile dysfunction who can’t take, or don’t respond, to tablets can inject a drug called Alprostadil into the side of the penis. This requires a steady hand and can take a bit of getting used to, so it’s generally best if a doctor or nurse shows you how to do it before you have a go. You need to dissolve the drug in water, draw it up via needle and syringe, keep the skin over the side of the penis taught and go in at right angles, near the base and on the side, avoiding any visible veins. After the needle comes out, you compress with an alcohol swab for a minute and presto. One erection.


  The most troublesome side-effect is priapism – an erection that won’t go away. It happens in one in a hundred men and makes a great party trick to begin with. If it’s still there after four hours, or your guests are getting bored, you should think about getting help. After six to eight hours on the hard, your penis clots off and is irreversibly damaged, so well before that, you need to make one of those ever-so-slightly embarrassing trips to casualty, where we draw out the blood through a small needle whilst chatting cheerily about the weather.

  Can you choose what size penis you’d like with a vacuum pump?

  Within limits, yes. Just about any man can get an erection with a vacuum pump. The design was patented in 1917 by Dr Otto Lederer and hasn’t changed much since. You put a plastic tube, with a bit of lube on the seal side, over your penis and pump air out of the other end (or use a battery-operated version to do it for you). When the vacuum pressure reaches around 100mm of mercury, blood is drawn into the penis. You, or your partner, can choose between small, medium or large, but you mustn’t push your luck and over-pump, or you risk swelling and bruising.