Letters to the Editor
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Action is needed.
Your doctor is right, you need some action. I had an older lover once and I swear I cured his Peyronie's. Take care.
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Well . . .
I selfishly hope that your struggle with Peyronie's continues for many years, if the upshot (no pun intended) is more terrific pieces like this. Thanks for the wit and candor.
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Doctor's Orders
You have to like a doctor that prescribes jerking off to his patients. I wonder if a woman doctor would do the same.
A good thing about it is that it's probably easy for the patient to remember to "take their medicine."
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A jerk a day...
I am wondering how ejaculation would help penile curvature. Maybe it is more the blood engorgement and exercise getting to the goal that can help some.
As far as a doctor advising jerking off to men over 50, there have been statistical studies that support that it may reduce prostate cancer risk.
http://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/news/20040406/Frequent-Ejaculation-Prostate
I know someone who has gone through a very tough road with recurring prostate cancer. Let me tell you, if I hadn't been inclined before to ejaculate regularly with or without benefit of a partner, I am now. Keep the plumbing flushed out, reduce stress, and have fun doing it... I must follow doctor's advice, right?
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I caught a curve in high school
It was my sophomore year in high school. All of the outgoing straight kids were out drinking beer and having lots of sex. I on the other hand, too shy to go out with friends, would stay at home and masturbate to the men in the Sears catalog.
On the local rock station a show called 'Love Phones with Dr. Judy and Jagger' played late at night. After going to bed I would turn on my clock radio just loud enough to hear the show. This is where the vast majority of my sexual education took place.
One evening the show focused on 'rough sex' and it's many merits. After hearing many callers' remarks and laudations, I decided that I too should know the joys.
The following day after arriving home to an empty house, I proceeded to go at it as usual with a little more vigor. POP! Suddenly I felt an excruciatingly sharp pain. Something inside had ruptured. Up until that point I did not know that this much pain was even possible. I was in horrible pain for several days before gaining the gumption to tell mom that something down there wasn't right.
By the time I saw a doctor, it had already formed. A small lump near the head, deep inside. This scar he called Peyronie's disease. It slowly caused my penis to twist and bend to the left; a much smaller scar than the ones that grew in my head in the years following.
That was more than ten years ago. I have for the most part grown used to my uniqueness. I am still a little bitter that I wasn't better educated about sex and what it really was, but the past is gone and there is nothing that can be done about it. I really hope that if any parents read this, that they take heed and play an active role in their child's sexual education.
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Peter Kurth!
What a brave essay. I applaud you and wish you a long life with all its attendent angst.
All of us over 50 seem to begin to deteriorate. So you are feeling alone in yr HIV longevity and with your strange ailments. But re: ailments, you surely are not alone. I for one got Juvenile Diabetes at aged 60. And I had never heard of the disease, since it didn't run in my family. Go Figure.
Aging often sucks but I agree with the respondent who said: Thank goodness for your wit and talent. All Best...
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What a damn good piece of writing . . .
My dick has long had a curve in it. I am sure it's something I did to myself as an overly self-adventurous child. That on account of a pigeon chest and skinny legs.
Anyway, I am glad you are out there, man, taking your meds and registering mild shock and outrage at every new day.
In the end we are all afflicted, one way or another, with age. It's the ultimate incurable human condition. But if wit be a balm, you are a healer indeed.
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If Peter Kurth had been the Ed Harris character in "The Hours"...
I might have liked that movie.
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There was a crooked man who had a crooked style
I wasn't quite sure if I want to yelp or laugh reading this. A middle-aged man myself, I can certainly affirm that after a certain point, every day is a little less sightly. Best to cultivate a corresponding sense of comedy to go with it — something of which, behind Peter's plangent penile lament, I heard the caustic echo.
For a less dire perspective on Peyronie's twist, I recommend looking up the lyrics to Pansy Division's "Curvature" ...
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Gosh
You can really tell there's a war.
Out there.
Somewhere.
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Vita brevis
Brilliant illustration!
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Great lead story, Salon
This is depressing, for someone who used to visit Salon to get the news. Bush and Cheney are about to roll out the nuking of Iran and the igniting of Bush's third war in seven years - and we are treated to Mr. Kurth and his penis?
Your priorities astonish me. This is a way-down-the-page feature, unless you have suddenly aspired to tabloid status. But I guess if you want the lead, you put the word "penis" in the first graf?
Thanks, Fox Lite.
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Thank you Peter and Salon...
A quick question rbrooks - are we not allowed to care about anything other than the US government and its problems? Just now you have articles on Bush' war attitude in 2003 and global warming, as well as, literally, dozens of articles a week, not including blog posts from War Room, Broadsheet, Glenn, Joan and others.
This piece was not only a welcome respite from how depressing the 'hard' news (sorry for the pun) can be, but was also saying something profound about older people in the gay community who have been living with the spectre of AIDS for so long. I am a 25 year old gay man, and it is enormously important for me to hear stories like Peter's, which would get little or no play in the MSM.
I come to Salon not only for a daily news fix, but also to find articles which surprise and educate me. Peter's did so with aplomb!