Love lust & more

Anthony Gambril, GUEST COLUMNIST

The Jamaica Observer majors on food, fashion and frolicking, crime past and present, and news releases about Sandals and Audi. The Gleaner, on the other hand, favours roving, confrontational politics and ponderous prognosis about Jamaica's perilous predicament.

Whereas the Observer has Clovis to make us smile, The Gleaner instead serves up medical advice on matters sexual as frequently as the average businessman in a midlife crisis has an assignation with his secretary.

The Dear Doctor columns are full of fascinating conundrums, which fall roughly into four categories (that is, excluding diseases contracted while having sex which are either painful or disfiguring.)

These categories concern: 1. The penis and its size, shape or inability to rise to the occasion; 2. Guilt and the need to confess or otherwise; 3. Seduction, or the absence thereof, and 4. Other.

Before I try my hand at answering some of the typical questions, I might mention for the sake of the Editorial Department, there two enquiries I have received: Does someone make up Dear Doctor questions, and what does it pay if someone does invent them, and how can a man or woman get the job to be a paid model for the photographs that often accompany the Q&As?

Again, before I start, you are likely to ask what are my credentials in trying my hand at advising the sexually distraught. Well, as a bachelor, I spent a few years in the company of a University of the West Indies (UWI) medical student and the head of UWI's Radiology Department.

Endless anecdotes on the subject enhanced the cocktail hour, or hours, including the one about the medical student who asked the doctor of the venereal disease clinic if you could get VD from a toilet seat. The doctor replied, "It depends who you were sitting on the toilet seat with." Anyway, here goes. The following are actual letters to The Doctor with variations on the response. First, the penis.

A Jamaican man's greatest fear is having an inadequately sized or non-performing penis.

Q: Does Viagra thicken my male organ?

A: Maybe for an hour or so, but with no lasting benefit. However, you might try lifting weights with it any time you have an erection with nowhere to put it.

The climax I have when I masturbate is more intense than when I have sexual intercourse with a woman. Why's that?

It's because your fingertips bring on the most powerful sensation at the time you want them to. To get the same results with a woman, fine-tune your foreplay, and have sex while listening to Ravel's Bolero to get the best results.

Does ganja cause a man to lose his nature?

Some answer that question 'yes', others disagree. However, it is advisable not to be smoking a spliff at the same time as having sex.

Finally, Q: I am a 28-year-old man and having problems getting an erection.

Step up your stimulation. Watch pornographic movies regularly, read erotic literature, keep a white rum calendar in your bedroom, take Viagra. Just remember if Viagra gives you an erection for six hours or longer, call your doctor, the Guinness Books of Records, and The Gleaner ... er, sports desk.

Now, guilt.

By a ratio of 10:1, Jamaican women have more of a problem with guilt than Jamaican men. That is because men are, on the whole, consummate liars, unconscionable and eager to play the field.

Should I confess to a one-night stand before my marriage? It took place 15 years ago. My husband and I still have a good relationship.

A: Don't. Better you tell him a little white (or black depending on your one-night stand) lie. After all, he might wonder if you'd tried it again over the past 15 years. If you do decide to confess, increase your life insurance beforehand.

Q: I was a very sexy woman until my husband and I moved into our in-laws' house, but now I cannot have an orgasm anymore.

Some women have it in their minds that when someone from an older generation is in the house, it would not be appropriate to have an orgasm. Failing a more subtle solution, ask your father-in-law to join you and your husband for sex, and for sure your mother-in-law will throw you out of the house to restore your orgasms.

I have had one woman in Negril and another in Morant Bay for many years. No problem. How would they react if they found out about each other?

If you currently live in either town, move to Mandeville.

Seduction or the absence thereof

There is always room for improvement, they say. But don't get caught out like the man who said his wife likes to talk on the phone while having sex. The trouble was that he was in Kingston and she was speaking to him from Miami.

I am overweight, even obese and can't find a woman who wants to have sex with me because of my obesity.

The short answer is try romancing an obese woman.

I am a virgin, and this guy I could really go for tells me he is studying female reproduction at UWI. He says I won't get pregnant if we have sex standing up, if I cough afterwards, and if he pulls out before he ejaculates.

None of the above work. Until he starts using a condom, I recommend you suggest a handjob.

I met a really good-looking guy who took me back to his place. He had several sticks and canes on the wall. He had me lie on my face and began hitting me across the buttocks before having sex.

It's called sadomasochism, and if you're not into it, give him a few licks across his handsome face and tell him goodbye.

OTHER

Under this heading, anything goes and usually does. For instance:

My parents want to have me circumcised. Can I keep my foreskin in a Ziploc bag in the refrigerator in case I want to have it reattached?

Reattaching it is a medical impossibility. People apparently do want to keep body parts as a souvenir. But the man who owns Napoleon's penis is in New Jersey and admits that by now it looks like a shrivelled eel.

Anthony Gambrill is an author and playwright. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.