Manhood: The Rise And Fall Of The Penis

M ANHOOD The Rise and Fall of the Penis
MELS VAN DRIEL Manhood Manhood The Rise and Fall of the Penis Mels van Driel reaktion books Published by Reaktion Books Ltd 33 Great Sutton Street London ec1v 0dx, uk www.reaktionbooks.co.uk The original edition of this book was first published in 2008 bv Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam, under the title Geheime delen: Alles wat je er altijd al over wilde weten © Mels van Driel and Arbeiderspers 2008 English-language translation © Reaktion Books Ltd 2009 English translation by Paul Vincent This publication has been made possible with financial support from the Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cromwell Press Group, Trowbridge, Wiltshire British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Driel, Mels van, 1954– Manhood : the rise and fall of the penis. 1. Penis. 2. Men–Sexual behavior. i. Title 612.6'1–dc22 isbn: 978 1 86189 542 4 Contents Introduction 7 1 The Testicles and the Scrotum 10 2 The Penis 34 3 The Prostate and Seminal Glands 62 4 Testosterone and Sperm 72 5 Castration 96 6 Ailments of the Scrotum 117 7 Ailments of the Penis 141 8 Voluntary and Involuntary Sterility 214 9 Spilling One’s Seed 242 10 Women 254 11 Eroticism 264 Conclusion: That Wraps it Up 272 Bibliography 274 Acknowledgements 281 Index 283 Introduction Everyone knows what it’s like to become hooked on a particular subject. These things never happen purely by chance; in all probability they relate to something in us. We are drawn to the topic as if by a magnet. It can reach the point where the person concerned is obsessed day and night. There is a constant stream of new facts, ideas and insights. Of course you’re now probably thinking that the writer himself has, or had, fertility problems or some erectile dysfunction. Well, that isn’t the case, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be at some point in the future. The same is true of all my male readers. My broad interest derives mainly from daily contact with men’s ‘private parts’. Since mid-1983 I have worked as a urologist, so that I deal more or less permanently with sick people, or with people who think they’re sick. In the last few decades tens of thousands of penises and testicles have been through my hands. Eventually one feels the urge to dig deeper. Why do men come to doctors complaining about these organs? Over the years my thinking about men’s ‘family jewels’ has achieved a precarious balance between urological, sexological and psychological perspectives, the academic approach, the problems of my surgery, daily life and especially literature. This is what moved me to write this book. Wearing several different hats as a writer isn’t necessarily always easy, but it does provide a broad, human perspective, through a kind of internal cross-fertilization. Of course novels and poetry have the last word; art always takes precedence over science. But for a urologist the fact that the testicle