"I Hope I Didn't Just Give Away The Ending!"

"In the continuum between our youth and old age a lot of 'stuff' happened, some good, some bad, some life changing, some life stealing, some painful, some joyful, some memorable." -Rick Steiner Ph.D.

 

Now that we’ve established the fact that I have a form of skin-cancer on my penis—and still in the Realm-of-Unaware of how it got there—I’d like to take you all on a journey. A little journey through the wild-life reservations of Men—to be more precise: The Aging Men (since I am now being dragged against my will in that field of existence).

To answer Rick Steiner’s quote: yes, all of these things—the good, bad, life changing, life stealing, painful and joyful—have in a way happened in the past few months—almost a year—while battling—as if—skin-cancer-on-the-peen. Like any other skin-cancer victim—?—on the planet.
Not that I want to trivialize skin-cancer here. Not that I think any victim is an overreacting drama-queen (or queer) whose only talent seems to be to whine about their lot in life. Not in any way. Respect is key here. It just helps me to deal with facts if I laugh about them. In fact I’d like to believe that if you never learned to laugh when you were young, you don’t have anything to laugh at when you’re old. However, I don’t want to talk to you all about skin-cancer or cancer in general. I want to talk to you about being forty plus and the horrors of the penis—and not necessarily the life and times of my ill-stricken peen; although it might come up—especially to those readers who happen to know me and my peen, and more precise who happened to be around me and my peen lately—as some comparison material.

According to the Irish—and I quote—“I am not as young as I used to be. But I’m not as old as I’m going to be.” (Yes, that's an actual proverb.) With that being said, I’d like you to look closely at these photos.

That was then... This one is now: 

 

Notice the change?

No? Let me underline it then...

 

 

As you can see, I am growing older. Wrinkly and grey haired. Even my chest hair is grey these days. If I was to trust anything that is written these days about aging, health, diets and the endless stream of fitness routines one should put oneself through on a daily bases—which I don’t; not the trusting part and most definitely not the fitness routines, let alone the dieting thing—aging means wisdom. According to some of that questionable literature—and when did a blog became literature, people?—I shouldn’t even call my hair—wherever it manifests on my body—grey, but I should refer to it as silver—which renders Fifty Shades of Grey absolutely obsolete in one swift stroke. I am Silver. Not grey. Noah Hathaway calls himself a Silver Fox (I don’t know what that means), George Clooney is a Silver Stud. And I am apparently: “Hi-Ho Silver… Away!”

C.E.M. Joad once said: "Men are like wine. Some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age." (And at least that’s one field of expertise of mine… wine obviously, hardly knowing anything about men or aging). Let’s just say that I am a Temporary Vinegar. At least until I stop reading all these weird advises people have about aging—I’m working on it, believe me.

I am Temporary Vinegar until I let nature run its course again and turn myself into a fabulous little wine—the one you store in your cellar for ages so you can pop it up for special occasions. Which means I won’t have to talk to people until they find it worthy of their time to fetch me from the wine-cellar. I totally love that thought.

However, C.E.M. Joad also leads to C.S. Lewis—I guess people who use only initials as a first name are worthy of our time—who once said: "We must both, I'm afraid, recognise that, as we grow older, we become like old cars—more and more repairs and replacements are necessary."

When I learned that, not only I sprouted grey hair on my head and chest, but also had a skin-cancer on my penis—which had to be surgically removed, by that matter—I also started—my bad!—to google any other horrific thing that can happen to a man’s pride-and-joy—and I don’t mean his kids or partner.
And apparently the most horrific thing that can happen to a man’s peen, is aging. Apparently, the intimate area goes through a couple of changes as the years progress.

Like: it’s going to shrink. This happens because as you age more cells in the downstairs area are swapped for collagen, which isn’t as elastic. That means things are tauter, so it can give the appearance of your penis being smaller. On top of that, testosterone decreases as we age so your manhood will actually shrink, plus if you fall victim to the dreaded middle-aged weight game it’s going to look smaller anyway.

Then, penises come in all shapes and sizes, but as time wears on you might find yours alters slightly. It’s very common for older men to have slightly curved members, and it’s all due to a build-up of tiny accidents—accidents! As if your penis truly did cause that collision on the 101. Come to think of it: it did!
Anyway, small injuries can cause scar tissue to be created, and the more of that you get the more likelihood of things starting to bend. However, you could argue a wonky willy is the sign of a pretty fun life.

Subsequently, and this can strike men of any age, you may find it harder to get an erection in your twilight years. It’s because erections are all about blood flow, and as we age we’re more prone to conditions which block that from happening. Faulty veins and hormone imbalances can be to blame too. The loss of testosterone—like previously mentioned in the Shrinking Zone—can make things less sensitive downstairs too, which makes orgasms harder to achieve.
And you know what advise they give to deal with that little situation? They tell you to try to have an erection every day—working on those arteries really seems to do the trick.

Well, you know what the Danish say, don’t you: "Age may wrinkle the face, but lack of enthusiasm wrinkles the soul." And what makes a man more enthusiastic than having a boner a day. A boner a day, keeps the doctor away!

Long story in the Realm Of The Peen short: all this (and then some) I learned while researching what could happen to my peen when surgery—god forbid—accidentally might have gone wrong.

There are actual forums on the internet dealing with whatever kind of penile problem one might face—the aging thing was the least of it, let me tell you. I am, however, not in the liberty to quote or share any of those horror tales here, since this is sort of a Sarcasm And Health blog and not exactly a horror-fan-zine.

Speaking of horror: seen any good pornos lately?

***

 

“The media put that in our heads too. They made us insecure about our penises too. You watch a porno nowadays, you see these guys with these giant hogs on them, fucking Chernobyl waste nuclear reactor dicks on them. You watch that and you go "*sad tone* oh my god, I’m never gonna have a dick like that" You are not SUPPOSED to have a dick like that. Animals should not have dicks like that.”
- Russell Peters


[all photos republished with kind permission of the original publishers]