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| Ay, There's the Rub |
It's not often that we think about the sex lives of Shakespearean players,
but a new self-help book makes Viagra of that thespian standby, the
soliloquy. According to Resurrecting Sex by Dr. David Schnarch, the
best way to solve problems in bed is... talk with yourself. That 's right;
make like your sex life's a potted plant. One of Dr. Schnarch's patients
found orgasm impossible unless she imagined Dracula flying around and biting
her (no, really) — that is, until she talked herself into
rubbing one out while picturing a mountain top. According to the good
doctor, this process involves asking unnamed people in your head to help
with your sexual problems. In lieu of a plausible scientific explanation,
Dr. Schnarch said that "the people in your head don't generally like it
when you're screwing your partner." Was this what Shakespeare had in mind
when he said, "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all
compact"? (Yes, but probably because giggling and using a campy high-pitched
German accent to say "Vvvvvucking nuts!" over and over again didn't really
read well.)
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| A Rise By Any Other Name... |
Before British pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly can get their new
anti-impotence pill Cialis off the ground, they're going to have to
deal with an angry man who's been using it all his life . . . on legal
documents and credit card receipts. Albert Cialis recently told England 's Independent newspaper: "We are horrified
at this situation; it's like being called the Viagra family." Facing legal
action, Eli Lilly representatives explained that the name was a play
on the French word for "sky" (ciel), oh- so-cleverly hinting that "the
sky's the limit." Ely Lilly also has a perfectly good reason for resisting
the proposed name change: the Independent estimated that rebranding Cialis
(the pill) would cost them $17 million in the UK alone. Dismissing their
arguments, an understandably turgid Cialis said that his children would be
teased mercilessly by their schoolmates, resulting in "psychological
damage." Come now, is it really so bad if his family members are ribbed for the
pleasure of others?
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| What's Up, Doc? |
Penis Grown In Lab! shout the headlines. No, they haven 't developed a new,
hyperefficient form of pornography. After decades of dripping shampoo into
their furry brethren's eyes, science actually gave something back to the
much-abused rabbit this week in the form of a synthesized penis
— but the bunnies are less than grateful. A team of researchers led by
Dr. Anthony Atala of Harvard Medical School succeeded in growing the most
complex part of what is the most complex organ to be studied by
bioengineers. That part is the "corpora cavernosa," the latticework of
collagen and blood vessels that acts as a sort of medium-security prison for
blood during an erection. Because of its structural complexity, it has been
the most difficult part of the penis to duplicate. Dr. Atala, who previously
managed to whip up a near-perfect bladder, figured out how to grow and mix
the different cell types involved using tissue samples from healthy male
rabbits. After producing something resembling real erectile tissue, the
originals were removed from the donor bunnies and replaced with facsimiles
of fecundity. Recuperated, the stud bunnies were merrily screwing within
thirty seconds of being placed near females. Standard rabbit behavior. When asked how they planned to use this discovery to better humanity, the
researchers initially said something cute about genital abnormalities and
injuries, before admitting that, yes, synthetic penises could hypothetically
make the institutional-sized soup can the general standard for manhood. Let
the buyer beware, however: further testing on the rabbit subjects indicated
that the new tissue produced only half of the pressure of the originals.
"It's analogous to the penis of a sixty-year-old man, versus that of a
thirty year old," says Atala. If your experience of sixty-year-old organs is
limited, think of it this way before you go under the knife: the unlucky
rabbits went in with the penile equivalent of the Beatles and came out with
Wings.
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| Donkey Dong |
Making an ass of yourself, stubborn as a mule, jack-ass, asinine . . . Yeah,
the donkey certainly gets a bad rap. But this week an international
coalition of these much-beleaguered beasts of burden decided that they
simply were not going to take it any more. First, a farmer in the former
Soviet republic of Kirghizia was bitten as he tried to prevent his female
donkey from copulating with a neighbor's lascivious mule. But his donkey
— who was clearly anxious to get jiggy with it — attacked him when
he tried to come between them. (If you were pulled away mid-shag, you 'd be
none-too-pleased either, right?) His hand was so badly damaged that doctors
had to amputate it. Almost simultaneously in the southern Moroccan city of
Marrakech, surgeons managed to reattach a seven-year-old
boy's penis after it was bitten off by a similarly P.O.ed ass. Donkeys, used
for laborious farm work and garbage collection in Morocco, are often
subjected to harsh treatment. But exactly why and how the donkey managed to
bite off the boy's penis remains a mystery. Perhaps the young boy was
testing out the old carrot-and-stick theory and didn't have a suitable root
vegetable on hand.
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| Not the Man He Used to Be |
Bono doesn 't necessarily like the fact that there are starving
children throughout the world, Third World debts up the wazoo, and
land mines dotted all over the former Yugoslavia. But let's face it, without
these worthy causes to support, what would the diminutive be-weaved goat-man
have to prattle on about whenever he came within 100 yards of Kofi Annan, a
podium and anyone who'd listen? TWIS has a similar relationship with the
scores of gentlemen worldwide that are relieved of their genitalia each
year: We certainly don 't condone it, but it makes our lives a
little easier. This week's mutilated-wang story comes from the former Siam,
where a Thai woman has been accused of slicing off her husband 's penis
after he had an affair. Kewalee Panraksa called Chiang Mai police after
allegedly attacking her husband with a box cutter. Police said when they
arrived at her house, Panraksa was waiting for them, knife in hand. She has
been charged with assault.
Twenty-one-year-old Panraksa told a local newspaper that her husband was
lazy, didn't help her with work and was always flirting with other women.
She said she had to do something to stop him. For several days after
seeing him with another woman at a local discothèque, she planned her
gruesome attack. One night, after he had fallen into a deep sleep, she
gave him the chop. According to the paper, twenty-three-year-old Prapat
Panraksa woke up screaming, covered with blood and, we dare say, a little
miffed. Doctors have re-attached the penis but say they cannot guarantee he
will be able to use it again. We at TWIS beg to differ. A quick
brainstorming session around the water cooler threw up some interesting
alternative uses for the severed Johnson, including a handsome paperweight,
a pencil holder and a flotation device for a hamster.
Additional research, puns, wordplay and double entendres supplied by Jim Jazwiecki.
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