In order to understand the sexual experiences of his or her fellow — humans a urologist must be a man or woman of the world: broadminded and with sufficient powers of imagination. Even when you think you possess these qualities, you can occasionally come across a case like the following, which remains baffling.
A 50-year-old homosexual man comes to the outpatient clinic complaining that his sperm ‘is always coloured’. ‘Haemospermia’ is my immediate thought. He had been examined two days before and nothing abnormal had been found. ‘Reassured patient,’ said the notes, but had that really reassured him? ‘So all that time there was blood in your sperm?’ ‘Yes, every time, sometimes red, sometimes brown or yellow, sometimes with lumps or streaks, and sometimes watery.’ The patient tells me this with some distaste, but in great detail, which many men would find impossible. Repeated examinations reveal no abnormalities. ‘You’re not doing anything. . .’ I ask hesitantly. ‘Nothing special, just hand-jobs, together,’ replies the patient. ‘I should say I haven’t got a permanent relationship, but when I pick someone up in the pub in the evenings and I come it’s a real turn-off to keep seeing my sperm like that. It’s really embarrassing. Or am I supposed to do it in the dark from now on?’ ‘Blood in sperm’ can definitely spoil someone’s love life, but the problem remains that in the vast majority of cases urological examinations relating to haemospermia reveal no abnormalities.