Not until the Renaissance did our knowledge of hormones and sexuality start to progress, and Paracelsus (1493-1541) became the most important scientist of the age. Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (his real name) hailed from Switzerland, and his greatest achievement was to demonstrate that many diseases could be treated and that sufferers did not always need […]

Almost two thousand years ago the Latin writer Pliny recommended the eating of testicles in cases of poor sexual performance. Testes are on the menu in many countries. In Spain this delicacy is called cojones (with the same connotations of courage and manliness as English ‘balls’). Fighting bulls from the arenas are of course the […]

‘If in the first year they are together, a couple put a bean in a pot every time they make love, afterwards they will need a whole lifetime of marriage to empty the pot again if each time they make love after that first year they take a bean out of the pot,’ goes a […]

One way of explaining how an ejaculation works is by comparing it to firing a rifle. In that case too one first has to load before one can shoot, with the urethra acting as the barrel of the rifle. Ejaculation changes as one gets older: both the emission and expulsion phases last longer. Emission stands […]

Names for sperm found on the internet include: jizz, spunk, cum, man milk, love juice, home-made yoghurt, mayo, boner brew, salt malt, cream baby juice, load, skeet, cocknog, nut-nectar, spooge and liquid sin. In a human ejaculation between 2 and 5 millilitres of sperm are emitted. Normally between 100 million and 200 million sperm cells […]

Humans are descended from anthropoid primates and they in turn from mouse-like, tree-dwelling mammals. The males of some rodent species, for example the squirrel, leave behind special mating plugs. These are nothing more than a sticky, tacky secretion that prevents other males from gaining vaginal access after the first male’s ejacula­tion. Evolution has equipped the […]

Human testicles and those of male chimpanzees are considerably larger than those of gorillas and orang-utans, two species of ape closely related to man. Gorillas and orang-utans have modest genitalia for their large body size and ejaculate relatively meagre amounts of sperm. These animals do not require abundant quantities of sperm cells for repro­duction. The […]

Even in urological handbooks the female prostate is given very little attention. Since i88o the organ has been known as Skene’s glands. Skene was a gynaecologist and published on the subject in a medical journal. In fact, the female prostate ought to be named after the short­lived scientist Reinier de Graaf. Shortly before his death […]

Prostate cancer is largely a disease of our age. Two centuries ago it was rare: patients died before the cancer manifested itself. The body is con­stantly under construction and in decomposition, cells die and are replaced by new ones. This constant renewal allows organs to function normally. If certain cells do not die and change […]

‘As men grow older they believe they still have abundant sexual energy, but they are being fooled by the signals they are receiving because these are being sent to them only by an irritated, worn-out prostate,’ is how the Italian poet, philosopher, essayist and philosopher of science Guido Ceronetti characterized one of the problems of […]