Dr. Oliver Gralla - Happy Down Below: Everything You Want to Know About the Penis and Other Bits

COPYRIGHT 2016 Bastei Lbbe AG

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN Germany in 2016 as Untenrum glcklich: Eine urologische Handreichung

ENGLISH TRANSLATION COPYRIGHT 2018 by Jamie McIntosh

FOREWORD COPYRIGHT 2018 by Peter Moore

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

GREYSTONE BOOKS LTD.

WWW.GREYSTONEBOOKS.COM

CATALOGUING DATA AVAILABLE from Library and Archives Canada

ISBN 978-1-77164-328-3 (PBK.)

ISBN 978-1-77164-329-0 (EPUB)

EDITING BY STEPHANIE Fysh

COVER ILLUSTRATION AND design by Brian Tong

TEXT DESIGN BY Nayeli Jimenez

TYPESETTING BY SHED Simas / Ona Design

WE GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada for our publishing activities.

CONTENTS

BY PETER Moore

FOREWORD

AT A PIVOTAL point in my journalism career, I quit my job as articles editor for Playboy, where I edited serious journalism and Playmate data sheets, to become managing editor of Mens Health, which included many fewer naked ladies in its editorial pages. My male friends couldnt understand why Id exchange a clearly ideal jobone that included screening potential Playmates and interviewing the winnersto work for a magazine that often had a half-naked dude on the cover.

But the job switch made sense to me, at least. I was just then entering my late thirties, a time of life when all sorts of health concerns crop up.

Why do I suddenly have a potbelly?

Why am I losing my hair?

Am I doomed to the same health maladies as the older men in my family?

And of course, is it safe to stick a pine bough up my urethra?

Actually, that last one wasnt among my personal health concerns. But it was a question that one of Dr. Grallas many interesting patients should have taken more seriously before he customized his own Yule log. Youll read all about it in the last chapter. (Spoiler alert: Dont do it!)

At Mens Health, we took the male organ very seriously indeed, but with the magazines signature mix of humor and hard science. To educate our millions of penis-owning readers, we even invented our own staff urologist, who, being fictional, possessed none of Dr. Grallas impressive credentials. But he ably separated phallus fact from dick fiction. We called him Dr. Schwantz, in a nod to our twenty-seven Yiddish-fluent readers (out of five million), who knew the word as slang for a limp male member.

If youre a man, nothing will get your attention like a willie that wont wonkathat wont, with a little encouragement, turn from molten chocolate into a candy bar. This is among the reasons this book belongs in the toolbox of nearly every guy on the planet, plus the women who love them. In fact, many guys dont conduct a downward investigative glance unless our glans is spurting blood, oozing white stuff, pointing listlessly at the floor, or sprouting a tree branch. For all of those conditions and more, Dr. Gralla has nonjudgmental, no-nonsense recommendations, and he deserves our sincere thanks.

But for a moment, let me address all of those problemsexcept the piney onefrom the perspective of a health editor. Over the course of my two-decade stint at Mens Health, I came to think of the penis as a very sensitive diagnostic tool. In fact, most mens health scourgesheart disease, diabetes, obesity, psychological problemsmanifest themselves early on as dick disorders. Your penis is very likely to know something is wrong before you, your doctor, or even your shrink identifies the malady.

So listen to Dr. Johnson!

If your dick is pointing up, your health is probably pretty good. If its relentlessly pointing down, so, likely, are your health prospects. All guys have been gifted with an analog wellness meter tucked away in our shorts, to tell us everything we need to know about our schlong-term health prognoses.

Pay attention to the direction yours is pointing, or pay the price. Or, better still, pay a visit to Dr. Grallas engaging, entertaining text, and get your man-needle pointing northward, pronto.

And while I have your attention, and a sexual soapbox for a moment, I want to call attention to one pet peeve about the male unit that is ably represented by what Dr. Gralla couldnt include in this book. There are many helpful pages here devoted to ways to address erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculationthe stalking horses for urology practices everywherebut few devoted to male birth control options, one of which is to dip your scrotum into scalding water. When the most recent revolutionizer of male birth-control options was Charles Goodyearthe tire guy who invented vulcanized rubber in the 1840swe are well overdue for the next sexual revolution.

Women who dont wish to become pregnant have hundreds of shots, IUDs, sponges, pills, inserts, and potions available at the drop of a prescription. Guys not wanting to get someone pregnant have abstinence, early withdrawal, condoms, and the knife at their disposal. In fact, men have very few options for changing the plotline of From Here to Paternity. A male pill, please, and pronto!

But for everything else, theres Happy Down Below. Treat yourself and your man-root to a thorough and often uproarious read-through. Your health prospects will be pointing at the ceiling in no time.

Peter Moore, editor, Mens Health, 19952015

PREFACE

ACTUALLY, I WANTED to be a surgeon. At the age of fifteen, I stood next to my father in an operating theater and, with a heroic expression on my face and an iron hook in my hand, held open the stomach of the patient my father was operating on. You will have noticed: medicine is in my blood. I completed my medical studies with bubbly enthusiasm. On the basis of my thesis, and after my first tentative steps in Hamburg Universitys Department of Surgery, I was given a scholarship to Harvard University and spent a year in Boston, the mecca of medical science. After careful consideration, however, I opted for quality of life over heroism, and in short order surgery became urology: the specialty that focuses on the urinary system. It was one of the best decisions in my life. Urology is actually the pinnacle of medical scienceits just that hardly anyone realizes it.