Wednesday, July 16, 2008 (SF Gate)
The Remote Control Penis/They say the male birth-control pill is ready to go. But is something missing?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist


Vividly indeed do I remember the lovely and sordid tale my friend once
told me, many years ago, of the terrific guy she once dated, a strapping
young thing who - through a series of unfortunate childhood events - had
to have a remote-controlled, robotic penis installed in his body.

Let me be more specific. Apparently, this fine lad's delicate man tissues
had been damaged in a very unpleasant bicycle accident in his youth, and
he could therefore no longer enjoy normal erections. Everything else
functioned just fine, but when it came to sex, despite having full
sensation, all systems were mangled, all blood vessels shot. Sad indeed.

But then, a savior. Through the miracle of modern medicine and
not-so-modern pneumatics, ingenious doctors were able to install some sort
of marvelous contraption, a valve and a rod and bladder and a little pump
- a complete mechanical system by which our boy could, well, inflate and
deflate his manhood at will, last as long as he liked, repeat as
frequently as energy and soreness and lubricant allowed, and thereby enjoy
a (relatively) normal sex life.

It worked like a charm. It also worked like an aphrodisiac, a mesmerizing
technological miracle, and a pair of old Reebok Pump basketball shoes.
What you did was: Squeeze a little bulb at the base of the perineum a few
dozen times to inflate, to raise the flag and see who salutes. Enjoy
indefinitely (!) When finished, simply reach up underneath into God's
country and press a different little bulb to deflate the air bladder and,
well, lower the mainsail (my friend said this particular procedure sounded
like a sad squeaky toy, sighing slowly. She found it adorable).

(Here is where I'd like to tell you my friend's nickname for this lad, but
they tell me this is still a family website and baffled
children/grandmothers could be reading this and are already panicky that
they saw the word "penis" on screen. So I'll just say it rhymed very
closely with "The Wonder Sock.")

This heartwarming tale comes to mind as I read of how scientists have now
developed a tiny valve they can surgically implant into the manhood of
mankind to, well, control the flow of sperm at will. Your own built-in,
reversible, radio-controlled vasectomy! they exclaim, with a winking
Australian grin.

Apparently, said contraption involves a little remote-controlled switch
that can, at the press of a button, activate or deactivate the flow from
wherever it is that sperm flows (a musty little furniture shop somewhere
on the outskirts of London, I think) by opening and closing a valve
installed into the all-important duct known as the vas deferens. Nifty!

I know what you're thinking. A remote-controlled sperm valve? Are you
crazy? Who the hell would want something like that?

I'll tell you who: Every modern male under 30, that's who. Hell, add in a
digital camera and an MP3 player and maybe built-in GPS, and you've got
the next iPod.

See, like my friend's wonder sock, I think such technology would play
directly upon the dual modern male fantasies of unlimited penile dexterity
and übergeek tech coolness. In the age of gizmo wonders and
technologically advanced everything, why not a mechanically enhanced
penis? Why not a little Iron Man in your iron man? Make it easy, make it
relatively affordable, market it like you would the Bang & Olufsen stereo
option on an Audi R8 (i.e., an invaluable enhancement, not a threat), and
I say: Viva la revolucion!

It is, of course, all part of the eternal quest for an easy, idiot-proof
male birth-control device for consensual adults that doesn't involve
sheathing everything in miserable amounts of latex and therefore dulling
the finest sensation known to all malehood next to perhaps a superlative
foot massage and maybe sipping dark rum in a hot tub with nubile pagan
fire priestesses from the moon.

But maybe such a valve won't be necessary. After all, they say there's
already been a big breakthrough in male birth control, that scientists
have finally developed a surefire "male pill" that knocks any man's sperm
count down to zero, and all that's left is a bit of clinical testing.

So effective is the new pill that it's apparently safer than condoms,
safer than the female pill, safer than staring at a photo of Ann Coulter
for three full, agonizing minutes while your sperm commit mass suicide
from sheer horror. Amazing.

But apparently there's a problem. Big Pharma doesn't seem to care about
this new breakthrough. And why? Money, of course. They say there's just
not enough interest. Men don't seem to be clamoring for it, the market
doesn't seem to be there, millions don't stand to be made, and hence no
one wants to fund more research on the thing, which could result in a wait
of three to five more years before such a pill hits the market, if it ever
does.

What's more, some argue that dumb-as-nails men are too unreliable for such
a thing anyway, that no woman worth her weight in diaphragms and Nonoxyl-9
would dare trust a man to remember to take a pill every day, because of
course men are generally irresponsible schlubs who can't even remember
their own phone numbers and etc. and so on and cliché cliché
cliché.

To which I say, utter and total B.S. There's not a smart modern male I
know who wouldn't love to know he wouldn't - couldn't - get a date
pregnant, that there could be no "accidents," that he will never get that
life-altering phone call. Hell, there's already a trend whereby some
baby-terrified men are getting old-school surgical vasectomies in their
early 20s, rife with the fear that some nefarious huntress might try to
snare them in the baby trap. Shift the power dynamics of fertility and
birth control to men? Talk about your massive cultural psycho-sexual
upheavals. Watch for it.

But maybe that's neither here nor there. Maybe the pill's researchers need
to hook up with the valve engineers and the genius docs who installed my
friend's lover's old penis pump way back when, and all work together to
solve this most pressing issue and move humanity, uh, forward.

Which is to say, you want to guarantee men engage fully in matters fertile
and impregnable? You want to make sure they care deeply about familial
responsibility and planning? Don't just give them a pill. Give them a
slick badass high-tech gizmo to deliver it, maybe a hot little button on
their iPhones that not only shuts a microvalve and releases the pill's
chemicals, but also boosts stamina, responds to voice commands, calculates
the tip on the dinner bill, organizes their playlist according to a given
date's particular mood, and of course, reminds them exactly where the
clitoris is. Really, what more do you need?

Thoughts about this column? E-mail Mark.

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on
SFGate and in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle. To get
on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one
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Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive of past columns, which
includes another small photo of Mark potentially sufficient for you to
recognize him in the street and give him gifts. He also has a raw Facebook
page, but has little idea why.

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Copyright 2008 SF Gate

(no, I don't have their permission to post this, but I gave full credit and if they want to come yell at me I'll certainly take the free advertisement down)