Don't Cross Your Eyes...They'll Get Stuck That Way!: And 75 Other Health Myths Debunked (17 page)

Recommendations from reputable organizations are quite clear on what you should do for a nosebleed. First of all, you should keep your head above your heart, so stand, or preferably sit up. Next, you should lean
forward
in order to help the blood drain out of your nostrils and not run down your throat. Some people also recommend that you can apply pressure by squeezing your nose just below the bony bridge for five to fifteen minutes until the bleeding has stopped. Cold icepacks or compresses may also help the nosebleed stop sooner.

Sometimes a nosebleed that won’t stop can be an indication that something more serious is at work. You shouldn’t hesitate to call for assistance or talk to your doctor if you have recurrent problems with nosebleeds. Of course, you should stop picking your nose first and see if that takes care of the problem.

Oral Sex

You can’t get a sexually transmitted disease from oral sex

Safe sex is a very good thing. Unfortunately, many people are uncertain how to have safe sex. While a lot of people know that vaginal sex or anal sex can be dangerous, they think that oral sex is safe.

Oral sex is definitely safer in terms of pregnancy. Giving or receiving oral sex has no risk of getting you pregnant. Getting pregnant requires a sperm to come in contact with an egg inside of a woman. Unless you somehow get some semen in contact with the woman’s vagina in the midst of oral sex (Aaron wants to hear how you think that will happen), no one is going to get pregnant.

Getting an infection or a sexually transmitted disease (also called an STD) during oral sex is a possibility, though. You can get an STD from oral sex, whether you are on the giving end or the receiving end, and whether you are male or female. Infections like herpes, gonorrhea, and chlamydia can all spread through oral sex. Both bacteria and viruses can spread from one person to another through oral sex. The virus that causes genital warts and cervical cancer, human papillomavirus (HPV), can even spread through oral sex. The person whose mouth is in contact with the genitals can get infections or sores in their mouth from performing oral sex on someone with one of these infections. And if the person giving oral sex has an infection in their mouth (this is especially common with oral herpes or cold sores), that infection can be passed to the person receiving the oral sex. These infections can be passed even if your partner does not have any symptoms and you do not know that they are infected. (We know this sucks. Pun intended.)

The good news is that most of these infections do not spread as easily through oral sex as they do through vaginal or anal sex. You are much less likely to get herpes, gonorrhea, or chlamydia from oral sex than from these other forms of sex. While it is considered possible to get HIV from oral sex if the person has cuts or sores, experts say it is very unlikely that you would get HIV from oral sex either. Nonetheless, it is possible. Even though it is a low risk, you can get HIV or gonorrhea or herpes from oral sex, especially if there is a cut or sore or something in the person’s mouth.

Even if the risks from oral sex are not as high as the risks from other types of sex, the smartest thing is to protect yourself. First, talk with your partner about any infections either of you may have. For men, the penis could be covered with a latex condom. For women, the person giving oral sex could use some sort of protection to create a barrier between the mouth and the vagina. Examples of these kinds of barriers are called a dental dam or a latex sheet, or you could use a condom or even plastic wrap that is cut open to make a protective square. These same things can be used to create a barrier between the mouth and the anus for that kind of oral sex.

We know that the idea of having oral sex with these protective barriers in place does not sound like much fun. However, the idea of getting throat infections, sores in your mouth, or even throat cancers sounds like much less fun. Even worse is the possibility that you could be infected with something like HIV. Play safely!

Oysters

Oysters are an aphrodisiac

Not everyone appreciates the salty, slimy joys of slurping raw oysters, but many people will sample these shelled delicacies just because of their legendary properties. After all, oysters are supposed to get you in the mood and increase your sexual powers.

Rumors of the powers of the oyster go all the way back to the birth of the word “aphrodisiac.” Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, was born from the sea on an oyster shell and gave birth to Eros. Just as the oyster and the sea gave birth to Aphrodite and Eros, the slippery oyster is supposed to give birth to sexual desire and prowess. In the second century, the Roman satirist Juvenal described how the Romans considered oysters an aphrodisiac food, and even wrote about how women behaved recklessly when they had consumed wine and giant oysters. Legend has it that Casanova, known for his sexual conquests, ate fifty oysters for breakfast every morning to fuel his escapades. Some people think that oysters stay on the list of aphrodisiac foods because they resemble the female genitalia. (Certain foods are believed to fuel sexual appetites because they resemble sexual organs in some way.)

Despite the long-standing reputation of the oyster as a sexual booster, there is no evidence that the oyster has actual powers of sexual rejuvenation. There are no studies documenting increased sexual desire or performance in connection with eating oysters. There is just no science to support the claim that oysters are an aphrodisiac.

Happily for those of us who love oysters, we can still comfort ourselves that they might contain some things that help with sexual performance. Oysters are a good source of zinc, and zinc is needed to make the male sexual hormone testosterone. Having enough zinc in your body is also important to making healthy sperm. Recent studies also suggest that raw oysters contain D-aspartic acid and N-methyl-D-aspartate, two amino acids that increased testosterone levels in a study of male rats. An increase in testosterone levels could result in a boost to your libido. Remember, oysters have never been proven to make any difference in sexual drive, but there is nothing wrong with hoping that they might keep your sperm healthy and your libido strong.

In fact, it is that hope which is likely responsible for the continued belief in the oyster as an aphrodisiac. When we believe that something works, it sometimes does just because of our belief. This is called the placebo effect. Our minds are powerful, and when our mind is convinced that something will have a particular effect on the body, we sometimes can see (or think we see) that effect. Sexual desire is strongly influenced by our state of mind. If you believe that oysters are going to rev up your sex drive, you just might find yourself in the mood after slurping down a few of the bivalve mollusks. It was probably your brain that got you in the mood—not the oysters—but you can enjoy that mood nonetheless.

Penises

You can make your penis bigger without surgery

Many men worry that their penises are not big enough. In one study, only 55 percent of men surveyed reported that they were satisfied with their penis size. (In contrast, most women are pretty happy with their partner’s penis size: 85 percent of women report being satisfied.) And men worry more about the length than the width.

Into this vortex of concern and feelings of inadequacy come the advertisements for ways to increase the size of your penis without surgery. Pills, creams, vacuum pumps, and special stretches or squeezing exercises are all touted as the surefire way to increase the size of your member (and make you more pleasing to your partner). We suspect you may be as tired as we are of having to delete these messages from our inboxes, but you also may find yourself wondering, “Do any of these things work?” After all, the idea of increasing your penis size without having to undergo something like surgery does seem awfully appealing.

Many pills, herbs, and creams are marketed as the “proven” way to increase your penis size. Many of them claim that they will increase the blood flow to the penis and thereby increase its size. This is just not true. No medications have been proven to increase penis size. While one mixture of herbs was found to increase the pressure within the penis in rats, and thus might be able to make an erection a bit stronger, none of the herbs was proven to make the penis longer. There is just no science backing these pills, herbs, or creams—regardless of what the manufacturers claim!

Vacuum devices are a popular suggestion for increasing the size of your penis without surgery. These devices are used to treat some forms of erectile dysfunction since they can increase the amount of blood in the tissues of the penis and thus create an erection. Many believe that these devices can also be used to increase the size of the penis. The scientific evidence does not back this one up. In a study of thirty-seven men with penises less than 10 centimeters (when stretched out), vacuum devices were used three times a week, for twenty minutes at a time, for six months. At that time, there was no significant difference in the length of the men’s penises. Moreover, only one third of the men were satisfied with the procedure. While these vacuums can play a role after surgery on the penis and in certain types of erectile dysfunction, they just do not work to make the penis any bigger.

Another option touted for making your penis bigger is a penile-extending device. One of these devices has been studied in a somewhat scientific way that involved measurements for twenty-three men who wore the penile extender over the course of three months. This device consists of a plastic ring into which the penis is inserted, and the penis is then attached to two metallic rods by a silicon band. The men were supposed to wear the stretching device for several hours a day, increasing from four to six hours in the beginning to nine hours over the course of the three months, and they were supposed to add a half a centimeter to the length of the rods every two weeks. This study did report that the average length of the flaccid penis (not the erect penis) increased by about 1 centimeter over the course of the three months. The girth of the penis did not change. Based on this one small study, it is possible that stretching your penis for three months might increase the length a little, but it is not clear whether this effect lasts or whether this would make any difference when your penis is erect. It is also important to note that stretching the penis with weights may cause permanent damage to the penis.

In between the unproven pills and creams and more significant surgeries, there is the option to have a doctor inject a type of gel that acts as a “filler” to expand the size of the penis. There is some evidence that having a doctor inject a special kind of gel called hyaluronic acid gel can increase the girth of your penis or the size of the head of the penis. In a small study of fifty men in Korea, using this gel to increase the girth of the penis was found to be satisfactory and safe at eighteen months. The increase in girth was about 4 centimeters (remember, that is measured as circumference around the penis). These are not the best data, as it is a small study in one population, but at least this method seems to work. Not surprisingly, this option has a lot of potential bad side effects. Pain, bruising, changes in the color of the penis, depressions or bumps from uneven spread of the gel, and even embolisms or impotence are possible complications.

We have gone through a bunch of nonsurgical ways to try to increase your penis size, but what about surgery? If none of these pills or lotions or exercises or devices works, should you think about taking the plunge with surgery? In the surgery to make the penis longer, ligaments that hold up the penis are basically cut so that the penis can hang lower and look longer. But even surgery might not be the answer for you. In a critical review of the studies of surgeries to increase the size of the penis, penile enhancement surgery is found to cause a 1–2 centimeter increase in the length of the penis (that’s about half an inch) and a 2.5 centimeter increase in the girth of the penis (close to an inch wider in circumference). Surgery can make your penis a bit bigger, though not as much as you might think or hope. There are lots of downsides to surgery, though, and the studies of penile enhancement surgery are full of reports of all kinds of unpleasant complications. Problems like deformity of the penis, paradoxical penile shortening (who wants a penis-lengthening surgery to make it shorter accidentally?), disagreeable scarring (scarring of the penis always seems disagreeable), shifting of the injected material, and sexual dysfunction are all reported as frequent problems with this surgery. In fact, patients are so dissatisfied with these surgeries in both the short term and the long term that the critical review actually concludes that patients should be discouraged from trying these surgeries. Not a good endorsement from urologists and plastic surgeons who specialize in these types of procedures!

It is important to take a moment to think about what is normal and what is not. The average length of an erect penis is between five and seven inches. Most penises, no matter how small or how big they might look when they are soft, end up being about this same length when they are erect. You also might be interested to know that the size of a man’s penis falls lower down on a woman’s list of requirements than you might think. Women consistently rate a man’s personality and grooming higher than penis size in terms of what makes him attractive, and 90 percent of women in one study prioritized the width of the penis over length. Being a fit, attentive, responsive partner is much more likely to be attractive to your partner than having a particular size of penis. Finally, if you really want something else to do, you could work on two optical illusions that might make your member look a bit larger. The most important one for your overall health would be to get rid of your belly. A big belly can hide the upper part of the penis and make it appear smaller. Not only will losing your gut make you much healthier, it might make your penis look bigger too! A less important strategy, but one that you still might want to give a go, is to cut your pubic hair down. Having less bushy hair around the base of your penis might create the illusion that your penis is a bit bigger. Once again, your partner may not care at all, but you can try this one out if you want something to work on.