CHAPTER 2

Come: Going, Going, Gone

“Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.”

Woody Allen, Annie Hall

Like most men, I used to be a scumbag. Now I can proudly and definitively, yet sadly, say that I am no longer a scumbag.

Facing impotence after prostate surgery at the age of thirty-six is a profound blow—a blow to one’s confidence, a blow to one’s sense of self, a blow to the joys of orgasm, a blow to the joys of animal spirits and passions. Yet, four to five weeks after surgery, I was feeling pretty, pretty good. I was beginning to feel my first pelvic stirrings, and I was even seeing the beginnings of erections.

The nerve-sparing procedure in taking out my prostate had worked. Instead of blindly and aggressively cutting through all the nerve supply in the pelvis to frantically pull out the prostate—the nerve supply to the pelvis is enormous, second only to the brain—the surgeons had spared virtually all of the nerves on one side of it. Theoretically this sparing of nerve damage would be enough to allow me to regain potency. And theory was turning into reality.

Everything seemed to be in sync. A friend loaned us a VCR, a new piece of technology that had just been developed in the previous year or two, and Helen and I were able to watch recently released movies at home for the first time.

I could begin to move back into denial. I am still a twenty-something, a teenager even, not in my mid-thirties, with the large passions and drives of adolescence and young adulthood still going strong. Prostate cancer, prostate surgery, future radiation to the prostate bed: A thing of the past—the surgeons got it all, they said—and not a thing of the future. I am watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High on the VCR, and I briefly return to my youthful innocence, unclouded by disease and death. Helen is comforting and encouraging and passionate. My erections are coming. A grand slam, a hole in one, a three-point shot from half court. Thank you, Helen, thank you, surgeons. The comeback kid is coming.

Except there was no ejaculant. A grand slam, and now bam. No come, no scum, no jism. No muss and no fuss, as Helen quickly reminded me. Where was it? Where did it go? I hardly knew ye.

The surprise of puberty: No more dry humping. A wet sticky mess comes, of course, with puberty. Unless we talk with our friends, a conversation I never had as a twelve-year-old, we have to figure out what to do with this glutinous goo. Do we masturbate into a wad of tissues (yes)—but then what do we do with this wad? Doesn’t it look a bit strange to suddenly be willing to empty your own small pail of garbage every day? Doesn’t it look a bit peculiar to be getting a new box of tissues for the night table every other day? Doesn’t it look weird to make periodic trips to the trash cans outside and to take those trash cans to the front of the house twice a week for garbage collection—a chore I was never actually asked to do? How weird is it to suddenly be using the washing machine and dryer a couple of times a week, to deal with sticky underwear and sheets?

I never thought to masturbate into the toilet. It was much more comfortable in the privacy—again, the privacy and the self-consciousness and embarrassment of early adolescence—of my bedroom. I never thought to use that night’s yet-uncooked liver or brisket—we were big meat eaters—as a receptacle for my newfound fertile syrup. A new kind of meat tenderizer, a newfangled gravy enhancer. I never thought to use an apple pie either, to bring out the juices of the apples, to make the crust as moist as possible.

And just as I am letting go of my puzzlement and my embarrassment, and just as I am enjoying the pleasures of this lush and rich and fruitful mess, it’s gone. I am just as puzzled as I was at twelve. Where did it go? I had just had a modest erection, I had just had sex with Helen—something I thought might never happen ever again—I had just had an orgasm. But no ejaculant, no cum. An ejaculation without ejaculant. What the hell?

I call my internist frantically. I am experiencing orgasmic joy, I tell him; but I am completely confused. No cum came. Nothing, nada. Is there something further wrong with my penis, my pelvis, my prostate-bed?

A highly experienced physician, a few years older than myself, he was as confused as I was. “I’ve never heard of this. None of my patients have indicated this kind of problem post-prostatectomy previously. I’ll look into it.”

This was November, 1984, six weeks after surgery. Men then did not talk about sexual dysfunction, orgasms, erectile dysfunction (ED). ED was not an acronym that was anywhere close to the horizon.

I called the urological surgeon in Manhattan the next day. “Of course you’re not going to have any ejaculant, any secretions. Your seminal vesicles, which produce seminal fluid, have been removed along with your prostate. The spermatic cord has been cut in the process of removing your prostate; and now the sperm, whatever is left of it, empties into your bladder. It’s all retrograde ejaculation, whatever minimal fluids are left.”

It has all been turned upside down.

Okay, but why didn’t anyone warn me about this? It’s too private. Sex stays in the bedroom, not in the surgical suite, not in the doctor’s office. We’ve saved your life. What more do you want? We’ll talk to you about survival statistics, but why should we talk to you about sexual side effects? Just deal with it. Get over it.

A new coming-of-age movie or novel for the prostate cancer generation: Where are the up-to-date renderings of Portnoy’s Complaint and American Pie? How does one learn the new versions of the birds and the bees—the coming-of-age and the going-of-age? Quite possibly the confusions of puberty and adolescence are not nearly as funny as the confusions that come with prostate cancer—a new kind of self-consciousness, a new kind of stumbling and blundering and floundering.

No more human stain, no more creamy mess that keeps our species ripening and evolving. I was realizing that prostate cancer and all of its treatments affect everything that makes us human, that assures survival of us as a species.