What Not to Do for an Erection

Disclaimer: Some of you might remember this column from a few years back when we still lived at Viceland. When we moved to VICE.com, though, it disappeared, so now we've dug it up. Enjoy.

Hey, you rapidly decaying protoplasmic sacks of calcium and shit, my name is Dr. Mona Moore. Obviously, that is not my real name, but I am a real doctor. Don't feel bad for me, though, because it means I will always have a job, an apartment ten times bigger than yours, and the right to tell you what to do simply because I will always know better. Enjoy my column!

When I was a teenager one of my boyfriends tied a hair scrunchie around the base of his cock in a desperate attempt to maintain a weak boner that was limper than a piece of overcooked cannelloni. Not surprisingly, it didn’t work. I don’t recommend female hair accessories in these situations.

The wince-making shame of trying to push an increasingly flaccid penis into an ever more impatient pussy is undeniable. But the valiant lengths men go to in desperation can have painful consequences.

The list of erectile idiocy resulting in 911 calls is endless—from the fire department being called to cut off jammed cock rings to improvised Prince Alberts needing surgical removal—but this is one of my favorites: A good-looking blonde student came hobbling into the ER clutching his crotch. He had been unable to sustain an erection with a new partner and while desperately pacing back and forth in her bathroom shaking his fist at his withered member, he spied the tiling sealer in her recently refurbished shower. In a moment of complete, surreal insanity, he pumped his cock full of the fast-drying, waterproof solution. By the time a doctor saw him it had completely sealed up his urethra like a bathroom sink, and, unsurprisingly he was no nearer a hard-on.

The only option was to send him to surgery and using a small, sharp pick—like what the dentist uses to remove plaque—scraping every last flake out of his red raw tube to give him any hope of ever functioning normally again. He wasn’t going to piss or cum without crying for a long time.

These accidents can happen to anyone. After a heavy night on the booze and the coke, a 22-year-old couldn’t get it up for a girl he picked up on his pub crawl, so he decided to double-drop some Viagra. They start banging away and after three hours and two orgasms, his purple head was still throbbing—only now it was starting to really hurt. After four hours, she’s passed out beside him and he’s watching his penis slowly turn white—like when you tie a rubber band around your finger for too long. At that point he heads for ER.

You may think Viagra is your friend, but when taken with stimulating drugs it can cause what is called avascular necrosis, which basically means your penis is slowly starved of oxygen until like a lamb’s tail it turns black and rots off. This happens surprisingly quickly, in fact, it begins after about four hours.

He removed his trousers in visible pain. Sometimes applying hard pressure to the shaft can ease the discomfort, but as a young female doctor I don’t think my examination was helping his situation at all. Even when I pulled out a syringe, he blanched but his penis didn’t flinch.

Using a big fat needle I extracted 20ml of blood, which temporarily eased his discomfort and allowed in a little oxygenated blood back in. Every hour I returned to find the beast had returned with vengeance and again I drained it. This continued for eight hours until finally the drugs wore off and he went home, for once grateful to only have a semi.

He got off lightly. The New York Times reported a 34-year-old man who squirted cocaine solution into his urethra, leading to a persistent painful erection. His priapism lasted three days, until he developed blood clots in his genitals, arms, and legs, to such an extent he developed gangrene and lost his legs, nine fingers, and his penis.

Perhaps worse still, it can be fatal. A middle-aged over weight guy once used Viagra and a cock ring to keep it up for a hooker, but had a heart attack during sex and died. The worst thing was even after he died the cock ring kept his penis erect, which was lovely for his wife when she came to collect the body. Insert stiff joke here.

Previously — Please Don't Stuff Your Cock

More on penises and how to treat them:

Matthew Hess Wants to Save Your Baby's Foreskin 

A Guide to Tucking Your Mangina

The VICE Guide to Giving Head