Look it up in your Dicktionary

What every guy needs to know about his knob

Check out this fabulous Dicktionary from the Swedes. Written by Stefan Laack, expert on male sexuality, nurse and sexual adviser, the booklet provides knowledge about the male body, focusing on the dick and its sexual functions. The text discusses anatomy, andrology, and sexual desire.

The Latest Fight Over the Foreskin

via New York Times, by Roni Caryn Rabin

In the late 19th century, Victorian-era doctors described the male foreskin as a “source of serious mischief.”

Convinced that masturbation led to insanity, and that it was the sensitive, responsive foreskin that stimulated masturbation, surgeons started promoting therapeutic circumcision to cure young men of the “sin” of excessive indulgence and prevent its corollary, “masturbatory insanity,” a catchall phrase for various psychiatric and physical disorders that perplexed physicians.

Now, in the 21st century, the foreskin has been exonerated as far as masturbation and mental illness go. But public health experts are making a pretty strong scientific case that cells in the foreskin act as a magnet for H.I.V. and, as such, may increase a man’s risk of acquiring the virus from an infected woman if he is uncircumcised.

Read the rest.

Washing after sex may increase HIV risk, study suggests

Implications for anal intercourse unclear

by Brent Creelman / Xtra.ca

Uncircumcised men who wash their penis less than 10 minutes after vaginal sex may increase their risk of acquiring HIV, suggests a study released at an International AIDS Society conference on Jul 25.

But it's unclear whether gay men should stop washing their cock after play, suggests Jim Pickett, an HIV activist and writer.

The study, led by a team from the Makere University Institute Of Public Health in Uganda, examined 2,552 uncircumcised Ugandan men. The survey focused only on vaginal intercourse, and did not examine whether the results apply to anal intercourse as well.

"Sometimes, these studies are kind of like the latest fad. We all run around like 'we should stop washing our penises,' and 'oh my god, syphilis is back,'" says Pickett.

The findings of the Ugandan survey suggest:

• post-intercourse penile washing does not protect uncircumcised men from acquiring HIV


• HIV-incidence is significantly lower if washing was delayed more than 10 minutes after sexual intercourse


• washing is associated with a "borderline significant trend" of increasing risk of acquiring HIV

Researchers offered a few possible explanations: the acidity of vaginal secretions may impair HIV survival. The research also suggests that the use of water with soap may facilitate survival of the virus. But the researchers admitted the survey's limitations — it did not ask for details about how the washing was done or what kind of soap was used. Pickett says he questions whether the increased HIV rates were really just because the men were "washing their dicks off."

Read the rest.