Discovery (Fit and Health)

I was flipping through the television channels earlier, searching for some suitable white-noise to have on in the background while I worked on my latest project. ESPN is awful - too manic, with excitable talking heads shouting to be heard over one another as they attempt to make their points about Tim Tebow or the latest NASCAR feud. Movie channels are no good; I am inevitably drawn in to another showing of "A League of Their Own" or "That Thing You Do" and first thing you know, there's two more hours of my life that I will never get back.

The same holds true of the Biography Channel and the Food Network. If I get hooked into an episode of "Chopped", or "Restaurant Impossible", or a special two-hour documentary about "Beatle Wives", once again, I accomplish nothing besides wandering to the fridge during a commercial break.

However, the History Channel is generally pretty well-suited for providing background noise while I write - narrators drone on about some shipwreck or another, or perhaps the real location of Eden. So, I usually go to the History Channel or on some occasions the Military Channel, where I can watch us beat hell out of Hitler and his evil cronies, which never fails to put me in a better mood.

Today, however, I discovered the Discovery's Fit and Health Channel - which apparently offers a variety of medical-based fare. What caught Jerry's eye? you might be asking yourselves. Well, the description of a show about women who have orgasms non-stop all day long, that's what. Done and done - here's an hour I'm not going to get any work done.

Turns out this malady, known as PSAS (Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome), is not the Godsend I imagined it would be. I frowned as the lady with the British accent explained that this condition often put women off sex altogether as they simply dealt with making the feeling go away every ten minutes by rushing off for a few private moments alone, mostly. With just their unfortunate condition and a barrel full of helpful toys, I imagine. There was, however, one exception to this general rule - a scary-looking lady who pressed her husband into service whenever possible. I began to see the downside and it made me sad.

This show was followed by another offering about circumcision - I got as far as the first minute, when it was explained that a man was going to have his foreskin re-attached. I had no interest in hearing how this would be accomplished or where they would find the lucky skin with which to fashion this pud-holster. There was also a show called "Strange Sex", but after being fooled by the non-stop orgasm trickery, I was not about to fall for that one. A commercial advertised a reality show about an ER - I glanced up to see a poor unfortunate with something sticking out of his bloody shoulder and nearly swooned. I realized that this channel was a bummer and not even worth having on in the background.

But this is not why I'm writing this evening.

I began thinking about the whole orgasm thing and how lucky we folks are who have normal sex-drives and are fairly happy with the equipment we have been issued. I never really pondered the messy reality of the act of sex - but there is some weird stuff out there. I blame the internet. The internet and Viagra. I imagine that there have been oddballs out there since the beginning of organized sexual activity - history will bear me out on this. But I think that the availability of all this cyber-smut and the ability to find footage on the World Wide Web of virtually anything that even the most perverted oddball could ever imagine has only proven to provide a giant, invisible petri dish in terms of cultivating the twisted tastes of the oddballs.

I am not making moral judgements here - it takes all kinds, of course, to make the world go round. Actually, probably not - the earth would probably be fine on its own if we all simply looked at Playboy and had missionary-position sex. No change whatsoever, in all likelihood. What I am saying is that we probably don't need to jumpstart every deviant thought that might cross a youngster's mind. In fact, it's probably not healthy to do so - we are most likely twenty years away from finding out what happens when we provide everyone over the age of six with their own phones, two-hundred channels of cable television and a laptop with internet access. I am curious to see how it all goes. In the meantime, I am off to find a saucy photo of Raquel Welch in a bathing suit and imagine an idyllic world where we are a couple and she has PSAS and I have a shipping trunk full of Viagra. I know which photo I am looking for and I'll bet I can find it on the internet. In seconds.