6-o-fe-81-6-eugene-schoenfeld-1969.jpg
Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld speaking at Community Arts Auditorium, May 28, 1969 at a benefit for Open City. Photo: Alan Gotkin.

Dear Dr. Schoenfeld,

A couple of weeks ago my girlfriend and I got loaded and were making love. She told me that she wanted to show me something new that would be a real thrill to me. She said that one of her old boy friends liked to have her do it to him often, so without knowing what it was, I agreed to let her try it.

What she did was to stretch my scrotum out tightly, then she took a pair of finger nail clippers and cut a small hole in the sac. I began to get scared then but she said not to worry, it was fun and didn’t hurt much. Next she stuck a small plastic straw into the hole in my sac and started blowing air into it.

My sac got bigger than a baseball, but surprisingly it didn’t hurt much and felt kind of good. I began to worry that it might burst so she stopped blowing and removed the straw. Then she quickly put a piece of adhesive tape over the hole to keep the air in. Then we continued with intercourse and I had a climax that was out of this world.

Afterwards she removed the tape from my scrotum and squeezed the air out with her hand. Then she dabbed my scrotum with rubbing alcohol (to prevent infection she said) and retaped the hole. When she put the alcohol on it it burned like hell. The next day my penis was swollen to about double its normal size and it itched like hell, but two days later it was ok again. What I want to know is could this practice cause me any harm? And what caused my penis to swell the next day?

Dear Dr. Hippocrates:

My girlfriend was experimenting and blew a large quantity of air into my urethra. Well, she says it feels great to her to feel that balloon strike bottom. I do get a thrill from it albeit a masochistic one because, God, it hurt... Can this form of fun in any way injure me?

Write soon, cause I don’t want to stop unless it might really hurt me.

Answer: I hesitated for a long time before deciding to print the above letters about very literal “blow” jobs. They appear in print only to point out that pleasurable sensations should be weighed against potential dangers.

To use drugs as an example, shooting speed (amphetamine) undoubtedly gives great immediate pleasure, but at the potential price of hepatitis, thrombophlebitis, deterioration of the personality, and sudden death through overdosage. Heroin users quickly become heroin addicts. Nineteen known deaths have been caused in the last year by inhalation of freon gases from glass chiller aerosol cans.

If any readers doubt that the practices mentioned in the letters are harmful, I should point out firstly that more bacteria exist in the mouth than in any other body orifice. Our skin is a natural barrier to bacteria and other micro-organisms which are not normally found in the bladder or scrotum. Infections of the bladder (cystitis) may continue up the urethra to the kidneys. Infections of the scrotum are not a pleasant prospect. Even more dangerous is the possibility of an embolism. Air forced into a closed tissue space may enter the blood stream, go to the heart, lungs or brain and cause sudden death or a stroke.

Question: I have a “condition” which seems to worry my husband more than myself. Ever since my teens the inner or minor vaginal lips have hung outside my major lips.

Because they are not tucked neatly within the major lips my husband believes this could indicate some disorder. What do you think?

Answer: There is nothing abnormal about the labia minora protruding through the labia majora. Why some of my best friends...

Dr. Schoenfeld welcomes your questions. Write to him c/o The Fifth Estate.