Men's Health

Sometimes you just have to take one for the boys. If you work at JOE you have to accept that being probed, scraped and prodded as part of sexual health check is just part of the job.

By Nick Bradshaw

I've drawn the short straw.

Nominally I'm one of the bosses here at JOE, but you wouldn't know it. Not now. Not at this particular moment in time.

When this story was being assigned, no-one stepped forward. In fact, everyone ever-so-subtly backed away, or suddenly found a reason to go and see someone about something vitally important that simply couldn't be put off.

As a result, I'm the one who's sitting in the quiet waiting room of a clinic. All of the people around me have arrived here alone. There's no chit chat, but there's a lot of fidgeting and sighing going on.

Unfortunately, the short straw that I've drawn today, or something that looks a lot like a short straw, is to be shoved down the end of my penis. It explains why the poor souls around me are all so introspective.

It was my idea to have a men's health section of the website and it was my idea to cover sexual health, so I've only really got myself to blame for what's about to happen. But there are at least a couple of people in the office who deserve to be where I am more than I do. Rude people - people who are happy to have hot drinks made for them but who avoid returning the favour, or who are unwilling to put their peckers on the line.

Do they offer to get checked out? No. Do they offer to do something that will clearly further each of their careers? Not a chance.

Oh well, time to lead by example. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, and all that. Onwards and upwards (or in this case, poked inwards).

They won't be drawing blood from down there... Jeez, I hope they won't be drawing blood from down there.

It was really meant to be one of the others sitting here. One of the eager young bucks on the team.

Shite.

Time to put this into perspective: what's about to happen to me can't be compared to open heart surgery. It can't even be compared to a bad graze, can it? It definitely can't be worse than being in a rush and getting a little bit of yourself stuck in your flies after a trip to the jacks. I mean, they won't be drawing blood from down there... Jeez, I hope they won't be drawing blood from down there.

Shite, shite shite.

Take a deep breath. Deep down I know there's nothing to worry about. I've done my homework, so I'm ready for what my doctor friend Mark had earlier referred to as 'a little bit of discomfort'.

"Discomfort like when you're the only person at a party in fancy dress?" I'd asked him over the phone.

"Discomfort, as in what it feels like to have a stranger poking the inside of your little fella with a stick," he'd said, then laughed. I've always thought that the doctor character in The Simpsons must be based on Mark, or else someone very much like him. You know, the one who gives patients bad news in an amusingly inappropriate way, then chuckles. When Mark heard that Harry Hill used to be a doctor, it put the idea in his head that he could combine medicine with humour.

"Don't worry," he said. "You'll be fine. Utterly humiliated by the whole experience, but fine."

"Thanks Mark. Funny."

Epidemic

So with my confidence-boosting chat with the good doctor at the front of my mind and a selection of year-old VIP magazines on the waiting room coffee table in front of me, I sit and wait my turn.

Not that I'm complaining. Not really. It's good to get a sexual health MOT and if I wasn't getting checked out for this story, I'd probably be doing the manly thing when it comes to health and well being, by which I mean doing bugger all. As it is, I'm going to know in an hour or so if there's something nasty lurking where there shouldn't be.

I'm reading about the happy marriage of Ronan and Mrs K (like I say, the mags are old) when the man who has been sitting across from me gets the call. We make eye contact briefly. No words or smiles, but we understand each other. He too will have taken a bonus second shower today and will have been extra vigilant in making everything nice and clean and tidy where it matters. He too will be wearing his best boxers.

The man shuffles off out of the room with a lump in his throat, ready to have the lump in his trousers examined.