Oh, Grow Up!


A couple of weeks ago, when I was being nice to my shoulder and not working, I was idly flipping channels, marveling at the dreck that is daytime TV and came upon The Doctors, a collection of alarmingly good-looking alleged medical professionals giving advice to the masses.

One of the doctors is a plastic surgeon, probably in his early 60s, with a healthy, youthful look and I'm sure that he'd intended himself to look like a really good for the services, except were I in the market for a facelift, I'd have asked for the name of his surgeon. Truly, it was amazing.

By the way…What is it with the doctor shows these days? There’s The Doctors, there's Dr. Oz and I'm sure there are others. Have medical shows supplanted judge shows and soap operas?

Anyway, in this particular episode they were zooming through quick mentions of small things that could help your health or not and one of the items under consideration was sex, which was pronounced something that would help your health in various ways. More specifically, the question asked by a member of the audience was how to get these benefits when celibate. Not to worry, said the OB/GYN, a frighteningly perfect-looking woman with tresses of long beautiful hair artfully cascading over her shoulders, a partner wasn't necessary to get these benefits. Dr. Ken Doll - I don't know his name, but he's obviously the main guy and I think he might have been The Bachelor once? - held forth about how they often talked about the health benefits of sex on the show and this is where everyone started to twist themselves into pretzels in order not to say the word masturbation. They may coy references to "helping yourself" and "flying solo" with much giggling and this is the point where I felt like smacking them all.

If you often talk about the health benefits of sex, why can you not say the word masturbation? And it can't be because at 3: 30 in the afternoon, The Children might be watching, because you are in the Army often talking about the health benefits of sex. How am I supposed to take them seriously as professionals who offer medical advice - stop laughing out there, just go with the supposition - if you cannot use the proper word for something you're just proclaimed a healthy, normal part of life. Your squirminess and discomfort at the mere word completely contradicts the statement that it's healthy and normal. What are you? Adolescents?

So I turned off the TV and went to have a nap instead.


Comments

Marie said…
I'm agreeing with you on this.  I've seen that show a couple of times and it seems like it's more entertainment than information.  Whatever happened to Dr. Ruth?
11:28 AM
Diane said…
Naps are good (and probably a better spend of your time...at least as far as Lucy is concerned).
11:29 AM
Gaina said…
Oh for goodness sake, 'masturbation' is in the dictionary!  It's ironic that there are SO many images and protrayals of sex in our society yet STI's and teenage pregnancy rates are going through the roof because we're still too prudish to have honest conversations about it using the correct terminology!
4:40 PM
Kitten said…
I have a suspicion that the word is probably not allowed on daytime TV by censors.  I'd probably giggle too if I was having a discussion in which I was disallowed from using the word.  It would be like a big ol' Taboo game.
9:13 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Farber’s Disease: Could Your Child’s Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Be Misdiagnosed?

Image
Joint inflammation or contractures. Nodules (small lumps under the skin or in other tissues). A weakened or hoarse voice. Children with these symptoms may have been diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) or other types of juvenile arthritis . But do they actually have JIA or do they have Farber’s disease? An equine digression When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. This is an adage in the medical world that encourages doctors to not wander off exploring rare and esoteric reasons for a patient’s symptoms. Because most of the time, that hoof beat of a rash likely isn’t the plague, the joint pain more likely a type of arthritis than the bends (especially if the person has never scuba dived) and you get the picture. But once in a while, it actually is a zebra. And even if it’s first identified as a horse, eventually, the stripes come through. It took five years of my parents running around to different doctors before one finally recognized that I had
Read more

13 Things to Know for Rheumatoid Arthritis Newbies + Facebook Live

Image
Getting a diagnosis of any type of chronic illness can throw you for loop. There is so much to know and you have so little energy. My new slideshow for HealthCentral collects 13 things you need to know as an RA newbie : "Receiving a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a moment of strange duality. On one hand, you may be relieved to finally have answers for the symptoms you’ve been experiencing. On the other, it can be incredibly overwhelming to find out you have a chronic illness. Wrapping your head around all the new factors RA brings into your life is a long-term process. Here are some of the things you need to know." See the slideshow on HealthCentral . And in case you missed it, here is the Facebook Live I did yesterday talking about this topic:   
Read more