Media Platforms Design Team
I get these really nasty headaches every time I ejaculate. It doesn't matter if I'm having sex or just masturbating. Please help me.
I can't help but recall that old joke: A guy goes to the doctor and says, "Doc, you gotta help me. I get these really nasty headaches every time I ejaculate. It doesn't matter if I'm having sex or just masturbating." And the doctor says, "It matters to the other people on the bus!" And they share a laugh and then the doctor says, "No, really, it's called coital cephalalgia, and it's a typically benign migraine headache that coincides with ejaculation. Here's a prescription for beta-blockers, which are a class of drugs used to reduce blood pressure. If those don't work, we can try one of the many migraine medications on the market, which you can take before sex or whatever you get up to in private. That should take care of the problem." Did I mention that the doctor was an amateur comedian? Well, he was, which is perhaps why he didn't know much about the underlying causes of coital cephalalgia. Fortunately, Dr. Jerome Goldstein, medical director of the San Francisco Headache Clinic, the place to go for an authentic San Francisco headache, does. He says coital cephalalgia is most often seen in middle-aged men who have high blood pressure and are too, as the saying goes, fat. And, speaking from his Houston Headache Clinic, Dr. Ninan Mathew assures you, "It's not permanent. It could occur a few times and may not happen at all after that. It may happen recurrently for a while and then it goes away." So really, if it hurts when you do it, maybe don't do it, and if you lose some weight, get out of midlife, and most important, stay away from your city's headache clinic, you'll still be able to play the violin, unless you couldn't play it before.
Apparently my new girlfriend is allergic to my semen. How big of a deal is this going to be for us?
The biggest deal for you will be shelling out for a proper pearl necklace, but allergy or no allergy, someone at the country club was bound to tell her eventually. Apart from that, the easiest thing for you to do is to always use condoms. Perhaps I should rephrase that: The easiest thing for me to do is to tell you to always use condoms. Most other sex columnists would be content to leave it at that, but I know that condoms are for people who don't really love each other, and I can tell that's not the case here. Unfortunately, there isn't much else to be done about human seminal plasma hypersensitivity, which is the medical term for the condition, the knowledge of which also will not help you. "There are a few women who can get away with taking an antihistamine, but that's the minority of cases for intercourse," says Dr. David Resnick, of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. "Some will get desensitized and others will just live with it" -- the infernal genital swelling, burning, redness, and accompanying anguish that isn't your problem. Of course, she will need to be permanently excused from performing oral sex, but the bad news is that since the allergy is technically to certain proteins in semen and not to sperm itself, she can still get pregnant. If you simply insist on continuing this most unnatural union, there is another option: for your girlfriend to undergo immunotherapy, a course of injections of your semen, for which you either need a professional allergist or a friend with a heroin problem. However, the method is often costly, and while the high is intense, it's so very fleeting.
Is closure a bunch of hooey?
I don't like to use that sort of language, but I will say that unlike openage, closure is an open-ended construct that means different things to different people but will almost certainly find both of you at some cunting coffee shop, affirming that things really are over. Ceremonious closure isn't necessary, but don't take my word for it, take the word of Boston psychologist James Tobin, who says closure is largely a myth, since "it suggests that one's emotional life works in a linear fashion." He calls the end of a relationship "a discreet event that involves somebody and another person, and it is also an intrapsychic event that involves one's relationship with oneself." I don't know about that, but I did go to an intrapsychic event at the convention center once, and I met my spirit animal (a gnat). Should someone request closure from you, just say you are currently journaling your journey and don't know when you'll be done, if ever. And, in closing, if you learn anything from me, I hope it's to get used to unsatisfying endings.
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