The Prostate: What the Hell Is It Good For?
On the surface, it sure doesn’t seem like it’s good for anything but killing us. Never mind that its name is derived from the Greek prostates, translating to “guardian” or “protector”; one could easy come to the conclusion that the prostate’s function is to wait for the perfect moment to strike, getting infected or cancerous, and subsequently killing us.
A closer examination reveals that the prostate actually performs useful functions, though. I know—I couldn’t have been more surprised, myself.
The prostate is a walnut-shaped organ that lies just behind the urinary bladder. Its primary function is to secrete a milky fluid which makes up about 30% of our ejaculate that’s expelled with the first spurts during orgasm. So that first outpouring of ejaculate is carrying the prostate’s fluid, which has a nicely alkaline quality to it. Nice, because the vagina’s excretions are rather acidic. So the sperm that are part of the ejaculate with your prostate fluid have a much better chance of survival in the vaginal canal, giving you both a greater opportunity of perpetuating your species.
Unless, of course, you’re using birth control properly. In that case, you can kill those pesky sperm stone cold dead.
The prostate’s propensity for becoming afflicted with nasty maladies isn’t just the stuff of legend. Prostatitis can bring on considerable pain where you’d least like to experience considerable pain, but can typically be handled with antibiotics. Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) can make urination difficult to impossible, sometimes necessitating resection or removal of the prostate. Then there’s prostate cancer. The good news is that if you’re over 50, frequent ejaculation (at least once a week) can lower your risk of prostate cancer. So go ahead and tell your partner that if you don’t get a blow job now, you’re going to die.
In brief, the prostate has its uses, but the older you get, the more you need to have regular prostate examinations to ensure that all’s well. Don’t put it off and don’t be afraid of that glove. There are worse things.
