Two thumbs up

At a certain age, it happens to every man. I'm not referring to love, marriage, a speeding ticket, or even impotence. I'm referring to the dreaded prostate exam at the doctor's office.

Most recently it happened to my friend Jean Naté, and he telephoned me to tell me all about it (within reason).

Now it's not like we're a couple of schoolgirls who have to share everything. No, really.

"I think Doctor Faustus is hot!"

"So do I! And he gives a mighty fine prostate exam, too!"

Nothing like that, I can assure you.

You have to undertstand the context: Being that I am a few yea--months older than Jean, I have had more experience with prostate exams. (Although when I'm feeling blue, I just think about my friend the Gladman who is a few yea--months older than I; thus, he's had even more experience with prostate exams.) For a while, among our circle of friends in San Antonio, my repeated experience with prostate exams was a source of great amusement. Because pretty much from the age of 35 onward, as part of my annual physical, I received the "gift" of a latex-encased finger or two up my backside and a crack full of cold KY Gel, all in the name of checking to see if I had an enlarged prostate, a sure sign of . . . I dunno, an enlarged prostate, I'm guessing.

How this topic came up in polite conversation is a mystery to me--until I realize that none of our conversations was ever especially polite among our circle of friends. As you can imagine (or perhaps you'd rather not), the discussion on this important matter in men's health focused on wisecracks (do pardon the pun) about how may times a year I went in for my annual physical, just for the prostate exam. Did I get dinner and drinks first before the exam and maybe a cigarette afterwards? Wasn't I supposed to wait until I was at least 40 to receive my first exam? Or was I putting in special requests every time I visited my physician?

Yuk yuk yuk. We slay us.

But Baby's First Prostate Exam is a funny experience, engendering the kind of laughs that only absolute humiliation can provide. I'm not alone in thinking this--straight stand-up comedians have made a mounting out of a mole hole in joking about this very intimate medical procedure. Sometimes there is even the suggestion--either plainly or surreptitiously expressed--that this procedure is incredibly humiliating for heterosexual men, but probably isn't that bad for gay men. In fact, some joke, it might even be a welcome overture.

Please let me clear up this point for everyone once and for all: While certainly gay men have had more experience with "neighborly visits at the backyard fence," the prostate exam for a gay man is every bit as humiliating as it is for heterosexual men. Maybe even more so.

The jokes our circle made about my experiences alone should indicate to you the mix of embarrassment, humiliation, and discomfort prompted by a prostate exam for a gay man. Add to this that gay men have the reputation of, uh, copulating with anything that moves--a not altogether incorrect assumption for many gay men but for many straight men as well--and the experience is made even weirder for all parties involved. Does my doctor know I'm gay? Should I tell him? Does he think I'll enjoy this procedure? Would he skip performing it if he knew? Or would he get a perverse thrill out of my humiliation of his performing it really well?

Such are the worries that occupy my mind when I hear the snap of that rubber glove on the doctor's hand.

Clearly, I'm a bit old school if I'm not immediately revealing my sexual orientation to my physician. Early on, when I was a freshly out-and-proud gay man, I did so, but oftentimes it just seemed to embarrass or disquiet my doctor and based on that reaction, it would embarrass or disquiet me. In addition, the medical examination would then automatically switch to a discussion of HIV and AIDS and before long, everything that was wrong with me could possibly be related to "a compromised immune system."

Well, no shizzle, Sherlock Holmes. Here's something for your case files, doc: All symptoms you suffer from might relate to a "compromised" immune system--that's what happens when you're sick, your immune system goes wonky on you and you get symptoms! I know I'm not a doctor and don't play one on TV, but, at the risk of being called uneducated, I would imagine that being allergic to tree pollen and having the occasional ingrown toenail are probably not indicators of HIV/AIDS.

As a result of that reductionist approach to my healthcare, as well as the need for insurance companies to keep their risks low and profits high at my expense, I've tended to keep my sexuality to myself (a really dumb solution to the matter, if I do say so) and dealt with any periodic HIV testing issues with the proper authority of an AIDS service organization.

But I digress . . .

The exam, no matter what floats your boat off the bottom of the Finger Lakes, is just not a pleasant experience. If truth be told, it's more uncomfortable than painful, more embarrassing than shocking or offensive. But only the most perverse and masochistic among us would actually look forward to the procedure.

And I'm sure you're out there. But I don't want to know you.

Basically, it works like this (squeamish readers turn away NOW): You lay on your side on a medical exam table in a very cold room in a barely there paper gown that wouldn't provide adequate coverage for a plate of pasta in a microwave, let alone your important body parts in a doctor's office. Having snapped into place the rubber glove and abundantly lubed up an index finger (or more, but never a thumb, at least as far as I recall) with KY (which, if to be judged alone by its frigidity, is the stuff that replaces blood for those who want to be cryogenically frozen in the afterlife), the doctor swoops up behind to your vulnerable, exposed "service entrance." He (and I dare not imagine it any other way than a he doing this) moves quickly so that you don't have time to clinch anything shut, which would just make the experience painful and more humiliating (as if the latter were possible). Swoosh! The doctor is in! Schwuck! The doctor is out! "Everything seems in order," he says in a robotic monotone.

Clearly, he's getting no thrill from this either. Although, to tell the truth, I was never so sure about my last physician in Texas who seemed vaguely pleased whenever he could unnerve me with any medical procedure. His favorite was that thing doctors do to test your reflexes, scraping the bottom of your foot to get a reaction. But paranoic that I am, I ever so slightly suspected he relished my discomfort at any medical procedure, including *that* one.

It's all just very Little HMO of Horrors after a while, isn't it?

As my friend Jean noted after his exam, there wasn't nearly enough foreplay involved to make it a pleasant or welcome maneuver for any of the parties involved. Always being a bit more reserved (OK, have it your way, uptight) than my friends, I'd still argue that someone owes me a nice dinner and some drinks before I let them examine me like that.

And he sure better send flowers the day after.

But cheap date that I am, I'd settle for a lollipop from the nurses' station.