Señor Floppy

Bad news for all you Hispanic men today - according to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine you're two and a half times more likely to have difficulty getting it up than other men. That means one in eight of you have boner issues, compared with about one in twenty of the rest of us. And that's just for men in the 20-50 age range - once you include the old guys you have a 40% probability of limp dick syndrome.

Now I can't help thinking that it's a little ironic that there should be such a massively disproportionate incidence of "downward facing dong" in the Hispanic community, given the reputation among Hispanic men for machismo. I guess all that Latin lover, open shirt, medallion-wearing, slicked back hair, tight leather pants stuff is just bollocks; the willy just can't cash the check that the image is writing. Maybe this is why the Latin lover thing is so prevalent: as Shrek would put it, "Do you think he's compensating for something?" It's the same syndrome that results in it always being little fuckers who start fights in pubs, as they try to prove that they're every bit as tough as everyone else. Meanwhile we know they're just pissed off because they can't reach the condom machine in the pub toilet.

Us pasty white blokes don't waste time waxing our chests, whitening our smiles and gelling our hair. We don't do the Samba or any of that crap. We don't have to because we know our equipment works. Sure, Juan will gaze into your eyes as his open-necked shirt exposes his tanned chest, but can he get an erection? Apparently the answer, at least 12.5% of the time, is "no". Just as you shouldn't bring a knife to a gun fight, there's no point showing up at the ballgame with a floppy bat.

What's interesting is that there is no apparent reason for the observation in the study. The data was corrected for medical issues like diabetes, so the obvious question is "Why do Hispanic men have such difficulty getting it up compared to the rest of us?" We're biologically the same, so what's the key distinction that would explain the difference in hard-on activity?

Well, at the risk of being politically incorrect, has anyone considered the women? I mean, it's well known that for all the mixed race relationships that exist, the statistical majority of relationships are within ethnic groups; most Hispanic men are dating or married to Hispanic women (or other Hispanic men, but let's not go there) just as most white and black people tend to marry within the same ethnic group. It may be as much a matter of who you happen to be surrounded by as anything else, but it's a fact nonetheless. Is it possible that there's nothing different about Hispanic men, but that it might be harder to get wood with Hispanic women? The hypothesis fits the data.

Now, far be it from me to suggest that Hispanic women are unattractive. I happened to meet a woman in Mexico who could probably have given an erection to a dead man, never mind anyone else. But we're talking about averages here - could it be that a higher incidence of hairy top lip, overgrown thatch or wide arse than exists in the general population is responsible for the "downturn" among Hispanic males? Well, I'm no medical man so it's not for me to say, but somehow I don't imagine that this will be the subject of the follow-up research paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

It turns out that you can research pretty much anything you want, but there are some questions which cannot be asked, just in case the answer isn't what people want to hear. In the meantime, while us lucky guys fully expect to wake from slumber with the "wife's best friend" at attention, spare a thought for Southern California, which must be the flaccid penis capital of the United States. Keep taking the little blue pills, guys.


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison