SEXUAL HEALTH: Safety in the sack

It was a narrow escape. Phoebe and her husband were doing their intimate act at the balcony of their house on the third floor of the apartment block where they lived. Phoebe suddenly slipped and what was intended to be fun suddenly turned into a nightmare.

“She struggled to maintain balance but soon found herself hanging with her face down and her legs up. I was holding onto her right leg which is what stopped her from falling,” Jerry, Phoebe’s husband explained when they arrived at the sexology clinic.

INJURIES AND EMERGENCIES

Using the one leg in his grasp, Jerry pulled Phoebe back to safety but in the process they both got injured. Phoebe hurt her back and was unable to walk, while Jerry hurt his genitals.

“She slipped so suddenly twisting my manhood,” he explained, “I felt excruciating pain and noted a swelling on the side of my manhood.”

Sex-related injuries and medical emergencies including death are commonplace among the sexually active.

LESSONS FROM HISTORY

For your safety, always ensure that the environment in which you have sex is safe. Phoebe and Jerry are not the first ones to get balcony injuries during sex. Orellana, a lady from Houston, USA, died after falling from the balcony of the 11th floor of a hotel in 1997 allegedly while having sex with her boss. Deaths of couples have also been reported from a fall from the roof of a building and from carbon monoxide poisoning from a car garage. Others have had snake bites in bushes while having sex.

“But it is the risk that makes it exciting,”  a smiling Jerry interrupted. Phoebe was looking down shyly.

To some extent that may be true, but a lot more care is needed so that the fun does not compromise safety.

Then there is injury arising from your partner harming you unintentionally or otherwise. A story is told of one Attila the Hun who loved rough sex. In his last adventure he was so rough that his partner accidentally broke his nose. He bled to death. Then there is Kirsten Taylor from USA. She got electrocuted while her partner stimulated her nipples with electricity. But Tracey Scully’s death was the most unnecessary. While having sex with her husband, she called out another man’s name. Her husband had been suspecting that she had an affair with the man. He instantly murdered her.

Sex is also not the place for heroics as many men who swallow Viagra or chew herbs like mkombero to prove their prowess have discovered. Lessons from a Russian man, Sergey Tuganov, may suffice here. He made a bet with two women who challenged him that he could not satisfy them sexually. He swallowed many tablets of Viagra and went into a 12-hour threesome orgy. He collapsed and died thereafter.

Another important lesson is always to keep within the confines of your values when it comes to sex. For some reason a lot of injuries and deaths happen during illicit sex. Take the case of Pope John XII who died while having sex in AD 964. He is suspected to have had a stroke, although it is possible that the woman’s husband could have hit him and caused his death. Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister of United Kingdom, is suspected to have died while having sex with a maid on the billiard table.  Felix Faure, President of France, died in 1899 while receiving oral sex from his mistress. Lesson: just keep to the confines of expected values. You never know when these misfortunes will hit.

Of importance is to always keep healthy by exercising, eating healthy and attending to your existing medical conditions. A number of sudden deaths have happened from weak hearts that could not cope with the excitement of sex. Keeping fit and having the right BMI will save you from such deaths.

“Well understood doctor, we will maintain safety in our sex lives, but how do we solve the current injuries,” Jerry interjected, getting weary of my unending lecture.

Phoebe had a slipped disc in her back for which I gave her treatment. The pain and slight swelling on Jerry’s penis was due to stretched muscles. He was lucky that the blood vessels did not rupture because that would have been more dangerous. Painkillers and abstinence from sex for a few days was enough to cure the problem.