Today we are starting the publication of the work of Vladimir Nikolayevich Kosenko, an urologist, a specialist of the highest qualification category and Honored Doctor of Ukraine.
INTRODUCTION
To become wise you need to read 10 books.
But to find the right ones, you have to read thousands of books.
Seneca
I hope this book will be different from others by its design and message. The idea to write these essays came after a series of television programs on regional television, which I prepared at the end of last year. A large number of TV viewers approached me with thousands questions. I grouped the main interested topics, transformed them into appropriate and readable form. That’s how this book was born.
Since the topic is purely individual and personal, the main idea of the essays is, firstly, to enlighten the reader about the listed medical problems. It is inconvenient to talk about your very personal problem to your friend and especially to your colleagues at work. However, the problem is burning and does not allow to live a normal life. It seems that the Internet has an answer regarding your problem, but this answer is in obscure medical language having abstruse terminology. So I tried not to delve into the terminology, but to tell in simple human language what it is and how to deal with it.
Secondly, I want to show the reader how difficult this problem is. Like an iceberg, everything seems to be clear from above, but in the depths it is poorly studied and difficult to access. I tried my best to convince potential patients not to self-medicate, but to consult a doctor. Thus, the wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe.
ESSAY ON LOVE
SEXOLOGY IS THE SCIENCE OF SEX
It is not a discovery if I say that people are divided into two sexes – male and female. The consequence of this division is sexuality, including erotic love. The science that studies the sexes’ differences is called sexology. It is the most interesting for everyone and the most persecuted. It is the youngest and oldest science at the same time. It is young because the science began to develop actively in the last 50-60 years, but old because even a primitive man was not indifferent to the sexual life. It is proved by rock engravings of the early Paleolithic, and this is about one million years BC. These drawings show that a primitive man revered large female forms, and it is all about the preserving and multiplying offspring. This is considered as the first stage – the prehistoric period of sexology.
The second stage of sexology is the period of pre-scientific research from the 7th century BC up to the 18th century AD. First, we focus on Greek mythology. People have always been interested in the gender problems. Thus, the Greeks called the female genitalia "Aphrodite’s shell", that is symbolized the sacrament of conception. The name "clitoris" is still common to refer to a lust. The name came from Klitoris, the daughter of King Myrmidon, who was very lustful and so small that Zeus had to turn into an insect to get next to her. Even among the gods there was homosexuality – pederasty. Hercules had a beloved Yalnos, on whose grave homosexuals still swear in eternal love.
According to documents of the 7th century BC, the Athenian legislator Solon legalized prostitution. Sexual intercourse with adolescents was thought of as a harmless form of satisfaction that strengthened friendships and companionship. However, this kind of love was strictly forbidden to slaves, since the slave owners cared about the slaves’ offspring, but not their satisfaction. Later, in the 4th century BC, Emperor Constantine introduced the death penalty for such entertainment.
The ancient Chinese treatises "The Art of Bedroom", the Indian "Kama Sutra", the Greek "Science of Love" by Ovid, the Vietnamese "Peach Branch" carry data on the anatomy and physiology of the genitals, and the technique of sexual intercourse as well. Currently, these data are interested not only from historical side.
Ancient philosophers considered the problems of sexology from an ethical point of view. Platonic love as devised by Plato in the 5th century BC, is a spiritual pure love without elements of physical sex. Lord Byron supported him:
-- Any passion is strangled and oppressed by family relationships.
If Laura has been Petrarch's wife, He wouldn’t have written sonnets. …
At the same time, Plato evangelized physical, sexual love, which leads to the highest spiritual love. It was Plato who turned to myths of the Androgynes, people who combined the female and male principles. The gods, out of envy, divided them into different sex creatures. So now we are still looking for that one mate in order to produce spiritual and physical unity.
Aristotle, a student of Plato, sharply criticized many of his concepts. Everyone knows the expression - Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer! At the same time, Aristotle believed that gender depends on the direction of the wind at the moment of conception. It will be a boy if the north wind and if the south wind – a girl.
The world famous Epicurean school was founded in the 3rd century BC by the Greek philosopher Epicurus. He believed that happiness in well-being, a sense of freedom and his own independence. He argued that nine-tenths of a person's happiness depends on their sexual health. He associated the immortality of a person with procreation and the memory of posterity. It was a society of free livers, gourmets and pleasure-seekers. The Ludus theory is a theory, where the game of love without deep feelings and even a change of partners were allowed. Their motto is you can't forbid living beautifully.
The Middle Ages were characterized by a sharp negative attitude towards sexual life. Sexual intercourse was allowed only for procreation. All other relationships were condemned. Let's remember the demonic attitude towards a woman as a temptress and an accomplice of the devil. Thousands of women were burned at bonfires and drowned in rivers. There was an open witch hunt.
The woman, who came to the doctor, showed where she had pain only on the doll. It was strictly forbidden for the doctor to touch her or bare her. At the same time, doctors believed that sexual deviations are associated with the Evil Spirit. The treatment of these disorders – exorcism – the expulsion of the devil, was accompanied by various tortures and mutilations of such patients. In those days, society trended towards rigid Puritanism. In 12th century, there were crusades to the Holy Sepulcher, when hundreds of thousands of knights went to the Holy Land. Their wives were chained in belts of virtue or chastity belts. Catholic priests took a vow of celibacy. There is a joke about that time:
- Doctor, will I be able to become a father after the surgery?
- Of course, you will, but Holy Father...
In the middle of the 16th century, Professor Vesalius secretly dissects the corpse of a murdered pregnant woman. Thus, it was the first dissection of the uterus and ovaries of the pregnant woman. The court surgeon of the French King Charles IX Ambroise Paré published a textbook on obstetrics, which was declared immoral by the Church and was publicly burned on the Place de Grève. The surgeon was persecuted and was on the verge of public execution. He was pardoned by the highest command of Catherine de Medici.
The XIX century is the third period of sexology. The rapid rise of science, technology, art and culture contributes to raising the curtain on the moral issue of sexual relationship. But the cult of virginity is still strong and the romanticism flourishes with its sublime sentimental love and renunciation of physical contact.
The work of Charles Darwin - "The Descent of Man and Sexual Selection" was the social breakthrough, which caused a storm of indignation in society and even in the scientific world, but science could no longer be stopped. The emancipation of sexology and liberation from religious dogmas began. General fiction has made a valuable contribution to the study of human sexuality. The ideologists of sexual deviations, such as Marquis de Sade and Leopold Sacher-Masoch have appeared. Their names began to be used to refer to two sexual deviations – sadism and masochism. They evangelized the human right to enjoyment without any restrictions.
The third period in the development of sexology was ended by Arthur Schopenhauer. He was the first to recognize the crucial importance of sexuality in human life. Love is just a trick of nature to persuade a person to child-bearing. For the first time sexual nihilism was under attack.
The fourth period of sexology lasts to this day. In the early XX century, sexologists go at random, like blind kittens, by trial and error.
«It was a hard road to meet at dawn…». Their works were forbidden, and sexologists were prisoned and deprived of their titles. Austrian professor of psychology Sigmund Freud is one of the pioneers of sexology. He discovered the subconscious and created psychoanalysis. The revolutionary concept – pansexuality – is the direction of all motives of behavior to a sexual basis.
In the end of the story about the researchers of the 20th century, I am going to tell you about Alfred Kinsey, who was called the "Columbus of Sexology". The first published works in the world is "Sexual behavior of men and women". This textbook literally blew up the whole world. This work was issued in most languages of the planet and quickly migrated to America, Africa and Asia. For quite a long time it was a bestseller. The work was discussed at all social events, scientific meetings and even friendly parties.
What does modern sexology do? The modern sexology studies the intimate life of a human in all aspects, such as psychological, social, pedagogical, legal, biological, hygienic, religious and medical aspects. Therefore, this science has no clear boundaries. Sexopathology deals with the medical aspect of the problem. It studies both neuropsychiatric and somatic sexual disorders in men and women. Also it studies sexual deviations, such as homosexuality, sado-masochism, lesbianism, exhibitionism, narcissism, satirism, voyeurism and any other deviations.
Our office deals with purely andrological problems, that is, sexual dysfunctions in men, such as impaired libido, weak erection, rapid ejaculation and reduced intensity of orgasmic sensations. The second problem that we successfully solve is generative dysfunction, i.e. impaired fertility or infertile marriage. The third problem is the somatosexual underdevelopment of adolescents, the so-called adolescent infantilism. Finally, the fourth problem is age-related changes in sexual function or male menopause – andropause.
In this order, we will consider all of the above problems in the following essays.
To be continued………
