Not Tonight Dear, I Have Chlamydia

Anyone who hasn’t experienced a long period of sexual inactivity is either a lying alien infiltrator, or else Charlie Sheen. These droughts are usually your own fault. Maybe you’re concentrating too hard on your career. Maybe you can’t find a girl willing to wear that Princess Leia costume. Maybe your court-ordered ankle bracelet will alert the judge if you so much as approach a woman. It doesn’t matter.

The folks who truly deserve sympathy are those with perfectly healthy relationships, just not healthy bodies. Actually, fuck them, it’s their partners who really get shafted, so to speak. Watching your hot girlfriend fight off, say, chicken pox must be the most frustrating thing in the goddamn world. It’s nobody’s fault, there’s nothing you can do to help, and one quick booby-grab will have you running for the calamine lotion.

"As a terminal, yet *non-contagious* disease, cancer has all the tools to help you get laid."

So, the worst part of being sick isn’t the fatigue, or the pain, or even the price of medicine. It’s the lack of sex. Just ask any of Jerry’s Kids. Cystic Fibrosis is actually Latin for “Unnecessary Penis.” With this in mind, I’ve compiled some medical conditions, and their potential impact on your sex life. I’ve seen the kind of Google searches that lead to my articles, and trust me when I say, the world is crying out for this information.

You’re sneezing, coughing, and running a fever. You feel like four pounds of shit in a two-pound bag. Possibly, there’s a chipper asshole telling you how he took Sudafed and then performed brilliantly at some company meeting (but if there is, you’re probably in a commercial). Having a cold is no fun, and even though it’s not directly affected, I think your groin will agree.

Symptoms

In addition to the aforementioned coughing and sneezing, colds have a variety of effects. Your body might be launching fluids from every available orifice. Perhaps you’ve got a case of the shivers that won’t go away, no matter how many adorable snowsuits you put on. Whatever the case, I wouldn’t plan on having sex for a while.

Damage to Sex Life: Temporary

And chances are, you won’t care. When you’re really and truly laid low, you’d much rather your girlfriend provide soup than a blowjob. Unless she was somehow able to combine the two. But you’d never get the bowl to balance on her head just right.

Cures

There are a number of over-the-counter medicines, and even more home remedies. They do nothing but raise false hope and taste like fermented ass juice. Your best bet is to get drunk through the worst of it, if you can. This might also resurrect your sex drive, which will have surrendered unconditionally on orders from the rest of your body.

This unfortunate condition is the bane of the homeless, and those who work with children (one often being a prerequisite for the other). Make no mistake, the presence of crawling, unkillable hair-bugs will usually seal the deal against your crotch and it’s continued good time.

Symptoms

Itchiness, coupled with a healthy measure of shame. It’s possible no one will notice your condition, but if you wind up giving the lice to your partner, be ready to face several cold, hard years of celibacy.

Damage to Sex Life: Significant

In this day and age, most people know that having lice really isn’t a hygiene issue. But try telling that to the guy who’s running his fingers through your silken locks and finding miniature aliens, but no miniature Sigourney Weavers to fight them off.

Cures

Be prepared to fight a long battle to regain control of your sex life. You can apply insecticides to your head, but who knows what part of your brain that will short out. You can go through your hair with a fine-tooth comb, but it’s tedious, especially when you need both hands for video games. Perhaps the best option is a good-ol’ fashioned head-shavin’. Will this improve your sex-life? Only if you’re a black guy or a lesbian.

Coming in so many different forms and locations, cancer is truly the precious metal of terminal diseases. Lady C is also a fickle mistress. A six-pack-a-day smoker who also sells drugs to crippled orphans might escape its clutches, but not beloved Price is Right announcer Rod Roddy. Thankfully cancer patients with libidos still have a chance to “come on down.”

Symptoms

Local symptoms include unusual lumps or tumors, but if you’re female and your guy is horny enough, you can pass these off as alterna-breasts. Systemic symptoms can run the gamut from bone pain to poor appetite and weight loss. This is easy enough to blame on an eating disorder, which, let’s face it, probably won’t hurt your chances in this day and age.

Damage to Sex Life: Helpful at first, later not so much.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but as a terminal, yet *non-contagious* disease, cancer has all the tools to help you get laid. If you haven’t figured out how to work the sympathy angle, you may actually be suffering from terminal stupidity. Are you sure cancer isn’t just your astrological sign?

Of course, when you reach that desiccated, Tammy Faye Messner stage, your sexual stock tends to plummet. Hopefully, by then, there’s been enough sympathy sex to satisfy you completely. So light up a post-coital cigarette and enjoy the time you have left.

Cures

Feel free to blast yourself with radiation. Best case scenario, you’ll rid yourself of the cancer and develop awesome superpowers. Worst case scenario, all your hair will fall out, but at least then, lice will cease to be an issue (see above).

This is the big daddy of STDs, and we’ve been hearing about it since the 80’s, mostly in the form of Very Special Episodes™ of The Golden Girls. AIDS is thought to have become a problem when some gay guy decided to bone a monkey and then go back to humans. And even if I did glean this information from a KKK website, I don’t fault the guy in question. Monkeys look human if you squint hard enough, and it’s not like they can press rape charges against you.

Symptoms

As the immune system begins to fail worse than a Wayans’ brothers sitcom, the symptoms accumulate at a rapid pace. Fevers, sweats, swollen glands, chills, and weakness are all par for the course. Even if you put that image in high heels and a thong, it’s not going to be sexy.

Damage to Sex Life: Self-imposed, hopefully.

Unless you’re really sociopathic, you’ll want to take yourself off the market. Of course, there are some misanthropes who get off on revenge fucking. In fact, many of them work for Points in Case. There are also some loving couples that decide to throw caution to the wind and continue having sex following an AIDS diagnosis. Suit yourselves. My life is far too valuable to trust a condom’s 99.97% success rate.

Cures

If your toenails have gone all soft and mushy, and you feel all hope is lost, do not despair. God is merciful, and he will hear your prayers. Just send $100 to Benny Hinn; he’ll take care of everything. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to look into finalizing your will.

According to the doctors that work for Wikipedia, this is a painful condition in which the erect wang does not return to its flaccid state within about four hours. The name comes from the Greek god Priapus, who had a huge, but useless set of wooden genitals. Suddenly, your problems don’t seem so bad, do they?

Symptoms

Self-explanatory. It’s hard to imagine an unwanted boner, but if you’ve ever had to solve math equations on the blackboard in front of the class, you’ll have a good idea.

Damage to Sex Life: What’s the opposite of “damage”?

They say it’s a genuine medical emergency, but I equate priapism with finding a star in Super Mario Brothers. You’ve got total invulnerability for a short time, so you may as well stomp on as many mushrooms as you can.

Cures

Brace yourself. My research has turned up all kinds of information involving glans puncturing, perineal insertion, proximal shunts, and other terrifying word combinations. But in the interest of getting to sleep tonight, I’ll just say that priapism is actually cured by magical sex fairies who convert your firmness into weapons used to fight terrorism.

There was a time when coma patients were mostly movie characters who could be counted on to wake up with new, hilarious identities, often speaking in Ebonics. But ever since the Terri Schiavo case, comas aren’t that funny anymore. Obnoxious liberals and baby-eating republicans spent so much time debating the ethics of removing the feeding tube, they totally overlooked the ethics of inserting the salami tube.

Symptoms

Immobile? Check. Unresponsive to external stimuli? Check. Inability to take voluntary actions? Check. While these symptoms might resemble the day after a night of heavy boozing, they’re actually quite a bit more enjoyable.

Damage to Sex Life: Complicated

Kill Bill taught us that as long as you look like Uma Thurman, a comatose state does not have to be an obstacle to sex with a greasy stranger. That said, if your partner is riding the midnight train to Neural Trauma Gulch, you may not have it so easy. Lubrication will be an issue, but at least you won’t have to bother with foreplay or compliments. And even though she can’t make you a sandwich afterwards, you can always grab a quick pull from her IV drip.

Cures

None that we know of. Some coma patients recover with all of their faculties intact, while others remain vegetables—and not the delicious, cheese-covered kind. There’s no evidence that sex with the comatose leads to their recovery, but I have a theory. Right after sex, women tend become black holes of neediness and psychological warfare. I doubt even severe head trauma could prevent them from demanding some cuddle time.