This strange November 09, 2005 post should really be posted on Friday as part of the Friday Weird Sex Blogging....
Via Shakespeare's Sister and Blue Gal in a Red State comes this crazy article:
Serbs line up for testicle shocks
Men in Serbia are lining up to have electric shocks delivered to their testicles as part of a new contraceptive treatment.
Serbian fertility expert Dr Sava Bojovic, who runs one of the clinics offering the service, said the small electric shock makes men temporarily infertile by stunning their sperm into a state of immobility.
He said: "We attach electrodes to either side of the testicles and send low electricity currents flowing through them.
"This stuns the sperm, effectively putting them to sleep for up to 10 days, which means couples can have sex without fear of getting pregnant.
"The method does not kill the sperm permanently and it does not affect the patient's health."
Dr Bojovic added patients were now lining up at his fertility clinic in Novi Banovci for the shock treatment, as it had none of the problems attached to using condoms, the male pill or having a vasectomy.
He added: "We are hoping to have a small battery powered version on sale in the shops in time for Xmas."
Now, from this article - Two books by Sava Bojovic - you may think that he is taken seriously in Serbia:
Two books by Sava Bojovic, "Human reproduction" and "Wrestling stories" will be presented today at 1.00 p.m. in the SMAF Central Club in Belgrade. The book "Human reproduction" is a life's work of doctor Sava Bojovic and his associates, leading experts from the former SFRY medical centers, Europe and the world. The reviewer, Academician Prof. Vojin Sulovic, PhD, Secretary General of the International League of Humanists Prof. Zdravko Surlan, Prof. Gligor Palcevski, PhD, (Skoplje) and Prof. Sava Perovic, PhD will be discussing the book. The book "Wrestling stories", written by Sava Bojovic and his associates, will be discussed by the representative of the Serbian and Montenegrin Wrestling Association Nenad Lalovic, representative of the publisher Marta Markov and the author himself.
I bet the review was scathing (these guys on the panel are serious and well-known physicians). Dr.Sava Bojovic is a well known quack. His nickname there is "Serbian Eichmann" (Srpski Ajhman). He has published 21 "academic" books ranging in topics from sex to wrestling. It took him 30 years to get a doctorate, and the final result of that lengthy "research" was a pill (essentially vitamins) he is selling for big money as fertility treatments.
If you can read this article in Serbo-Croatian language - Doc, I asked for better memory, I ended up with a child - you'll see that the local press is not taking him seriously at all. He is not even trying to set up shop in Belgrade. Instead, he is where his patients are, in a small town, where his white coat may still impress the locals. Look at his picture in that article, too. Would you trust this man? He is straight out of a Marty Feldman movie! Does he have problems keeping his arm from jumping up into a "Heil Hitler" position?
The article describes in some detail the "thinking" behind his wonderful discoveries, em, get-rich-quick schemes, and it makes no sense. The last paragraph suggests the couples walk in the sunshine for an hour for fertility, invoking the mysterious pineal gland. Well, I actually know something about a pineal gland - that's my field of research, and his statements there are totally bogus. Just another charlatan.
On the other hand, use of condoms in Serbia, especially outside big cities, is worryingly low, despite colorful posters (actually posters with a bunch of colorful condoms, inflated, with smiley faces drawn on their 'heads') I remember since late 1980s (when AIDS became big news). I also remember the slogan "Kondom u svaki dom!" (a condom in every home) from that era.
The feeling of invinicibility (the same one that led to all those wars) is one factor. The patriarchal culture (especially in rural areas) is another.
During the sanctions throughout the 1990s, people had more sex (what else to do during dark-outs), yet there was a shortage of condoms (they had to be imported as the only Yugoslav factory that produced them was shut down). Ten years later, nobody has the habit any more, I guess.
A bunch of condoms were imported from China recently, but they were too small for most guys there (European medium-size is equal to US large-size - something many immigrants here discover with pain - and apparently the Chinese are even smaller).
As a result of the widespread unuse of condoms in the past 15 years or so, rates of AIDS, other STDs and abortions are on a steep rise in Serbia, which is the real worry. Having a non-condom means of male contraception, even if it works, is counterproductive at best.
Update: I was going to translate a little bit more of that article, the "science" parts at least, but now I find them untranslatable because they make no sense. It is a pile-up of sciency-sounding words, something about radiation, I guess at one point. I assume I could translate word by word, but it would just remain sounding like gibberish that it is. GI GO.
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