You see more and more cocks on TV, don't you find? The Piers Morgan variety, yes, but I'm talking about actual cocks. Look, here's one, in Birmingham. At one end is 31-year-old Bompinge; at the other, the business end, is a new stinging itchiness. Because this is The Sex Clinic (on Channel 4! I know! Can you believe it?).
The problems started, Bompinge explains, when he had unprotected sex with his ex. If he's honest, this – the stinging and itching – is why she's his ex, though it doesn't seem to stop him having sex with her. "I did try and tell her, not in a disrespectful way, there was something wrong with her," he says. "But she was very defensive and kind of argumentative about it, so I just put it aside." Well no Bombinge, you put it IN, obviously.
The doctor examines him, has a prod about, can't find much, takes out her probe, a stick with an evil little ring in the end, pushes into the end of Bombinge's penis, ouch! "You're trying to get a little film of discharge within the ring," she explains. What, so you can then blow little tiny discharge bubbles around the examining room, to lighten the mood? Er no, so it can then be wiped on a slide and examined under the microscope.
Right, while the sample is being looked at, and before any results are through, Bompinge gets on the phone to his ex. "You all right? You remember when I was … we had a conversation, I told you like you need to wash your fanny at least three times a day, something along them lines, do you remember?" he says, not in a disrespectful way. "I think you've given me a sexually transmitted disease."
The tests show nothing obvious, but Bompinge won't know for sure for a couple of weeks, when the results have been properly looked at. It may be he just has male thrush, not an STD. In which case maybe he can get back with his ex. Unless she decides he's too much of a bell end.
Meanwhile in London, Mistress Jezebel, a dominatrix, is in for a regular routine MoT (throat, vaginal and rectal swabs, plus blood tests) because of the high-risk nature of what she does. And Tomisha, a transsexual escort, is in for an HIV test, while close friend Damian, who was born a woman, is concerned that he might have caught something from his own prosthetic penis. Hmmm, I'm not sure I even understand that. Anyway, they are all clear, thankfully. As is Anthea, who had a condom split on her. Well, in her, strictly speaking.
Oh dear though, because back in Birmingham, 38-year-old Catherine, who has a nice unidentifiable (by me anyway) foreign/Brummie accent, isn't. Nothing too serious – she's got genital warts. Gosh, and here they are. Is that … oh, I see. The nice nurse is giving them a blast, with liquid nitrogen. Isn't that what Heston uses, to make his special ice-cream? Mmmm … genital wart ice-cream: they're the new snails, have another Michelin star.
Anyway, I suppose in some way The Sex Clinic – like Embarrassing Bodies and the rest – should be applauded, for getting these things (literally) out in the open, for freezing off some of that stigma along with the warts. The open, no-nonsense approach is refreshing, if that's an appropriate word in the circumstances. And if anyone is encouraged to get themselves checked out, or to behave in a way that doesn't put them in so much danger in the first place, that's got to be a good thing.
But – and it's a fairly massive but (not yours, Catherine, just the one "t") – I still think they're better off getting themselves checked out not-on-television. Maybe it makes me an old-fashioned prude, but I don't want to look at Catherine's genital warts, or Bompinge's itchy cock (and never have I regretted the 42-inch HD more). If I did want to, I would have become a down-there doctor.
Marginally less traumatic is Trauma Doctors (Channel 5), which follows trauma teams around London, scooping casualties up off roads, rushing them to hospital, playing Sherlock Holmes against the clock, followed by All The King's Horses and All the King's Men, hopefully with better results.
They – the results – are mostly good (I guess the bad ones don't go on TV and I'm fine with that). Young Aysha's suspected broken neck (she was hit by a truck) turns out to be nothing, her neck's just a little abnormal. And cyclist Paul, helicoptered in with a serious head injury, whose repetitiveness worries the team, is also fine. That's just the way he is, a bit boring.
