Making People Squirm, or People Making Sperm

I have an acquaintance whom I'd like to keep anonymous, so I will simply refer to her as Lily Happyhappyhappygoat.

Ms. Happyhappyhappygoat works for a medical research facility that conducts clinical research trials.

I won’t tell you the name of the company she works for, but it is a better facility than some of the previous places she has worked at in the same field. In fact, I could tell you horror stories that would scare you into giving up prescription drugs altogether. Perhaps another time.

Lily Happyhappyhappygoat's company regularly conducts many studies on “healthy” individuals, because it’s logical to first test new drugs on stronger people in case there are unforeseen side effects or complications.

A healthy person might experience discomfort from a test drug, but an unhealthy person might experience death. That is why Phase I studies are rarely tested on 90-year-old people afflicted with various devastating diseases.

Not all studies are trying to cure cancer, stem the tide of Multiple Sclerosis, or ward off dementia in Alzheimer’s patients. Some are for vitamins. Some are to help people stop smoking. Still others are designed to measure how a medication might affect sperm production in men (something we all should be vastly concerned with since the population of Earth is estimated to only be 6.8 billion or so as of July 1, 2009).

Oh, did I mention that the participants are paid to be part of a study? Imagine getting paid to masturbate. We live in a truly wacky (no pun intended) and wonderful world.

Incidentally, Lily invited me to one such study a while back. It’s not that she felt I was extremely talented in sperm production, or, at least, I don’t think so.

I had to say “no” to the study. I strictly adhered to my own “no sperm” policy that forbids me to ejaculate at any acquaintance’s place of employment. Call me old-fashioned, but I just don’t want her co-workers (whom I also know) saying “Hey man, what’s up?” as I walk by with a plastic sample cup in my hand.

Talk about a loaded question.

That kind of thing (i.e. people making sperm) is known to make people squirm, which brings me to the “Velvet Room” at Lily’s work.

They actually have a room designated for these trials where participants go in to produce sperm samples. The Velvet Room is the nickname the facility’s staff have given it. (Ha, ha, medical researchers crack me up!)

Inside that room is a comfy chair in the middle with a long roll of paper covering it (like the kind you would find at a dental or doctor’s office). Thus, you can rip off an old layer and pull down a new one. That isn’t even remotely the craziest thing in the room.

The craziest thing is that there is a small fold-up chair placed adjacent to the comfy one. (There are also porno movies and magazines strewn throughout, as well, which can be pretty damn crazy in their own right, especially if titles like Dude, Where’s My Dildo? offend you).

I was once told that the fold-up chair is for the participant’s spouse or significant other. Apparently, they can provide moral support (and even take their clothes off), but they cannot directly lend a hand, so to speak.

How weird is that? Not enough, apparently, because I have heard various sperm-related horror stories that have occurred during the study.

It would seem that some of the sperm study participants have taken as little as two minutes to produce a sample (which, to me, is quite terrifying considering the cold, antiseptic atmosphere of the room). Conversely, one man was in the Velvet Room for 90 minutes and came out dry. Stage fright, apparently.

At times, participants “miss the cup.” The employees generally do not enjoy that. I wonder if they draw straws to see who gets to deal with the cleanup.

I think the worst horror story I overheard, however, was the one involving a man who said his mother had called him on his cell phone when he was trying to produce a sample. That killed his mood for over a half hour.

So, the lesson learned from this is quite simple: sometimes, we must endure great pains in order to make great progress. Oh, and also: you should always leave your cell phone in the other room when you masturbate in a plastic cup in the name of science.