Modern medicine's marvelous. We have penicillin, protease inhibitors and a slew of other life saving tonics. But, of course, all drugs come with a price. You may get a stomach ache or your hair may fall out. You may suffer sleepless nights from Wellbutrin or drowsiness from Nyquil. Some drugs, such as the depression squashing Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, often have detrimental effects on the libido.

While this may put a damper on some people's lives, one Christian patient recent wrote to conservative blogger Jimmy Akin wondering if he could/should use his SSRIs to help curb his carnal appetite. Akin replies that such methods must only be taken when necessary. And, not surprisingly, the gays qualify as necessary:

In pathological cases (as with sex offenders or people with strong homosexual desires that are resistant to other treatments)... the use of medicine as part of temptation management would be legitimate...

If Akin wants to curb our sex lives, why not just make us all eunuchs. That would be far more efficient and wouldn't tarnish medicine's good name. He must have taken his crazy pills. Or his stupid pills. Or both...

Medicine and Avoiding Temptation [Jimmy Akin]

Last month we reported that New York City's Department of Health would be voting on whether or not to allow people to change their gender without undergoing surgery. If passed, the vote would be a landmark - other states require expensive (and painful) surgery for people to legally switch genders.

Now the Department, led by the dreamy Dr. Thomas Frieden, has decided to hold off on the vote to look into whether or not the law conflicts with federal rules. Despite the delay, the health department voted on another rule change. The Advocate reports:

While it delayed making that change, the Board of Health went ahead with a related policy revision that for the first time will allow people who have undergone sex-change surgery to list their new sex on their birth documents. Previously, the city had simply issued a new birth certificate that removed any reference to gender

Though the new policy is a certainly a win, not everyone's celebrating. Trangender rights lawyer Cole Thaler laments, "Some people are physically unable to have the surgery, for health reasons...I'm hopeful that time will lead to a more fair result." It's also worth noting that neither move addresses the problems facing people who would rather not identify as either male or female. Although, such a move's probably a long way coming.

A Chinese man who lost his penis in a "traumatic accident" (That must be an understatement) had another surgically attached last month. Apparently it didn't stick, because a mere two weeks later he asked doctors to remove the member.

365 Gay reports, "The penis came from a 22-year-old brain-dead man whose parents agreed to donate his organ."

We don't care if we're fucking Terry Shiavo, let it be known that our penis shall not be removed from our lifeless body, especially if the recipient's going to just give up on it. Sure, we gave up on it ages ago, but that's our decision, not some strangers. (Okay, okay...some strangers may have been involved.)

They don't use the American Red Cross excuse that all gays are infected with AIDS, but somehow the Norwegian national sperm bank in Oslo offends us even more. They do not allow sperm donations from gays because we are "psychologically unsuitable." They make the assumption that any gay man who would donate sperm is doing so purely as a means of "spreading his genes" as opposed out of a desire to "help people."

We, however, think that the whole issue is perhaps a cover-up for a larger problem: lack of gay porn at the Oslo sperm bank.

Norway rejects gay sperm [PinkNews]