And How You Can Help Fix It
Let’s Talk About Prostates
According to movember.com “1 in 8 Men In the USA will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime” (https://us.movember.com/about/prostate-cancer). Facts like that should be well known but it seems talking about prostate health just isn’t at the forefront of most conversations. However, these conversations need to happen and we need to talk about men’s health often so that checking can be at the forefront of our thoughts and not just reserved for behind the door conversations with our doctors. And prostates aren’t the only thing we need to keep visible in the public eye. Testicular cancer is another doctor privy conversation that we need to get out in the open more often to keep awareness alive. According to the NIH website there have been 9,910 new cases of testicular cancer in the US this year (2022, https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/testis.html). Luckily there have been a few grassroots movements that seem to be growing in popularity each year that I want to focus on now.
Month Of Movember
Movember has come for quite a few males this November. What is Movember you ask? Well, it’s a special time each year that a group of Aussie’s decided that men’s health issues need to be more visible and what would be more visible in their daily interactions then a complete halt on shaving off those magnificent mustaches. It started with a few but has grown into a global movement and official 501(c)(3) Charity that brings awareness and funds to help fight and reduce deaths from cancer and the like. So if you notice some of your fellow men rocking that prepubescent stash they might just be helping shine more light on men’s issues that are important to them such as mental health and cancer.
No Shave November
While Movember is probably better known than “No Shave November” I am starting to see more chatter in the web regarding No Shave challenges in November. The “No Shave November’’ challenge was established via the organizers of the Matthew Hill Foundation Inc (https://no-shave.org/about-us/) to have participants not only abstain from any type of hair trimming/cutting for November but then donate the money they would have used for hair appointments and/or grooming (shaving cream, razors, etc..) to charity. This idea of becoming a little hairier in November is a nice thought exercise to remind us of the hair loss that most experience when undergoing cancer treatment.
And Then There Is No Nut November
The internet has always found a way to give a voice to all ideas including some that would/should die on the open public square. Unlike other Internet challenges that seemed to be created for good causes (ice bucket challenge) there are some that have popped up that increase awareness of issues but lack the context to be beneficial or worse are peddlers of pseudoscience and bad ideas. I’m talking of course about “No Nut November’’ which seemingly was popularized on reddit.com particularly in a subreddit called NoFap (reddit.com/r/nofap) which encourages mainly males to abstain from masturbation for a period of time or indefinitely. According to it’s sister site nofap.com the site was started on reddit but moved to it’s own site to promote it’s “sexual health program” to reduce or quit porn use. However, the negativity around the issue of masturbation which is a theme around the website and subreddit only increases the negative stereotype surrounding masturbation and as an extension of general sexual health. It’s also not hard to see the monetary motivation for those pushing the negative masturbation (NoFap) narrative when clearly money flows into this group ($20-$120 monthly subscription levels) instead of to groups to promote health and fund needed programs such as cancer research.
It’s killing men by taking attention (money) from Movemember and No-Shave November events which although on the surface sound just as silly as No Nut November these other organizations actually have grown into great charities that blend fun with function.
How To Participate
So this November let’s support the groups pushing for health conversations and cancer fighting fundraisers and ignore the for profit member groups like NoFap that are in the men’s health space for all the wrong reasons.
