The Curious Case of Benjamin Button's Penis
Are nighttime erections a predictor of longevity?
A wise woman (ok fine, it was my mother) once told me that old people sex is like putting a marshmallow in a coin slot. I haven’t eaten s’mores since.
I recently watched the documentary, Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, about this guy, Bryan Johnson, a 1-percenter trying to defeat death, and of course, my first thought was of his penis: How long can he expect it to be fully operational? What kind of prehistoric parboiled sausage will it resemble at 130 years old? 150? If men peak sexually by their mid-20s, and let’s say he can keep going with the aid of various medications until 70 or so, how many years does that leave him walking around with a marshmallowy member?
He is tracking every possible measurement of bodily function, as part of Project Blueprint, his $2M a year investment in his health journey and quest to live forever, and this includes the performance of said peen.
Bryan Johnson is a tech bro, turned venture capitalist, who made a shit-ton of money on the sale of Venmo. Now he spends his life monitoring and measuring every vital sign, organ function, emission, and secretion, which sounds like shades of orthorexia (an eating disorder characterized by an excessive preoccupation with consuming healthy foods).
He wrote about this project on Medium, which reads like a Three Faces of Eve journal entry, He refers to a “community of Bryans,” meaning himself and all the Bryans within. This is someone who had A LOT of imaginary friends growing up and maybe still does.
Project “Rejuvenating Johnson’s Johnson” is I guess what you would call a sub-project of the main project, where he tracks stats for his peen, including urine flow, sperm motility and volume, and most importantly, nighttime erections! He reported that his nighttime erection data is only two minutes shorter in duration than his 19-year old son. Nothing says father-son bonding like a little healthy erection endurance competition. Looking forward to reading his son’s tell-all memoir in about 15 years.
Dude has made his entire personality about extending his life, which is painstakingly documented in the film, and honestly, it looks like a very joyless existence.
Bry guy wakes up around 4:30, does a little UV light exposure (based on his vampiric skin tone, he should probably go outside every now and then), lines up his food for the day in tiny metal dog bowls, finishes eating by 11 am (I’d be gnawing my arm off by 3 pm), takes a bazillion pills, pumps some iron shirtless, gets hooked up to a bunch of monitors to take measurements—again shirtless—and from the looks of it, gets a lot of dermabrasion treatments.
My other takeaway from the film is that no amount of money can buy you a good dye job. His hair goes from a rusty-orange to jet black over the course of the movie. I perceived no pleasure in his life, other than the love—bordering on a Dorian Gray worship of his younger self—for his son, from whom, incidentally, he is receiving plasma transfusions.
Although he doesn’t get into the state of his peen in the documentary, there’s plenty of documentation about his regimen of ED drugs, Botox and focused shockwave therapy, which is a newer treatment for erectile dysfunction that uses low intensity shockwaves to repair and strengthen blood vessels.
Johnson proudly states that his nighttime erections are the length of The Titanic - the movie, not the boat. It’s amazing anything can stay alert for that long. You too can measure yours or your loved one’s nighttime erections with the Adam Sensor, (for a whopping $270 if you can sleep with a device the size of an ankle monitor around your dong). It’s the modern day version of the Rigiscan, which kept Allison busy during high school summers printing out data for her dad’s urology practice (more on that soon!).
I will give BJ credit for speaking openly about men’s sexual health. Apparently, erectile dysfunction can be an early warning indicator for heart disease, but there’s still a lot of stigma in discussing it. He’s clearly established that he does not suffer from this problem and holds up his sperm motility report card from the urologist proudly, but what I’m left wondering is whether Johnson ever uses his johnson, or if it’s just another organ to measure and not use. If the object of the game is to not die, then I think he’s succeeding, but if it’s actually to live, then I think the community of Bryans needs to stage an intervention with himself, put on a shirt, maybe a little bronzer, and leave the house.
Yours in peen and measuring things,
Allison & Kristine
He is really odd and does not seem happy at all.
That is one pasty, death-on-a cracker, joy-free, looking guy.