1. Smoking can shorten your penis by as much as a centimeter. Erections are all about god blood flow, and lighting up calcifies blood vessels, stifling erectile circulation. So even if you don’t care all that much about your lungs or dying young, spare the li’l guy.

2. Doctors can now grow skin for burn victims using the foreskin of circumcised infants. One foreskin can produce 23,000 square meters.

3. The average male orgasm lasts 6 seconds. Women get 23 seconds. Which means if women were really interested in equality, they’d make sure we have four orgasms for every one of theirs.

4. The oldest known species with a penis is a hard-shelled sea creature called Colymbosathon ecplecticos. That’s Greek for “amazing swimmer with large penis”. Which supplants Buck Naked as the best porn name, ever.

5. Circumcised foreskin can be reconstructed. Movable skin on the shaft of the penis is pulled towards the tip and set in place with tape. Later, doctors apply plastic rings, caps, and weights. Years can pass until complete coverage is attained…. Okay, I’ll shut up now.

6. Only one man in 400 is flexible enough to give himself oral pleasure. It’s estimated, however, that all 400 have given their best shot at some point.

7. There are two types of penises . One kind expands and lengthens when becoming erect ( a grower ). The other appear big most of the times, but doesn’t get much bigger after achieving erection ( a show-er ). An international Men’s Health survey reports that 79 per cent of men has growers , 21 per cent has show-ers. Presumably, the second sort get the girls but the first sort make them happier.

8. German researchers say the average intercourse lasts 2 minutes 50 seconds, yet women perceive it as lasting 5 minutes 30 seconds. Are we that good or that bad?

9. The penis that’s been enjoyed by the most women could be that of King Fatefehi of Tonga, who supposedly deflowered 37,800 women between 1770 and 1784 – that’s about seven virgins a day. Go ahead, say it: it’s good to be king.

10. Better-looking men may have stronger sperm. Spanish researchers showed women photos of guys who had good, average and lousy sperm – and told them to pick the handsomest men. The women chose the best sperm producers most often.

11. No brain is necessary for ejaculation. That order comes from the spinal cord. Finding a living vessel for said ejaculation, however takes hours of careful thought and, often, considerable amounts of alcohol.

This week I was presented with yet another book about life in Thailand, and a side oflife that most of us would publicly shun. Written by Derek Sharron, My Name Lon – You Like Me? (ISBN 974-92721-5-3, publisher Bangkok Book House), claims to be a true story following the life and (mis)fortunes of Lon, a girl from Esarn.

In essence, at age 13, Lon runs away from her family in the province of Ubon Ratchathani and comes to Bangkok. To be able to do this, she steals some money from her family home, and that almost sets the tone for this book. Lon explains this saying, “I had nothing, therefore I had nothing to lose, so I ran away.”

The book then goes into a good description of village life and culture she had left behind. A culture where the males are raised as the indulged sex, while the females remain downtrodden. However, these same females grow up to be the mothers that dominate a family, as the males have all left on their own self-indulgent lives. The village families are then hierarchical female dynasties, where the elders have to be looked after.

To attempt to give the reader an inkling of why there are people such as the Lon’s of this world, an overview of the disparity in the distribution of wealth is given. Reference notes are given to lend credibility to this and other factors that are involved in the prostitution culture.

Lon’s story brings all the factors together, but after chapter five, the book becomes more of a Lon’s sorry diary of sordid sex. In that regard, it is certainly a sorry tale, but one that not only shows how these girls are manipulated, but also how they are prepared to use all the tricks of the trade to further their own causes (while at the same time use cultural heritage as their raison d’etre).

This book has tried to be all things for all people. A narrative, a reference source, a social commentary, a guide to the sex tourism spots you don’t want to visit, and a list of international males that are prepared to use greedy girls from underdeveloped countries. The Germans have a beautiful phrase for it – an “eierlegende wollmilchsau” which is roughly translated as an egg-laying, woolly, milking pig!

However, despite the above comment, the book does serve some purposes, and Lon’s tale might make some tourists to this country realize just how shallow some of the ladies of the night really are.

It is interesting that author Derek Sharron mentions Pira Sudham’s Monsoon Country, a highly respected Esarn commentary, in his list of suggested reading. Pira’s books (and look for the new anthology Shadowed Country) give a much better picture of the real situation and etiology in the poverty stricken North-East than does this book, but Sharron’s will give you a much better snapshot of how a culture can be twisted by poverty, and how psychologically weak individuals within that culture can become like Lon.

Private Dancer, written by well known author Stephen Leather, is not available for sale, but available from this website (and the authors) as a free download! At the end, Leather indicates, that his publisher was unwilling to publish this one as it was to different from the thrillers that he usually writes.

It is a very cleverly fabricated story, relating to a journalist (Pete) who comes to Bangkok to work and who falls in love with Joy, a dancer at a bar in Nana Plaza. She is to become his “private dancer” which comes the title of the book.

What sets this manuscript apart from the overdone “farang falls in love with bar girl” is that Stephen Leather gives the side of the central character Pete, and then follows that up with the thoughts of the girl Joy. After that, at various important milestones at the relationship, other people are brought in who give their impressions of whats going on.

These people include Pete’s boss Alistair, the owner of a bar called Big Ron, whom Leather admits is well knows identity Big Dave, and the bar called Fatso’s is Big Dave’s establishment called Jool’s on Soi 4 Sukhumvit (as anyone who has ever been there would pick immediately). Others who give their opinion include Pete’s friends, his flat-mate and even the owner of Joy’s bar, who is even more cynical then Big Ron.

Where Stephen Leather has excelled with this manuscript is in his understanding of the Thai viewpoint. And to then put it down in print. There will be those who will say that a farang can never get inside the mind of the Thais. Perhaps not, but the book of Stephen Leather’s must go damn close. Close enough for me! Take for example the words from Joy after Pete rang her in her room to say that he had been talking to Park, her Thai husband. “Park was in my room when Pete telephoned. I asked Park what he was playing at, and he said he didn’t know what I was talking about. I got angry then and said that he spoiled everything. He had no right to talk to Pete, he was my customer.” And it all hangs on that last word!

This is the best book you cannot buy. When it was given to me, the previous downloader said that it should be compulsory reading for all single males before arrival in Thailand. My logical mind would agree, but love and logic only start with the same letter, and that is where the similarity ends. The world is populated with Pete’s, about whom Big Ron states, “Was I surprised at what happened to Pete? Of course I (expletive) wasn’t. He was on the road to ruin as soon as he let her get to him. A lost cause.”

As an added benefit, there are some good recipes running right through the book, as that had been Pete’s brief, writing a cook book. In the end you will see just whose goose gets cooked! Brilliant book. Leather’s publishers are crazy to let this one escape!

For a FREE download of this book, please press here (Adobe Reader is required to view the file)