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A couple of weeks ago, when I was being nice to my shoulder and not working, I was idly flipping channels, marveling at the dreck that is daytime TV and came upon The Doctors, a collection of alarmingly good-looking alleged medical professionals giving advice to the masses.

One of the doctors is a plastic surgeon, probably in his early 60s, with a healthy, youthful look and I’m sure that he’d intended himself to look like a really good for the services, except were I in the market for a facelift, I’d have asked for the name of his surgeon. Truly, it was amazing.

By the way…What is it with the doctor shows these days? There’s The Doctors, there’s Dr. Oz and I’m sure there are others. Have medical shows supplanted judge shows and soap operas?

Anyway, in this particular episode they were zooming through quick mentions of small things that could help your health or not and one of the items under consideration was sex, which was pronounced something that would help your health in various ways. More specifically, the question asked by a member of the audience was how to get these benefits when celibate. Not to worry, said the OB/GYN, a frighteningly perfect-looking woman with tresses of long beautiful hair artfully cascading over her shoulders, a partner wasn’t necessary to get these benefits. Dr. Ken Doll – I don’t know his name, but he’s obviously the main guy and I think he might have been The Bachelor once? – held forth about how they often talked about the health benefits of sex on the show and this is where everyone started to twist themselves into pretzels in order not to say the word masturbation. They may coy references to “helping yourself” and “flying solo” with much giggling and this is the point where I felt like smacking them all.

If you often talk about the health benefits of sex, why can you not say the word masturbation? And it can’t be because at 3: 30 in the afternoon, The Children might be watching, because you are in the Army often talking about the health benefits of sex. How am I supposed to take them seriously as professionals who offer medical advice – stop laughing out there, just go with the supposition – if you cannot use the proper word for something you’re just proclaimed a healthy, normal part of life. Your squirminess and discomfort at the mere word completely contradicts the statement that it’s healthy and normal. What are you? Adolescents?

So I turned off the TV and went to have a nap instead.