Vividly indeed do I remember the lovely and sordid tale my friend once told me, many years ago, of the terrific guy she once dated, a strapping young thing who - through a series of unfortunate childhood events - had to have a remote-controlled, robotic penis installed in his body.

Let me be more specific. Apparently, this fine lad's delicate man tissues had been damaged in a very unpleasant bicycle accident in his youth, and he could therefore no longer enjoy normal erections. Everything else functioned just fine, but when it came to sex, despite having full sensation, all systems were mangled, all blood vessels shot. Sad indeed.

But then, a savior. Through the miracle of modern medicine and not-so-modern pneumatics, ingenious doctors were able to install some sort of marvelous contraption, a valve and a rod and bladder and a little pump - a complete mechanical system by which our boy could, well, inflate and deflate his manhood at will, last as long as he liked, repeat as frequently as energy and soreness and lubricant allowed, and thereby enjoy a (relatively) normal sex life.

It worked like a charm. It also worked like an aphrodisiac, a mesmerizing technological miracle, and a pair of old Reebok Pump basketball shoes. What you did was: Squeeze a little bulb at the base of the perineum a few dozen times to inflate, to raise the flag and see who salutes. Enjoy indefinitely (!) When finished, simply reach up underneath into God's country and press a different little bulb to deflate the air bladder and, well, lower the mainsail (my friend said this particular procedure sounded like a sad squeaky toy, sighing slowly. She found it adorable).

(Here is where I'd like to tell you my friend's nickname for this lad, but they tell me this is still a family website and baffled children/grandmothers could be reading this and are already panicky that they saw the word "penis" on screen. So I'll just say it rhymed very closely with "The Wonder Sock.")

This heartwarming tale comes to mind as I read of how scientists have now developed a tiny valve they can surgically implant into the manhood of mankind to, well, control the flow of sperm at will. Your own built-in, reversible, radio-controlled vasectomy! they exclaim, with a winking Australian grin.

Apparently, said contraption involves a little remote-controlled switch that can, at the press of a button, activate or deactivate the flow from wherever it is that sperm flows (a musty little furniture shop somewhere on the outskirts of London, I think) by opening and closing a valve installed into the all-important duct known as the vas deferens. Nifty!

I know what you're thinking. A remote-controlled sperm valve? Are you crazy? Who the hell would want something like that?

I'll tell you who: Every modern male under 30, that's who. Hell, add in a digital camera and an MP3 player and maybe built-in GPS, and you've got the next iPod.

See, like my friend's wonder sock, I think such technology would play directly upon the dual modern male fantasies of unlimited penile dexterity and übergeek tech coolness. In the age of gizmo wonders and technologically advanced everything, why not a mechanically enhanced penis? Why not a little Iron Man in your iron man? Make it easy, make it relatively affordable, market it like you would the Bang & Olufsen stereo option on an Audi R8 (i.e., an invaluable enhancement, not a threat), and I say: Viva la revolucion!

It is, of course, all part of the eternal quest for an easy, idiot-proof male birth-control device for consensual adults that doesn't involve sheathing everything in miserable amounts of latex and therefore dulling the finest sensation known to all malehood next to perhaps a superlative foot massage and maybe sipping dark rum in a hot tub with nubile pagan fire priestesses from the moon.

But maybe such a valve won't be necessary. After all, they say there's already been a big breakthrough in male birth control, that scientists have finally developed a surefire "male pill" that knocks any man's sperm count down to zero, and all that's left is a bit of clinical testing.

So effective is the new pill that it's apparently safer than condoms, safer than the female pill, safer than staring at a photo of Ann Coulter for three full, agonizing minutes while your sperm commit mass suicide from sheer horror. Amazing.

But apparently there's a problem. Big Pharma doesn't seem to care about this new breakthrough. And why? Money, of course. They say there's just not enough interest. Men don't seem to be clamoring for it, the market doesn't seem to be there, millions don't stand to be made, and hence no one wants to fund more research on the thing, which could result in a wait of three to five more years before such a pill hits the market, if it ever does.

What's more, some argue that dumb-as-nails men are too unreliable for such a thing anyway, that no woman worth her weight in diaphragms and Nonoxyl-9 would dare trust a man to remember to take a pill every day, because of course men are generally irresponsible schlubs who can't even remember their own phone numbers and etc. and so on and cliché cliché cliché.

To which I say, utter and total B.S. There's not a smart modern male I know who wouldn't love to know he wouldn't - couldn't - get a date pregnant, that there could be no "accidents," that he will never get that life-altering phone call. Hell, there's already a trend whereby some baby-terrified men are getting old-school surgical vasectomies in their early 20s, rife with the fear that some nefarious huntress might try to snare them in the baby trap. Shift the power dynamics of fertility and birth control to men? Talk about your massive cultural psycho-sexual upheavals. Watch for it.

But maybe that's neither here nor there. Maybe the pill's researchers need to hook up with the valve engineers and the genius docs who installed my friend's lover's old penis pump way back when, and all work together to solve this most pressing issue and move humanity, uh, forward.

Which is to say, you want to guarantee men engage fully in matters fertile and impregnable? You want to make sure they care deeply about familial responsibility and planning? Don't just give them a pill. Give them a slick badass high-tech gizmo to deliver it, maybe a hot little button on their iPhones that not only shuts a microvalve and releases the pill's chemicals, but also boosts stamina, responds to voice commands, calculates the tip on the dinner bill, organizes their playlist according to a given date's particular mood, and of course, reminds them exactly where the clitoris is. Really, what more do you need?

Mark Morford's latest book is 'The Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism'. Join Mark on Facebook and Twitter, or email him. His website is markmorford.com. For his yoga classes, workshops and retreats, click markmorfordyoga.com.

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