TLC’s “Strange Sex”: Erectile dysfuction, Fort Collins and why go on TV?
TLCDid he do it for the money? Or for the thrill of being on TV? Is this what he considers fame? Or is it a perverse form of exhibitionism that drives a person to display his or her most personal problem on national television?
These are always the questions with creepy “reality” TV, but cultural anthropologists would have a special field day with TLC’s “Strange Sex,” the reality show that goes beyond mere obsessions, phobias, obesity, umpteen kids, wife swapping and dwarfism to trade in sexual fetishes and oddities.
Perhaps you caught the episode about the man with the 160-lb. scrotum or the one with the woman (pictured below), with size 102ZZZ breasts? Now comes Dylan Mumm, 22, from Fort Collins (above), chatting about his erectile dysfunction and penile revascularization surgery. Like a cardiac bypass but elsewhere. (Someone should remind him that last season the series boasted a man who claims to have cured his E.D. by drinking his wife’s breast milk.)
In his “Strange Sex” appearance on Oct. 24 (the series airs Sundays at 8:30 p.m. on TLC), Dylan will get his 15 minutes of fame, along with his parents and girlfriend. The surgery was in 2008; filming was done in January in Ft. Collins, including on the CSU campus where he is a Junior majoring in Economics.
Why did he do it? “My goal was to share information and cast light on a subculture of people who are suffering,” he said.
TLCThe network claims last season’s premiere scored 1.1 million total viewers. “It was very personal for a very long time and something I was embarrassed about. But I thought it was something that needed attention drawn to it. The more open I was, the more I realized I’m not the only one.” He finds there is a “generational disconnect” when it comes to talking openly about the issue; younger folks are more willing to talk about it.
It’s all very altruistic, except that Dylan declined to discuss the financial arrangements, that is, whether or how much he was paid for his participation.
Andy Warhol’s theory assuring everyone a quarter-hour of glory in the new media age now seems almost quaint. It’s not just the time, but the intimacy of exposure that’s changed. These days, if you’re not revealing something deeply personal, achingly tragic or Ripley’s-Believe-It-or-Not-odd, you’re not playing the game.
Here’s how TLC’s publicity department teases this episode of “Strange Sex”: “Dylan was a healthy boy until the age of 12 when he mysteriously loses the ability to have an erection. Now, 20 years old, can surgery fix Dylan’s devastating problem?” The potential success rate for this particular surgery is 60-70 percent.
“I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t nervous,” he said.
Dylan doesn’t want to give anything away, but his story does have a happy ending. http://www.vydoxtrial.com/trial/
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