The spring of my senior year of college was unusually warm. One particularly sunny Saturday my girlfriend got word from one of her friends that “everyone” was headed to a pond a couples of miles from campus. We grabbed some towels and got a ride with friends.
It was an impulsive move on our part. Final exams were about to start and we knew we should be studying but youthful enthusiasm overrode a lot in those days. We loaded some sodas and chips in a beach bag and took off.
The memory of that spring swim many years ago was triggered by a story that appeared in my internet news-feed. It was about a Fox News segment with Tucker Carlson. In it, he was extolling the benefits of ultraviolet light, (UV) therapy, to boost male fertility which he claimed was declining. According to him, men were becoming feminized by the encroachment on masculinity by liberal politicians, aggressive women and white people being replaced by immigrants obedient to the Democratic Party
In this segment on Fox News, the “therapy” Tucker was promoting was the idea that men should expose their testicles to ultraviolet light. By tanning their male parts, men could increase their production of semen and save the planet from rapid depopulation. He was convinced of this.
There were several dozen students sprawled out on the grass surrounding the pond. Rock music drifted around the area while several people swam in the cool pond water. Most of the students had opted to go au natural. It was the 1970’s after all: peace, love and the Rolling Stones. To quote from a popular song at the time by the band, Steppenwolf*, “We are true nature’s child, born, born to be wild.”
I wouldn’t say there was anything really “wild” about us. This was just a cloudless spring day and we were college students taking a break from our studies. It wasn’t like there was a Roman orgy going on. It was just a bunch of twenty-somethings flaunting our youthful and very pale bodies that had been hidden from the sun for the past months in classrooms, libraries and dorm rooms.
It seems that Fox New’s Tucker Carlson has concluded that the decline in male fertility is somehow connected to UV light not reaching men’s reproductive bits. It surely couldn’t be related to pesticides, micro plastics and heavy metals in our water, food and air. Apparently, men are losing their virility and fertility because they don’t take their pants off on sunny days. This decline is exacerbated by bossy women and immigrants taking jobs from men. Who knew that the antidote to falling male fertility was as easy as closing our borders to certain populations and walking in the buff in the sunshine?
Youth is more often known for exuberance than prudence. This was certainly the case on this warm day in May around a farmer’s pond. After months of cold cloudy days and endless hours indoors, the sun was welcomed as a long lost friend. Clothes fell off of us and UV light caressed every part of our young beautiful bodies. No thought was given to the effects it would have on parts that hadn’t seen sunlight since last summer nor on the parts that had never been in the sunlight in any season.
The results of our day at the pond were first noted by my girlfriend as she dressed to go back to campus. Her remarks were something like, “ I think we both got a little too much sun today.” That turned out to be more of an understatement than any of us realized at that moment. But as anyone who has been sunburned knows, the pain, the real fiery pain, only begins to fully manifest a few hours after exposure.
My girlfriend, who like all redheads, had skin as white and smooth as a silk wedding gown, began to match the shade of her hair. I didn’t fare any better. I too glowed like the coils of a space heater on high. The worst part was the “glow” was especially noticeable in a very personal location. I doubt I would have taken any solace from hearing that my glowing man bits increased my masculinity. Far from increasing virility, the exposure I received completely eliminated any attempt at practicing procreation that day and for many days to come. Added to that, my beautiful, fair skinned girlfriend would have become homicidal if I dared tried to touch her.
I have no idea if Tucker Carlson really believes what he was promoting on his show. He certainly must have never gone skinny dipping on an unseasonably warm day in May. Maybe it is wishful thinking that exposing his two little gems to UV will increase his virility. Perhaps he has been feeling a little less manly lately and needs something to boost his confidence in the bedroom. He certainly has been obsessed with what he calls, “The Great Replacement Theory”. It appears he is terrified that white people and especially white men are being replaced by immigrants of darker skin tones with higher libidos, since many of them are coming from sunny regions on the planet.
And then again, it might not be all that complicated. It might be that Tucker never took the time from being outraged by one thing or another to go skinny dipping with a stunning redhead and learn an important lesson about not publicly exposing everything he thinks he knows to the light of day.
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*Steppenwolf, “Born to be Wild”, 1968
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