mm, don't you know it—even in a world where cancer, AIDS, and any number of illnesses run unchecked and uncured, claiming victims by the millions, one other taker has been revealed as the fastest-spreading (no pun intended) disease of the 21st century: Sexual dysfunction. The revelation is based on money spent on research and treatment in America, by Americans. While sexual dysfunction hasn't seem to reached other continents at quite the same level, the western world, and especially America, suffers astronomical degrees of sexual dysfunction.

Dr. Clammy Goodtime, and yes, that is his real name, has spearheaded (again, pun not intended) an international investigation into sexual dysfunction, based on the spending of major drug companies and private citizens on treatment. According to Dr. Goodtime, sexual dysfunction has become epidemic in the western world, where up to 20% of all money flowing into the medical profession is directed. In other regions of the world, such as Africa, the percentage is less than zero, but Dr. Goodtime remains confident the low numbers are based on a lack of diagnosis and reporting of sexual dysfunction, rather than some high-quality banging going on continent-wide.

"In most cases, even here in America, sexual dysfunction was strangely under-reported right up until the 1970s," said Dr. Goodtime, stroking his charming soulpatch. "Then, in the 1980s, major improvements in diagnosing the sexually-inadequate were made, thanks to the pioneering research of those like Dr. Ruth Westheimer. You reach the 1990s and all of a sudden the sexually-impaired were coming out of the woodwork, figuratively speaking, to treat their dysfunction. We now stand, in the early twenty-first century, as having the highest population in the history of the world with diagnosed sexual dysfunction. Take that, ancient Rome!"

Dr. Goodtime reports, darling, that in thirty short years sexual research has gone from a stodgy, secretive area of study to a mainstream psychological phenomenon. Years ago, before television and the media opened up the discussion of sex for everyone, sexual dysfunction was only diagnosed in rare and extreme cases, such as those with a severe phobia to sex. These days, patients can—and frequently do—diagnose themselves.

Advertisements for medications that prolong sexual function after its normal duration, such as Viagra or Cialis, and devices such as the Intrinsa "sex patch" have attempted to restore the libido of a twentysomething to those who might not naturally have the urge to have sex as much as they used to. On the outer perimeter of such research are also medications which can enhance the physical qualities of both men and women to make them more sexually appealing to people who want nothing to do with them.

Other treatments for sexual dysfunction—regardless of the cause—are already in the works by medical companies who want to cash in on the billion-dollar tragedy of reduced sexual activity. Among other potential treatments, Procter & Gamble is developing a "sex box," a device applied to the genitals which can treat the common problem suffered by many men and women who suffer sexual dysfunction from not finding anybody willing to fornicate with them. The product is undergoing research right now, and no, sweetie, they've got enough volunteers for the study already.

Some, like Badgeport, Tennessee apple grower Wilfred Canton, are grateful to the medical profession for focusing so much attention on sexual dysfunction instead of more incurable illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease.

"I'm a child of the sixties, man, I grew up in the age of the sexual revolution," Canton said. "I spent my childhood wishing I was old enough to have sex, and I spent my teen-age years thinking I should be having a lot, lot more of it. In my twenties and thirties, I spent all my time having sex whenever I could, at the expense of developing more lasting relationships with people. Now that I'm going to be forty, you're telling me I'm going to start losing the urge? Nuh-uh. I didn't spend my life with an unhealthy focus on sex just to have it end now."

he disturbingly enduring English space-rock band Pink Floyd has come under fire this week, thanks to a lawsuit filed by twenty former children who sang on the band’s 1979 hit “Another Brick in the Wall.� According to lawyers for the now-adults, Floyd never paid them for their services, and also didn’t bother to use them on the band’s 1983 follow-up The Final Cut, which sucked hard because of it.

“These children gave minutes of their time, time that could have been spent in the classroom learning about fish, to contribute to this album, with only years of local notoriety and a permanent place in rock ‘n roll history as their reward,� explained the former-children’s lawyer, Theodore Chuck. “It’s time this injustice was rectified, and by that I don’t mean ‘put up your bum.’ As I’ve explained to my clients time and time again, that’s not what ‘rectified’ means.�

While recording the track for their hugemongously successful 1979 album The Wall, Floyd’s management recruited the children from nearby Islington Green School, offering the school’s music teacher Alun Renshaw 1,000 pounds and “a shot at Debra,� a reference to one of the band’s roster of loose groupies. The teacher insists that aside from getting his rocks off with the Floyd groupie, he wasn’t compensated in any way for the children’s appearance on the album. The 1,000 pounds apparently went to the school itself, which it reportedly spent on adding windows to the grim, lightless building which had originally been used as a slaughterhouse.

“We were just going to go over how they make pickles that day,� explained Renshaw. “So I figured what the hell.�

School officials were mortified when they discovered their students’ involvement in a song with the lyrics “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control, no dark sarcasm in the classroom – teachers leave them kids alone.�

“We just thought they were terribly hackneyed,� explained Islington’s headmistress Margaret Maden. “And at the time we were worried that this song would inspire British children to take less interest in their education. But what we quickly learned was that Pink Floyd only inspired prolonged attention in the heavily stoned, and except for those jokers who sang on the album, the rest of England’s children quickly went back to their studies.�

Those jokers, however, went about their own not learning with a passion, sure they would be able to coast through the rest of their lives on their association with the psychedelic prog-rock band. The academic habits of the twenty children involved, already questionable, took a turn for the worse after the song’s astonishing success. The children then felt like they needed to respect their newfound roles as spokeschildren for a generation, and feared being branded as sellouts if they were to learn their multiplication tables. Repeated efforts by teachers to point out that nobody in the outside world even knew who they were met with consistent failure. Convinced that stoners everywhere were praising them for their anti-establishment stance and their collective position on dark sarcasm in the classroom, the children succeeded in failing to learn anything for the rest of their academic careers.

After Floyd refused to prolong the children’s careers through more backup singing opportunities, Renshaw attempted to wrong that right with the children’s follow-up album in 1981, We Don’t Need No Hygiene, Neither. But without Pink Floyd’s publicity machine the album was doomed to fairly poor showing, selling few copies. Worst of all, Renshaw learned he’d been beaten to the punch by some knob over in Langley, Canada, and was personally sued for stealing a bad idea.

Though thoroughly uneducated, the now-adult claimants are clear on their expectations for a delayed slice of the Pink Floyd pie.

“I don’t know, I think we should get a million, trillion pounds,� offered former schoolchild Roary Mills. “A kapchillion maybe.�

“No way,� argued fellow former child Paul Richards. “I’m not getting ripped off. I won’t settle for anything less than twenty-five pounds.�

Should the matter go to trial, Mills believes the legal process will involve throwing fruit at the band until the truth is revealed. Richards, on the other hand, believes the judge will turn Pink Floyd upside-down and shake them until enough money falls out for everyone to buy ice cream. Stan Chancey, the group’s expert on the legal system due to his having seen a courtroom drama on television years ago, explains to the others that a jury of their peers will decide Floyd’s fate, meaning the jury will be made up of assorted British rock ‘n roll legends.

Chancey envisions seminal British rockers like Eric Clapton, Ray Davies and the Rolling Stones delivering their verdict via an electrifying supergroup courtroom concert the likes of which the world has never seen. If the jury decides in favor of the band, Chancey explains, look for them to reprise the obscure George Harrison classic “Not Guilty,� especially if Harrison himself is on the jury. If Floyd are found guilty, however, the band may compose a brand-new tune to unveil at the verdict reading, with a title something like “They’re Guilty,� which will likely feature each of the jury members singing a line of lyrics in turn, sort of like the Traveling Wilburys or that big Dylan benefit concert years back.

Chuck, who has long since given up explaining the British legal system to the former children, hopes the settlement will be large enough for him to retire and never have to deal with the uneducated ever again.

It's just like you to twist my words around. I think I'd remember, in the midst of all that automobile wreckage, whilst the paramedics were sweeping the windshield glass out of your eyes and the neighborhood was awash in a sea of swirling lights and sirens, if I had promised to stop using crack entirely. Please, that doesn't even sound like me.

Perhaps in the heat of the moment, when we weren't sure if you were going to walk again, or if there was anybody home inside that house the Rolls ended up cart-wheeling into, in the passion of that lucid moment I may very well have breathlessly gushed something romantic about not smoking crack any more. And though I do, in the privacy of my own thoughts, think it to be a bit tacky that you'd hold me to a vow uttered under such extreme circumstances, I am nevertheless honor-bound to fulfill that promise, and I verily intend to. No matter how much willpower it takes, and no matter how inconvenient it may be, now and forevermore I shall find other ways to enjoy my crack, other than smoking it. For you, my dear.

And frankly, after I've made such a heady promise, and laid such a monumental burden willingly across my own shoulders, I find it a little insulting to have to explain myself to you. Not after all I've done to appease your sensitive palette and allay your bourgeois concerns about the health effects of second-hand cracksmoke. Some uncouth individuals might go so far as to suggest that you're being a bitch. Not that I'd hear a word of it, but rest assured that it has been said.

Surely you didn't expect me to give up crack entirely. If so, it's clear that your gains in physical therapy have made you greedy. My crack habit hurts no-one, and if they made car windshields out of candy glass like I've been suggesting for years, we wouldn't have to keep making these inconvenient trips to the hospital every time you forget to wear a seatbelt or are slow climbing into the car. It would also help if you weren't too impatient to wait for the airbag to inflate. But women will be women.

Or perhaps I'm merely misreading your response, and you're actually just curious as to how I plan on going about my whimsical crack habit without the aid of my good friend Prometheus, the God of Fire. Perhaps this logistical difficulty has left you dubious as to my sincerity in this endeavor. If this is the case, then we shall have a good laugh over this whole affair, after I fire all the servants that have been calling you a bitch.

My dear, you should know enough to trust my resourcefulness by now! Remember when that police officer wanted to haul me off to jail after that "crack-up" at the courthouse, when I rolled the Benz into city hall? Remember how I bought up all his gambling debts and blackmailed him into gathering his family and leaving town in the dead of night? A man capable of that kind of quick-thinking under fire should be laudably capable of getting by without the same, I say.

No, my dear wife, it's actually quite simple to powder a crack rock with a razor blade and snort it like common nose candy. Granted, it's grossly wasteful and expensive to partake of crack in this form, but a promise is a promise. Try to remember that the next time you're lecturing me about the cost of having one of our Bentleys fished out of the lagoon, would you dear?

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