Something tells me the topic of the week is going to be sex. Nint, stop reading, please. Your parents are going to kill me.

This morning at work I received a series of e-mails, all with the word "penis"(misspelled) in the subject line. Here's an actual sampling of three that came through in the first hour of work alone:

The head of your ppenis is so sensitive
This tonic tab was created to help your pennis!
My peenis is always hard and is able to move without interruption!

Hello? When did I grow a penis? I have noticed, if you'll pardon the expression,
a surge in the volume of penis oriented messages showing up in my work e-mail in-box lately. Someone out there in e-mail land seems to be laboring over the impression that I am a man with some serious erectile dysfunction problems. Today alone, I received no less that ten messages, all concerned with my rigidness and staying power. Well, it's nice to know that someone cares.

What's more disturbing is the fact that important e-mails from clients are ending up in the spam firewall quarantine file. Urgent business matters languish in the wasteland of suspect message land, yet the penis messages are sailing right through without a moment's hesitation. Clearly, they must have that edge of urgency, that say, a $100,000 project sale does not.

Anyway, I took this delicate issue to our IT manager, a rather cynical man who let's just say is not particularly noted for his boisterous humor. I thought for sure that the subject of these particular e-mails might get a smile out of him. But no. He explained, very matter of fact, "Well, they're getting through because they're misspelling penis. The spam filter doesn't recognize it. It they spelt it P-E-N-I-S, you'd never see it." Well, thanks, chief. That was helpful.

Since I am burdened with these e-mails, I was intrigued to see what they were actually offering. I was staggered to find that I was able to access a few of these sites from work (which no doubt landed me on the IT police watch list). It's also amazing that I can read how to sustain an erection for six days, but yet I can't access the Victoria's Secret website to order an IPEX bra because access to the site is restricted. Clearly, maintaining an erection is far more important than proper breast support.

I also had to note that since these e-mails are clearly directed to men, the messaging is disturbing. The implication suggests men must be longer, thicker, harder, long lasting, etc, etc in order to satisfy a woman. So it's our fault? Listen, I think most women are just happy to have the high hard one...and more than once a month. So unless you have real problems, don't knock yourselves out, guys.

Now if today's post doesn't get a comment from my friend the Dick Doctor, I will be sorely disappointed.