When Dr. Joshua Gonzalez tells people he’s a certified urologist, he knows what they’re going to say.
So he beats them to the quip.
Yes, he gets paid to “look at cocks all day.” Thank you for asking!
But in actuality, “looking at cocks” is just the tip of Gonzalez’s expertise. He specializes in sexual health, with the goal of providing a safe space for LGBTQ+ people. Gonzalez has lead his own practice in Los Angeles since 2015, where he treats queer folks of all stripes.
While some may dismiss concerns about sexual health as superfluous, Gonzalez knows better.
“It’s not curing cancer, but once someone’s cancer is cured, I’m there to help them pick up the pieces and get back their quality of life,” he said.
One way in which Gonzalez spreads the seeds of his knowledge is social media, where he’s accumulated nearly 225,000 followers on TikTok. He posts interactive videos on topics ranging from male performance myths to hormone replacement therapy.
In addition, Gonzalez is the co-founder of Popstar Labs, a sexual wellness brand that sells products meant to enhance the volume and taste of one’s seminal fluids and available at The Pride Store, an online marketplace dedicated to highlighting brands and products from queer and allied small businesses.
What can sperm tell us about our health and personal fitness? The answer is… quite a lot!
With that in mind, Queerty recently caught up with Gonzalez to chat all about semen, the misconceptions about size and whether being a sex expert intimidates prospective partners. Here’s what he had to say…
QUEERTY: What specific substances enhance sperm volume and taste?
JOSHUA GONZALEZ: Primary ingredients that increase volume are zinc and l-arginine. The data are limited, and mostly come from reproductive literature, because that’s the only place medicine cares about semen volume: how does it impact your ability to have a kid? But nothing had ever been studied with these ingredients together. We figured out the amounts that would be needed, and felt pretty strongly it would accomplish the increase in volume that we wanted.
The ingredients that improve the taste, or at least neutralize the taste, are bromelain, which is a pineapple extract, so there is something true to the theory that pineapple can sweeten the taste. The difference is, this is a very highly concentrated amount of it. You would have to eat truckloads of pineapple to accomplish the same thing. Then fructose, which is a primary sugar. Fructose is in our ejaculate already, because it is the fuel that sperm needs to swim. I’ve had very good results at accomplishing both of those goals.
What does our semen tell us about our health?
Good question! I would say it’s a marker of our overall health for a couple of reasons. No. 1, low semen volume can sometimes portend poor hydration status. One of the things we tell everybody who takes Popstar is, it’s important to take it with 16 ounces of water. Making sure people stay well hydrated will make the product work better. So [semen] is a marker of hydration status. A decrease in volume can sometimes portend hormonal issues, so guys with lower volume can sometimes have testosterone deficiency, or some other issue. If it tastes bad, that might be because of things you are consuming in your diet, or poor habits you may be engaging in. People who smoke, or people who drink a lot of alcohol, or people who eat a lot of red meat and other bad dietary things, can also make it taste bad. Then of course, low volume can also sometimes be an indicator of low fertility potential.
It seems like if you want the best tasting semen, or more volume, the key is just living a healthy life: eat well, hydrate. It doesn’t seem all that different from if you want anything in your body to work well…
When we see patients with sexual health problems—let’s take erectile dysfunction as an example—when people say, “What can I do to naturally enhance or improve my erections?,” the conversation is very similar to the conversation your primary care provider probably has with you about how to lead a healthy life. So that’s where there’s an overlap between overall health and sexual health. It’s a microcosm of how healthy you are.
On that note, what do erections tell us about our health?
Erectile function is a function of your cardiovascular system. That’s how erections happen: you get blood into your penis, and it expands and gets harder. One of the signs of cardiovascular disease is a decline in erectile function, and that can be a noticeable decline in spontaneous, or what we call “nocturnal erections.” So yes, there is validity to the assertion that having more or frequent nocturnal erections are sign of strong cardiovascular health. There’s actually been data published over the last 15 years that shows a man who has erectile dysfunction with no history of cardiovascular disease may benefit from a cardiovascular workup, because it’s usually the first sign of previously undiagnosed cardiovascular disease. The blood vessels in our penis are tiny, especially compared to the ones in our heart. You’re much likelier as a man to present with ED years before you would present with a heart attack or a stroke.
Are there any myths about male performance that you would like to dispel?
There’s a lot of emphasis put on size. Even in my practice, we do size enhancers, because it’s something a lot of men are concerned about. But the understanding that a lot of men have about what is “normal size” is inaccurate. The average erect penis in the U.S. is 5.5 inches. That’s not something people think as “normal,” especially when you see all of these big d*cks in porn.
Everyone on my Grindr grid is 7 inches or more. It’s incredible!
Exactly. They’re also probably not correctly measuring themselves, either. So just dispelling the myths of what an average sized penis is, is important. Also, how important size is. There’s data that shows partners value intimacy and connection much more than penis size in how they rate sexual satisfaction. That’s a big one.
Any others?
How long men should last in bed. Again, because of pornography and how sex is portrayed in media at large, a lot of people think sex should be lasting 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour. If it does for you, great. But if it’s something that happens in a much shorter time frame, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong. The average duration of intercourse is only 5-7 minutes. That surprises a lot of people, because they think if they can’t have sex for 30 minutes there’s something deficient with them.
Another myth we address is that erectile dysfunction only happens with older men. We call it the “10% rule.” The prevalence of erectile dysfunction goes up by 10% with each decade in life, so roughly 30% of men in their 30s, 40% of men in their 30s, 50% of men in their 50s experience erectile dysfunction. So it’s actually a common problem. If you’re a younger man who has erectile dysfunction, it doesn’t mean it’s only in your head, or that you’re the only person experiencing that.
As a doctor who does specialize in sexual health, do you find that people are intimidated to get into bed with you?
Well, I am currently married and monogamous…
Oh! So I guess you guys have gotten over that barrier.
But he told me when we first started dating he thought it was kind of intimidating, given the nature of what I do. He was like, “I’m sure you get hit on,” which does happen. But he got over it. If anything, I think it makes me a better sexual partner, because I know all the tips and tricks. But I would say when I was single, I think people found it intriguing. When someone hears that you’re a urologist, they either have no idea what you’re talking about, or they have a personal story. “I saw a urologist once.” Then they feel obligated to share that story with you. But a lot of times the conversation would be like, “Tell me about the biggest dick you’ve ever seen. For a lot of people, I think there’s more intrigue than intimidation.”
What’s the most tiring question you get asked?
I would say, “Do you look at dicks all day?” From gay men, that’s usually their first question. I had a stock answer whenever I would tell someone new that I was dating what I did. They would say, “Oh, why did you get into that?” And I would say, “Well, obviously because I love looking at cocks all day.” I would just say it before they could ask.