When is a bike seat like a zafu?

A recent piece in the New York Times on the dangers of bicycle seats (especially for men...) was the most forwarded article, according to the Times' website. And no surprise.

Not to be coy about it, the problem discussed in the piece, in the words of Dr. Steven Schrader, a reproductive health expert who studies cycling at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, is that bike seats can kill your love life.

It was no longer a question of 'whether or not bicycle riding on a saddle causes erectile dysfunction.' Instead, [Schrader] said in an interview, 'The question is, What are we going to do about it?'

Ouch.

I'll spare you the details (it involves a sevenfold increase in pressure on the perineum, and that's enough for a blog entry!) but here's the practice-related question: Sitting on a zafu, based on first-hand experience, can cause the same symptoms. Oxygen is not getting to an important part of your anatomy, which goes numb. As Dr. Irwin Goldstein, a Boston-based urologist, notes, "Numbness is your body telling you something is wrong." (This is the same doctor who notes, "there are only two kinds of male cyclists - those who are impotent and those who will be impotent.")

Obviously, there's a better way to sit on the cushion, but how many people are not even considering the issue? (Leaving aside, for a moment, the question of detachment...)

When bikers first began hearing of the possible problems, Dr. Goldstein explains, they became angry and defensive. "They said cycling is healthy and could not possibly hurt you. Sure you can get numb. But impotent? No way."

Yes, way.

I've switched to a seiza bench because the pain in the knees -- both operated on, neither with much catiledge left -- was too much. Who knew?

A P.S. ---

"The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of the mountain, or in the petals of a flower." -- Robert Pirsig