What Every Gay Man Needs to Know About Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among American men and the second leading cause of deaths in men, after lung cancer. Men have a one in six chance of diagnosis with the number doubling for gay couples. While biology between gay and heterosexual men is the same, cultural differences in the ways in which gay men and heterosexuals experience diagnosis, treatment, and recovery vary widely. Most urologists, support groups, prostate cancer literature assume patients are heterosexual, leaving gay men to seek out reliable information particular to their needs on their own.


What Every Gay Man Needs to Know About Prostate Cancer provides gay men with the essential answers to important questions often left undiscussed, such as: Which treatment will allow me to continue to experience receptive and/or directive anal intercourse? Which treatment might preserve the ejaculate? If I choose a treatment that leaves me with no semen, how am I and my male sex partners likely to react? What if my penis never again gets hard enough to penetrate a man? What are the effects of anal intercourse on PSA readings? How long must one wait after treatment to engage in anal stimulation of any sort? How will the absence of a prostate gland affect anal pleasure? What are the complications if one has HIV/AIDS in addition to prostate cancer? Will the size of my penis shrink after surgery? Also included are an updated glossary of technical terms and an appendix of resources for those seeking further information and/or looking to speak with other gay men who are either going through or have been through what the reader may be experiencing.


Gerald Perlman, PhD has been a Supervisor of Psychotherapy at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, at Fordham, Pace, and Yeshiva Universities, and at the City University of New York. In his private practice in New York, Dr. Perlman specializes in individual and couples therapy.  For almost ten years (under the auspices of Malecare) he facilitated an ongoing, open-ended group for gay men who have been diagnosed with and/or treated for prostate cancer.