Bicycle nose, that is.

This may be the science-of-the-obvious, but that title in the latest edition of The Journal of Sexual Medicine is just too irresistible.

Here’s the punch line: Using a nose-less bicycle seat greatly reduces the penile numbness and erectile dysfunction that has been a complaint among many male riders since the bicycle was invented. I didn’t even know there was such a seat until I read this study, but apparently they are readily available. Here is a sampling of styles.

Not exactly the coolest looking things around.

In biking, erectile dysfunction is caused by pressure on the perineum, the area between the anus and scrotum that house the nerves and arteries that go to the penis. The pressure, which comes from sitting on a bicycle seat with a nose extension, restricts blood flow to the penis. Bike long enough, and in some men the damage can be permanent.

In this study, researchers from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health studied 90 bike-riding police officers from five different metropolitan areas. The number of officers who said they had no numbness while cycling rose from 27 percent to 82 percent after they started using the no-nose saddles. The best part is they also experienced a significant improvement in erectile function. The officers liked the seats so much better that virtually all of them made the switch permanently.

“Different saddle designs may require some re-learning of ‘how to ride a bicycle,’ ” the researchers said. “But the health benefits to having unrestricted vascular flow to and from the penis and less penile numbness is self-evident.”

Indeed.

Most bike seats these days come with some kind of anatomical design to reduce pressure in that sensitive, and most of them work pretty well, said Bill Kempton, parts manager for Freewheel Bike in Minneapolis. Still, a fifth of the saddles they sell are returned or exchanged.

He said the store has two nose-less seats in stock, a C-shaped style made by Issimo. The down side of no-nose seats, he said, is that it you may not have as good a grip on the bike. “You’re sort of perched on them,” he said. “If you move a quarter inch the wrong way, you could slide off the seat.”

Are you convinced enough to be seen on such a seat in public? And is there any reason why this wouldn’t work for women, too?

Sexual desire in men is fairly straightforward. Women are more complicated. A lot of pharmaceutical effort has gone into making sure that men can remain sexually active for as long as they like. (Think Viagra). But there is nothing on the market for women who want to increase their sexuality. Not that pharma isn’t trying, but women — are more complicated.

This week a new study measuring the amount low sexual desire in 2,000 women between the ages of 30 and 70 was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. What’s interesting about this study is not how many women report that they have low sexual desire — 36.2 percent. What’s new is that the researchers measured how distressed women were by their disinterest in sex. That combination of low sexual desire and distress is called hypoactive sexual desire disorder. In other words, low sexual desire is not a problem unless it bothers you.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Procter & Gamble. P&G is in the process of developing a testosterone patch for women that would increase their libido, or sexual desire. Just as in men, testosterone is the hormone that drives sexual desire in women, and it fades with menopause.

“We know libido diminishes with age and within relationships,” said Dr. June LaValleur, an expert on women’s sexuality at the University of Minnesota. She’s also doing research on P&G’s testosterone patch, but was not involved in this study. (Sexual desire also fades in men, she said, “but nobody talks about that.”)

Dr. June LaValleur

Using a proprietary questionaire developed by P&G, the researchers measured how women of different ages were emotionally affected by their disinterest in sex.

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The photo of a naked man covered with tattoos flashed onto the screen. Professor Simon Rosser’s hand hovered above the computer mouse.

“Hot or not,” he asked, looking just a little sideways at me.

“Not,” I said. Click.

Up came another. A rear view of muscled butt cheeks. Simon looked at me again, his little gold earing glinting in the fluorescent light of his office.

Professor Simon Rosser

“Hot or not?”

“Hot.”

Up came another picture, the description of which is not fit for a family blog. Again, the sidelong glance, his finger poised to click.

“Hot or not?”

“NOT!” Click.

I swear he was enjoying this. What was a middle-aged heterosexual woman doing looking sexually explicit photos with a middle-aged gay man in the middle of a work day? Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m a reporter. My friend and colleague Connie Nelson, who does the Inside Out home video feature for startribune.com, always starts her snippets by explaining how she’s a huge snoop and her job gets her into some the best houses in town.

Well, I’m a snoop, too, but my job gets me into some different kinds of places altogether. The thing about snooping in new places is that you sometimes learn something about your self. Rosser, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s school of public health, spent an hour or touring me around, Sexpulse, a prototype he’s developing for a new on line HIV intervention web site for gay and bisexual men. Then he turned to me. “You notice,” he said, “you’ve been here just a bit and it’s gotten much easier to talk about sex.”

He was right. It had gotten easier. (It would be easier yet if it was just the computer and me.) And that’s his point. The HIV epidemic that is growing at a rate of 12 percent annually among young gay and bisexual men will never slow down unless we start talking about sex. That’s also true for the rising rates of all sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancies.

Back in the 1980’s when HIV/AIDS was at it’s peak there was a saying: “Silence equals death.” It’s just as relevant today.

Dr. Gary Remafedi, an expert on HIV and adolescent health at the university last week said, “we have to confront the realities of human sexuality. Burying our heads in the sand and pretending that people don’t have sex is not the solution.”

To read more about the web site and the growing rates of HV in gay and bisexual men, click here.

 Do you talk about sex? With your kids? With your partner? With your friends?

I’m always a little flummoxed when I come across statements like the one my colleague, Katherine Kersten, wrote in her  Sunday column about the epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases:  “But few are talking about the real reason for the epidemic: too many kids are having sex at too young an age.”

It’s true. STDs are spread by sex. Kersten and other social conservatives say that the solution is to tell teenagers and young adults not to have sex until they are married. Problem solved. But this is where I get flummoxed because, obviously, that’s not working.

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I’m guessing that a survey of 50 sex therapists may not be a rock solid foundation on which to base a conclusion that the “optimal time” for sexual satisfaction is 3 to 13 minutes of intercourse.

And when you think about it, that’s a pretty big range.

According to a story by the Associated Press, those are the findings will be published in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. The research was conducted by a psychology professor at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College in Pennsylvania.

In fact, endurance is not the problem, according to a study that the Journal carried in its April issue. Researchers reported on the results of the Global Better Sex Survey. (True fact.) They talked to more than 12,000 people — half men and half women — from around the world to ask them about their “aspirations and unmet needs.” They found that all aspects of sex — foreplay, intercourse, attraction, orgasm — were important to both sexes. But nearly half of the men reported some problems with erectile dysfunction, and more than half (63) percent of the women were unhappy about it, too. Though 74 percent of men said they were willing to take medication to improve it, only 7 percent said they were using it.

Conclusion: Erectile dysfunction around the world is the most pressing concern among men. And women, too.