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In October 2012, a farmer from a village near Sonepat in Haryana claimed to have become a father at the great-grandfatherly age of 96. While it made news across the world, many asked the obvious question: how can a man in his 90s be capable of producing babies? There have been other such "miracles" that hit the headlines. After the initial guffaw, the talk always veers back to the age of the new father and it intrigues. Women have a certain child-bearing age, beyond which only medical technology can help them become pregnant. What about men? Do they remain virile as long as they live? Do they remain virile long past other parts of the body have given in to old age?
A chance to ponder over this question came up again this past week. Spiritual leader Asaram Bapu, well into his seventies now, found himself embroiled in a controversy after he was alleged to have sexually assaulted a teenaged girl. Following his arrest, the police made him undergo a potency test. The law in India clearly states that any male suspect or accused in a sexual assault case should be sent to the doctors by the police for examination of his sexual potency, irrespective of age.
What exactly is a potency test? Andrologists, who are specialists in hormones and fertility, say that the test is done to determine whether an accused is capable of committing a sexual assault or not. Under Indian laws, a sexual assault or rape takes place when there is penile penetration of a woman's body part. The potency test can prove whether the perpetrator is physically capable of the act of penetration. "Tests are conducted on 18-year-olds and even 72-year-olds," says Rupin Shah, a Mumbai-based andrologist.
There are four ways to prove whether a man is potent:
The first method is semen analysis. "It is a common form of evaluation, in which the tests find out whether a male is fertile or not," says Manish Kulshreshta, an andrologist with Max Hospital in Delhi. A sample of semen is sent to a laboratory to determine certain characteristics of the semen.
The second and most common method - and the one used in Asaram's case - is a visual erection examination. "A doctor examines the sexual organ to check for any sort of dysfunction or damage," says Kulshreshta. Then there is manual stimulation of the private parts, as was done in the case of the disgraced godman. The man is perceived to be potent if his genital organ responds to the manual stimulation administered by the medical staff. "If manual stimulation doesn't work, then drug stimulators are injected to check potency," Kulshreshta adds.
The third test to check potency is through a penile Colour Doppler test which shows how much blood there is in the penile system and how good is the blood flow. This test is based on the fact that genital erection is a result of spongy tissue becoming engorged with blood. A sonography is done to evaluate whether there is proper flow of blood.
The fourth form is the Nocturnal Penile Tumescence test, which measures the number of spontaneous erections that occur at night. "A device is attached to the patient in his sleep in order to conduct this test," says Shah.
Doctors, however, aren't convinced that such tests can prove sexual potency or not. "There are drugs available which allow men to have sexual intercourse even when they are technically impotent," points out Shah. Besides, as the doctors explain, there is no age at which men lose their sexual potency. Men retain the ability to have sexual intercourse at any age, even in their 90s, depending only on their physical shape, they say.
The doctors' opinions, however, are unlikely to protect Asaram. The law recognises the tests and those carried out on the godman clearly indicated that the septuagenarian didn't suffer from erectile dysfunction. In other words, as the police would gleefully interpret, the white-bearded man is entirely capable of committing a sexual assault.
