Will Self

Each month Esquire commissions an unsparing inspection of Will Self ’s body. This month: the buttocks (part two)

In this month’s bodily probe, the award-winning writer rectifies a pain in his rear end

last month, i — so to speak — examined the arse; but I feel I didn’t really get properly to grips with it. If you like, I did a buttock’s worth of arse — but not the full monty. So, here I am again, back for a second bite of that beautiful and cloven apple. Previously, I considered the arse in its erotic guise — albeit with a lot of dodgy psychologising — but let’s face it, our arses are implicated in an act yet more central to our lives than coitus; I refer, of course, to sitting down. No doubt, back in the day, when we did a great deal of running around after meat, or crawling around after veg, the arse was a fairly inconsequential body part, but with the evolution of the office, the arse became of paramount impor- tance. (Back in my own day when I worked in offices, I used to spend a great deal of time musing which came first: my co-workers’ fat arses, or their jobs. I’m musing still.)

Nowadays, the average Briton could probably survive the loss of a limb with a fair degree of equanimity: after all, modern prostheses are amazing, almost rendering us superhuman, but, as yet, there’s no possibility of an arse-transplant. This is why we should all give generously to arse-based charities seeking to ameliorate the lot of those with crippling arse conditions which make it impossible for them to, for example, take a load off — let alone hunker down. But we’re selfish creatures, au fond, and it wasn’t until I myself began to be troubled with

an arse affliction that I seriously considered the lot of my fellow sufferers.

The affliction concerned was haemorrhoids, which is probably the commonest. Indeed, if someone’s managed to reach early-middle age without suffering the prolapse of these anal veins, then they can’t be doing much sitting down — or eating for that matter. As a writer — and one who’s done a fair amount of restaurant reviewing in his time — piles were pretty much an industrial injury for me, and over the years I became accustomed, from time to time, to have to apply the old steroid cream to the rectal area along with the occasional glycerine suppository to effect… egress. But about five years ago, the haemorrhoids began to emerge with grotesque regularity: as if they were blood-engorged and shitsmeared cuckoos, while my arse was simply a body clock, counting its way down to my eventual dissolution.

In common with many men, I find it difficult to address chronic health issues — we fear being hypochondriacally hysterical, don’t we? — and it was this, rather than any squeamishness, that prevented me seeking any help. Then, providentially, I did — if you’ll forgive the turn of phrase — open up to my friend, Bob. Or rather, Bob told me that he’d been hors de combat, due to some surgery to correct his chronic piles. The standard surgical intervention for haemorrhoids is simply to cut them off: no, really, give them the chop. But, as Bob explained to me, this is a pretty bad idea, since these vessels aren’t actually surplus to requirements at all: rather, they fill with blood during excretion in order to, as it were, aid the shaping and expulsion of stools and ensure that the anus closes properly after the bowels have moved. Piles occur when the vessels fill up with blood though don’t empty: but instead prolapse.

Bob told me he’d been under the scalpel of one Pasquale Giordano, consultant colorectal surgeon to the stars, and that he could report nothing but ease and satisfaction following the operation. Mister Giordano’s online profile says that: “I am the surgeon who first introduced in the UK the Transanal Haemorrhoidal Dearterialisation technique for the treatment of haemorrhoids and over the years I have refined the technique that has now become the standardised THD technique.” And that’s probably all you need to know about the matter until, that is, you find yourself in a gleaming clinic, actually face-to-face with the arse man himself. I confess: it was the first time I’d gone private for surgery (other than the dental variety), but if you’re thinking of buying a couple of ounces of pure cocaine, or having bespoke evening dress handmade in Savile Row, you could do worse than spunk the dosh off on your… arse.

Because that’s about how much it cost me to have Giordano get in there and do the necessary. Frankly, it’s the best deal I’ve done in a long time — possibly ever. Obviously, as I was sitting uncomfortably opposite Giordano, discussing my anus, I was already thinking about writing this column — in fact, I’ve considered writing a modern-day version of Molière’s The Misanthrope, in order to entertain as many people as possible with my tail tale — yet my allegiance to the THD technique isn’t only to do with its reliable capacity to generate copy. No: the operation worked, and I now feel as if I have the anus, if not the portrait, of Dorian Gray. The procedure itself took place under a general anaesthetic, but I was in and out of the clinic faster than… well, I think I’ll leave it to your own imagination to construct a suitable image; suffice to say it was fast.

The only complaint I have about the entire business regards the recovery time. True, Mr Giordano didn’t cut my haemorrhoids off — he put a couple of stitches in so that they’d once more empty themselves of blood, and a couple more to reattach them higher up in my anus — but his estimate that I’d be up and about in three days, and tackling around half my normal workload, was woefully optimistic. About 10 days after the surgery I was still effectively incontinent, and found myself crawling about on the floor of my local chemist. Not, I hesitate to reassure you, because I’d shat myself, but because I was looking for adult-size nappies, in case I did.

I suppose the only question that needs answering after this, um, evacuation of a column, is: did my experience of arse surgery leave me unable to appreciate the derrière in its more sensual role? To which the answer is a resounding “no”; because once you’ve reached rock bottom, the only way is… up!

The average Briton could probably survive the loss of a limb with a fair degree of equanimity: after all, modern prostheses are amazing, almost rendering us superhuman, but, as yet, there’s no possibility of an arse transplant