He’s heard men say their doctors “neutered” them. “Your doctor might tell you you’ll have an erection strong enough for intercourse, but anal penetration requires 33 percent more rigidity,” Rosser said. And he’s keenly aware of how little information is available for men like him.
But he’s not just a researcher - he’s a survivor himself, diagnosed last year at age 59.
University of MinnesotaĪ professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Rosser has received a $3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to put together the first comprehensive rehabilitation program specifically for gay and bisexual men with prostate cancer. Simon Rosser, PhD, MPH, is a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. “The medical community say, ‘We don’t want to ask older heterosexual men questions that might upset them,’" Simon Rosser, an LGBTQ health specialist and co-author of " Gay and Bisexual Men Living With Prostate Cancer," told NBC News. It’s impossible to know how many gay men have been diagnosed prostate cancer, because questions about sexuality are rarely included in research studies. “To go into a urologist office, you walk in with all this shame and inhibition,” Brass lamented. That discomfort can spread to gay patients. They can’t even breathe the words ‘anal sex.’ Talking to a man about it is just impossible.” "If you bring another man, they don’t know what to do. “If you’re gay and you go to a urologist who hasn’t dealt with gay men, they’ll tell you, ‘Bring your wife with you,’" he said. That’s true in the doctor’s office, too, Brass added.