In the Middle Ages, male anxiety was not treated with conversation or reflection. It was treated with the body. Physicians of the time believed that excessive anger, melancholy, and restlessness in men came from an imbalance of bodily fluids — specifically, tension believed to gather in the testicles when desire was left unresolved. When the body was disturbed, the soul followed. To restore harmony, the fluids had to be regulated. The treatment had a name: therapeutic genital massage. It was not practiced in secrecy. Midwives performed it. Trained healers did. In some regions, even monks known for their devotion to natural philosophy were said to oversee the procedure, convinced they were serving both science and God. Men arrived in poor condition. Some trembled uncontrollably. Some wept without knowing why. Others were consumed by rage, snapping at servants and family alike. They described a pressure inside themselves — heat, restlessness, an agitation that would not fade. The treatment was methodical. Clinical. Spoken of in careful language. And it worked. Men left calmer. Their faces flushed, their steps slow and measured. The shaking stopped. The anger melted into quiet contentment. Healers recorded that patients departed “balanced,” walking gently, smiling faintly, as though something heavy had finally been released. Many returned. Some claimed their anxiety always returned on the same day each week. Others insisted the symptoms reappeared only if too much time passed between visits. A few, less convincingly, described familiar aches and unrest even when nothing seemed wrong. Appointments filled quickly. When asked what troubled them, the men answered with the same phrases again and again: “My fluids are unsettled.” “I must regulate what gathers below.” They did not speak of pleasure. They did not name desire. They believed — or pretended to believe — that this was medicine. But the Church was watching. And physicians were beginning to argue among themselves. Because beneath the calm faces and repeated visits lay an uncomfortable realization: the treatment did not cure the anxiety. It created dependence. The relief was temporary. The imbalance always returned. What had been presented as healing was quietly becoming ritual. And behind closed doors, whispers began to spread — that the practice was not restoring order, but encouraging indulgence. That monks who claimed devotion to science were crossing lines they no longer recognized. That what began as medicine was becoming something else entirely. Soon, authorities would intervene. Records would disappear. Manuals would be destroyed. The practice would be renamed, redefined, and eventually condemned. But long before it vanished from official history, those who experienced it understood one thing clearly: The body remembered the relief. And once awakened, it refused to be silenced. The true secret was never the treatment itself. It was how easily virtue learned to disguise desire — and how dangerous that disguise became once everyone agreed to believe it.