The Atomic Dog is a weekly feature that isn't necessarily about weight training or bodybuilding. Sometimes it's about sports in general, sex, women, or male issues of some kind. At times it's inspirational, but it can also be informative, funny, and even a little weird, but hopefully, always interesting and a little controversial. We hope it reflects the nature of Testosterone magazine in that, just as no man is completely one-dimensional and only interested in one subject, neither are we. If it makes you think or laugh — or even get angry — it's served its purpose.

Apparently it's very hard to get into the Academy of Veterinary Sciences in Paris.

Once you get in — if you get in — they throw you a big party. They have it right there in their lab, late at night, and there's drinking and laughing and they presumably exchange wonderful dead hamster stories.

Only then you start to feel really, really, sleepy because they've dropped some animal tranquilizer in your drink. Once you pass out, they take off all your clothes, ball your naked body up the best they can, and roll you into the belly of a gutted dead horse.

Then they stitch up the belly with you inside. Afterwards, they continue to party.

You eventually wake up, and all you know is that you can't see, you can't move, and that you're somewhere really hot and moist and the walls of your enclosure are stinky like the meat your laid-off sister buys with her food stamps from the specialty meat store.

Meanwhile, you can hear the muffled laughs of your new colleagues.

If you haven't drunk too much, you might figure out you've been sewn into the belly of a dead horse, but oddly, that realization doesn't give you much comfort. You start trying to claw your way out. Hopefully you find the incision before you go insane, and then you pull apart the stitches with your bloody hands until there's room enough to put your head through the hole.

If you had any sense of humor at all about the whole thing, you'd say something like, "Here's Johhhnnny!" but you probably don't.

Instead you writhe and worm your way through this equine Caesarian section and you're born onto the cold tile floor, a bawling, puking, new-born veterinarian.

Then they give you a glass of wine, pat you on the back, and say, "Now you're one of us."

Who knew veterinarians were such tough bastards?

I'm Shocked! Shocked I Tell You!

The image of the dead horse is what came to mind when I saw the videos of Elizabeth Edwards tell-all appearance on Oprah last week.  Mind you, Mrs. Edwards isn't the veterinarian and Oprah isn't the horse, regardless of dietary evidence to the contrary.

Instead, it's her husband that's been bound up in the belly of the dead beast.

Before I explain, let me give some of you the rundown of the whole John Edward's debacle. Edwards, as you know, was running for President in 2007 and 2008. Despite humble beginnings, he'd become extremely wealthy as a trial lawyer. He later became a Congressman from South Carolina, ran as John Kerry's running mate in the 2004 Presidential elections, and then sought the office on his own in the last election.

However, just weeks after it looked like Barack Obama had won the nomination, news of an Edwards affair surfaced.

The country was shocked, shocked I tell you!

Apparently, Edwards had been campaigning with supposed videographer Rielle Hunter in tow, who, in concert with John's stump-speech "Two Americas" theme, was acting as one of John's two American wives.

What really pissed off the country, however, was that this news surfaced soon after it became known that John's wife, the aforementioned Elizabeth, had terminal cancer.

Edward's political career was flushed into the vortex of the toilet. Except for one embarrassing press conference and last week's appearance on Oprah (after Elizabeth spoke), John's been conspicuously absent from public life.

Never mind that the affair had taken place before Elizabeth had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, all America heard was that he was cheating on his dying wife and America hated him.

Plus they felt that everything he stood for, his alleged interest in the poor, in health care, in everything, was a sham.

After all, how can a man who sticks his thing into the vagina of a woman who is not his wife until some stuff comes out have any sincere interest in the public's welfare? How can a man who sticks his thing into the vagina of a woman who is not his wife until some stuff comes out have anything to contribute at all?

I Understand Your Pain

The thing is, I understand, as do probably most of the men in the country. Only we don't want to say anything because, damn it, there isn't much we wouldn't do to avoid that particular argument with our wives or girlfriends.

The trouble is, John, you were too good looking. Most couples are esthetically compatible, but you and Elizabeth? Ha! Given the choice of boning you or your wife, even a straight guy might choose to give you an ass-fuck.

And you were painfully aware of your looks, John. How could it be otherwise? And couple that with the celebrity thing, and you must have been swatting them away for as long as you can remember. Only you noticed you were getting older, and you must have realized that your stud days were numbered.

So there was all that moist fruit, hanging so low on the tree, so accommodating that all you had to do was turn your hand over and wiggle your finger in a come here motion, and lo and behold those fuzzy, cleaved, thong-covered peaches would gladly fall ass-up in your bed.

That, coupled with the realization that time was eroding your looks, must have made all that low-hanging fruit even harder to resist. I don't know how many of us could have turned it down, John, I really don't.

And really, it's not like Elizabeth did much to keep you interested. By her own admission, she was comfortable with herself, was heavy most of her life, wore a frumpy headband at home with silly striped socks and didn't worry about her looks that much.

But there was that thing, that one thing you made him promise when you first got married, the one "present" you asked for, the thing that must have made you feel you didn't have to try that hard. You asked for his fidelity.

As Bill Maher explained on Real Time last Friday, that's like asking your husband to eat nothing but toast every day for the rest of his life.

Not exactly, Bill, but most of us catch your drift, catch it so well that it makes us wince.

Now That's Stylin'!

But John couldn't handle just eating the toast. He needed some sweet, sweet waffle, a waffle stuffed with creamy butter, with syrup running down its smooth, curvy thigh. Maybe the waffle he chose wasn't the tastiest waffle, but hey, at least it wasn't the same damn toast he'd been eating every day for years.

I get it, but America hates you, John, because your wife is so damn sweet. Plus there's that terminal cancer thing.  That's why you're in the belly of that dead horse.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if people didn't know your wife, couldn't assign a face to her name. After all, former Speaker of the House, possible future Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich left his wife for another woman while she was on her deathbed.

For some reason, that didn't seem to bother anybody.

It's probably like the deer that gets trapped on an ice floe. The rescue efforts get national coverage. America holds its breath. The deer gets a name. It becomes America's deer. The deer gets rescued. America cheers. The deer signs a contract with Creative Artists and does commercials for the Massengill people who manufacture that lovely scented feminine wash.

Meanwhile nobody gives a rat's ass about all the anonymous deer that get blown away by hunters, eaten by wolves, or pureed by the grills of Mac trucks.

Other countries seem to take this infidelity thing less seriously. Francois Mitterand, Prime Minister of France between 1981 and 1995, fathered a child with his long-time mistress and no one seemed to care. Both his wife and his mistress showed up for his funeral.  

Now that's stylin'.

South Africa's newly elected president, Jacob Zuma, has had at least two wives, but is thought to have been married five times and fathered as many as 18 children. He explains it thusly:

"There are plenty of politicians who have mistresses and children that they hide as to pretend they're monogamous. I prefer to be open. I love my wives and I'm proud of my children."

Try that in America, Jacob.

I'm not, by any means, advocating infidelity. I'm just of the mind that how we react to such a seemingly common transgression should be reappraised. Whether a man in a supposedly committed relationship diddles another woman should be between the man and the offended party.

We should stop holding politicians to such unrealistic standards, lest we really want to be governed by a bunch of clones of Kenneth from 30 Rock.

Besides, that damn fidelity thing is so harsh.  I know, I know, people always say that committed men live longer, but to paraphrase Bill Maher again, so do declawed, neutered house cats.

They spend their days with their noses pressed against the screen because their owners won't let them out.  They look longingly at the beautiful butterflies flitting around among the flowers, wondering how it would be to cavort with those butterflies, to massage their little butterfly breasts, run their tongue along their lithe little butterfly bodies, to slip off their Rock n' Republic jeans and mount them from behind while talking pictures on their iPhone and sending them to their friends with the caption, "Nailed it."

Don't Leave the Boy Alone With the Cookie Jar

I guess I'm contemplative (and skeptical) about marriage because, just a few nights ago, I was camped outside the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas. I was standing on the walkway that overlooks their famed fountain, the one that ejaculates water into the air every 15 minutes in accompaniment to some lame Cher song.

Just beyond the fountains is the faux Eifel Tower that's the signature landmark of the Paris Hotel. You can't take a picture of the fountains without catching the tower, but it's overkill, the visual equivalent of dipping gummy bears into powdered sugar.

I was smoking a cigar and people watching while taking a break from playing poker. Couple after couple, most of them having just been married somewhere in Vegas, were having their pictures taken in front of the aforementioned fountain and tower.

Most of them were dressed in tuxedos and wedding gowns and they patiently awaited their turns as their individual photographer shepherded them between photogenic backdrops.

Even though this was their wedding day, the day they foreswore ever lusting after another woman, a good number of the grooms were already checking out the other men's brides and their respective bridesmaids.

Another guy, apparently inspired by the photographers, decided he too wanted a sexy picture of his wife, despite the fact that she was dressed in a shapeless housecoat of a dress, black faded socks, and weathered sandals. She wore no make-up, had thick black glasses, and looked a lot like Mrs. Swan from Mad TV.

Try as he might in his Sisyphean task, he couldn't find the right pose to sex her up, couldn't make her look like the other girls that were being photographed. His disappointment was apparent. He put the camera, by now a lot heavier, around his neck and walked away, turning his head one last time to look at the pretty things he coveted.

Please, Whatever You do, Don't Test Me.

It's obvious that lusting after other women and the urge to stray isn't just the purview of politicians. It plagues most of us.

Are most of us who don't stray made of stiffer moral fiber? I don't think so. I think that politicians, by the nature of their jobs, are away from their families and wives a lot more than most regular Joes, along with having such diverse schedules that their wives or girlfriends never know where the hell they are.

And really, deep down inside, don't most women know that you don't leave the boy alone with the cookie jar, especially as, nowadays, those damn cookies adorn themselves with such tasty sprinkles and spices?

Hell, it's been my personal battle. It's been the battle of alpha male types as long as history has been recorded, and most certainly long before.

I don't think money can corrupt me, but pussy? Please, whatever you do, don't test me. Even Gandhi and Martin Luther King couldn't say no, let alone considerably less evolved people like John Edwards or Bill Clinton.

I just think we should stop being shocked when we hear about it. Let the wife or girlfriend shove you in the belly of the beast. As long as someone does a good job and doesn't violate the public trust, the whole thing deserves a good ol' French C'est la vie.

Note: Thanks to Chuck Palahniuk for the allegedly true story about the French veterinarians.