Men, can you read this without holding your johnson? (No, that’s not the Q of the day — that’s at the end).
First penis transplant reversed after two weeks. It was a successful operation from a medical standpoint. The organ was donated by the parents of their 22-year-old son, who was declared brain dead. However the patient — and his wife — requested that it be removed two weeks after the operation because of the psychological impact of this unusual transplant on them.
Both the man and his wife had requested the surgery. He had been unable to have intercourse or urinate properly since the accident that occurred 8 months before the surgery was performed.
Ten days after the operation, which had been approved by the hospital’s medical ethical committee, the recipient had been able to urinate. There had been no signs of the 10-centimeter (4-inch) organ being rejected by the recipient’s body. But Hu said more cases and longer observation are needed to determine whether sexual sensation and function can be restored.
“The patient finally decided to give up the treatment because of the wife’s psychological rejection, as well as the swollen shape of the transplanted penis� Hu added.
For discussion’s sake, an honest question — is this more or less psychologically traumatic than the world’s first face transplant, which made headlines because of all the ethical issues raised by that operation? In either instance, why?
Related:
* This is the real extreme makeover
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More traumatic to whom?
I think to a person and their intimates, the willy swap is probably more traumatic, purely because there is so little opportunity to get used to it. It’s always a rude shock, whereas the face you see continuously and can get used to.
But to the majority of people who don’t have to see the new schlong, I can’t imagine that they care.
Men, can you read this without holding your johnson?
Crap, I lost that contest before it even started.
A four-incher? Hmm, I’d've sent it back too. Why accept a transplant from the runt of the litter?
The question of “trauma” is relative, as ParadigmK suggests. I’d think not having a functioning penis at all would be more traumatic in the long term than having a transplant that needed time to get used to. (The phrase “short term” comes to mind but I try to limit myself to just one size joke per post.)
A friend of mine used to ask the question: If you were trapped in a burning building with your penis clamped in a vise (how it got there is irrelevant) and only a rusty knife to fee yourself, what would you do?
It’s amazing how many men have a hard time answering that question, myself included. It might seem silly, but a penis is pretty much any man’s very favorite part, and I suspect that is a cross-cultural phenomenon.
But how silly is it, really? Consider the deep traumas suffered by women who are forced too undergo radical mastectomy. Sex is a prime mover in life; removal or serious alteration of something we consider central to both sex and our sexual identification is almost certain to be deeply scarring in many more ways than just the physical.
Men, can you read this without holding your johnson? (No, that’s not the Q of the day — that’s at the end)
Pun?
I really wonder about the circumstances under which the wife was so upset. Cultural? Selfish? Physiologically ignorant on a grand scale?
Ask any 3-year old boy how important it is to be able to pee independently, and standing up too. Basic functioning here. Now this poor dude will have to have catheters the rest of his life because of attitudes toward a simple body part that go way beyond its basic functions.
A four-incher? Hmm, I’d’ve sent it back too. Why accept a transplant from the runt of the litter?
I’m pretty sure they’re referring to flaccid length. I doubt they made a cadaver’s penis erect just to see what kind of length the transplantee could be looking forward to.
I suspect that four inches is the flaccid length. Those things stretch quite a bit, you know.
I’d be thrilled to get any transplant that helped me function normally or close to it. Heck, I’d be thrilled to have transplants that don’t help - I’d love a tail, for example. Extra arms, a vagina, and opposable thumbs on my feet would be nice, too.
My body is scheduled for full recycling when I die, and I’d be quite happy for someone to get my johnson or my face if needed. I understand being a little wigged out about getting a used organ from a dead person, and I certainly don’t judge the guy or changing his mind about it. His wife getting all wigged out is a little bothersome to me - changing things around so soon after surgery without giving a good long time to come to terms with the new situation seems rash and any pressure she may have brought to bear is rather unsupportive, but western ideas of spousal relationships don’t really apply in this case, so whatever.
Seems my wit was a little dry today.
It seems to me that the psychological trauma of a new penis is borne by the couple, and that makes it more problematic. After all, the woman is going to have to get used to the idea of a penis not originally her lover’s being inside of her (vagina, mouth, or other). And I could see some women being totally weirded out over that. That said, I think the poor guy, bullied as he seemed to be by his wife, had made an exceptionally poor choice, to have it removed.
If I were the doctor, I would say, “I cannot remove it until the swelling has gone down. To take it off right now would traumatize more of what little penile flesh have have left.” Which I think is a good, factual answer.
And, yes, to you women out there, men really, really are attached to our penises, on many different levels. It’s a primary part of being male, even more than breasts are a part of being female. So, yeah, losing (ie, having it chopped off) a penis is devastating, and I, for one, if that happened, would go for a penis transplant. (As for erection, if the sensory nerves worked even a little, I’d just have them install one of the pumps they give impotent old men).
I wonder if the wife’s problem is conditioning….she, as a good married woman, is only supposed to er…interact…with one penis. This new one, no matter that it’s now attached to hubby…I’m guessing she does not see it as “his” but as belonging to a stranger.
is this more or less psychologically traumatic than the world’s first face transplant, which made headlines because of all the ethical issues raised by that operation? In either instance, why?
I would think and hope that even to my significant other a face transplant would be more of a concern: people identify others so much by their face, your face becomes part of your persona (etym.: mask). OTOH, I should like to think my penis is not what makes me unique as a person. As ugly as my mug is and as nice as people say my penis is, I still think my face is a far better feature of mine than my schlong.
It’s amazing how many men have a hard time answering that question, myself included. - warren
I have a hard time with that one simply imagining the sheer physical pain of actually doing the cutting rather than letting whatever happens, even if it be painful, just happen. For some of us, as much as moralists tell us (quite rightly) there is a minimal difference between ommission and commission, a lot of us feel very differently about the two mechanisms. In some cases, I would rather be in control of something that would inflict pain on me (e.g. I would rather just give myself an epinephrine shot than use one of those epi-pens where you press a button and it does the rest in such a forcefull manner that it’s too scary to think about), in some cases I would rather not be the one inflicting pain on myself but rather would prefer to be passive and console myself that the pain cannot be helped as I cannot do anything about it (whereas if I cut penis off, I could not so console myself as I would be the cause of the pain).
Ask any 3-year old boy how important it is to be able to pee independently, and standing up too.
Wait a minute. We’re supposed to stand up?
I guess this would explain why I’ve never figured out how to sit on one of those porcelain urinals without my butt getting cold.
That also might explain the odd looks that I get….
Nope; I cringed and reached protectively for it. It’s ok little buddy, I promise I’m not replacing you!
I have no idea. Honestly, none. Either one could be psychologically traumatic, for both the individual and the partner. The face transplant might have a wider range though, including friends, relatives, coworkers, etc.
Oh. My. God.
Bit of a warning sign on something like this next time, p’raps?
*stiff drink*
Right then. I must be even more of an outlier than I thought. Skeevy as such thoughts are, literally losing face way more traumatic. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that to most people the face IS the perception of the person, both self and others. The “me” that I am seems to me to be located about two inches back of the eyes, centered between them. So anything about the face is getting *real* close — too close — to being ME.
My little unit? Far, far away. Assuming (big — or should I say “questionable,” since this is getting sophomoric here — assumption of course) that it works at all, I could care less. And given the bell curve, any transplant would be at least 50% likely to be an upgrade anyway.
that article raised way more questions than it answered- number one being “what the hell happened to his original cock”?
same story as the face trancplant lady? it got chewed off by angry dogs while he was passed out drunk?
I guess i could live without a penis more easily than I could live without a face. Since we just HAD to ask.
As to the actual trauma of having a new cock, i think that would be relativly minor as compared to having a new face. It’s not like my girlfriend has a transparent lower abdomen and we have to stare at it in action.
Culturally, from what I understand from my “doctor of oriental medicine” possessing aunt, and a couple of odd anime plots, asian cultures generally belive that your body parts are yours, imbued with your spirit, death or no death- so transplants are considered even more freakish there than they are here.
/so, i’m wondering, could having your 40yrold husband’s manhood replaced by that of a straping young man half his age be considered a bonus?
Two weeks doesn’t seem like enough time to make anything other than an irrational decision about this particular transplant. They said there was swelling that made it look abnormal–swelling goes down.
Damn, I thought I’d be able to get through a post without double entendre. Oh well.
Personally, if my husband had a penis transplant that enabled him to urinate more effectively and without the use of a catheter, he’d have my full support. No matter how hot our love life had the potential to be, I suspect he’d be urinating a lot more often.
I had to go back to the source story for that. For a moment It looked like it was the _recipient’s_ son that donated the member. That resulted in a whole new level of creepy for me, and I wouldn’t be surprised about the psychological implications of “incest by proxy” that such a transplant might result in.
But while the thought of another man’s meat as a replacement for my own dosen’t affect me much, i can see how my other thought could just as easily wind up as being “adultery by proxy”.
And by that token the face transplant is a horrifying prospect. So much of our identification of a person is bound up in the face, that I could see serious psychiatric issues caused by looking in the mirrir each day, and having that little lizard brain in the back yelling “That’s not me!!”.
Hell, I can’t even look in a mirror without giggling for 2 or 3 days after shaving my beard off completely.
also, the “swollen” thing- i’m guessing there could be a lot of difference between the old penis and the new one, leading to a very obvious seam- there could be a very obvious and alarming transition from the old mr. wang to the new mr. wang.
/because if your jokes arn’t tasteless on at least two levels, they arn’t worth telling.
Sex is a prime mover in life; removal or serious alteration of something we consider central to both sex and our sexual identification is almost certain to be deeply scarring in many more ways than just the physical.
I’ve never had a penis, but I imagine if I had, and needed a new one, the psychological disconnect of having someone else’s dick attached to me would be like trying to live in someone else’s body. Much more so than having someone else’s breasts, I think, because the penis gets personified much more than they do, given its appearance of having a will of its own. It’s easier to think of breasts as objects and penises as actors.
Getting someone else’s pussy, on the other hand, might be interesting.
Well as I understand it from reading a post at SLADE Magazine, even if you get a face transplant you still look like yourself. The tissue and mussels still fits over the structure of the face.
There were stories years ago about women rejecting husbands because they had had heart transplant all; based on the confusion between the heart and soul of a person. I have no idea if the stories are true. I have an idea that the woman in this penis transplant case had some identity confusion along the same lines. Although I would guess that most women would not be able to identify their lovers by pictures of the penis alone.
Anyway, personally speaking, I would have no problem with getting a 22 year old penis (hey I will be 56 on Thursday). My questions would be, how soon can I use it for something other then pissing? Would it behave like it was 22 years old or as if it is 56 years old? (Guess which way I would prefer). Whose nuts would I have, or more importantly if I had 22 year old nuts would I produce someone else’s sperm?
Yes I manage to read the post without holding my manhood. I make it a habit of avoiding getting my penis in a vice when the building is on fire. Actually I am very careful about what I put my penis in the first place.
I’d have no problem with it, so long as it was functional. (The “swollen shape” thing makes me think there was more here than just psychological trouble here). Yes, I like having a penis better than not, but not more than I like having a heart better than not–and probably not more than I like having a face better than not.
I think anyone would have some issues with having “someone else’s” heart/face/naughty bits. But “someone else” gave them up so you could have them. Once transplanted, they’re yours.
“It’s not like my girlfriend has a transparent lower abdomen and we have to stare at it in action”
But wouldn’t that be cool if you could see what goes on internally during intercourse? Perhaps distracting, but very cool.
It wasn’t clear to me whether the guy in question had to use a catheter to pee (I may have missed a reference to that in the article) or just had to sit down. Is that a huge trauma for men, having to sit to pee?
Wow. Let me know if Lexington Steele winds up brain dead/in a coma/asleep!
Also, I wonder how well it was able to achieve erection. The machinery down there can be really finicky… I wonder if this sort of thing can lead to cadaver penises for ftms? Probably 30 years away, if it’s even possible.
All I know is I fear any accident that would leave my penis mangled than one that would leave my face mangled - the resulting implant surgery in either case though would not be nearly as traumatic as needing either surgery in the first place. Or so I’d imagine. And I fucking hope I only have to imagine it.
In both cases, face and penis, having a new and strange one is a LOT better than not having one at all. Assuminfg, of course, that you had a penis to start with. I imagine it would very traumatic for a woman to wake with a strange penis attached to her.
Ledasmom: researchers had volunteers perform in an MRI tube just for that purpose. I don’t know how to make pretty links, so here is an ugly one that leads to a discussion of the paper:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/04/sex_in_the_mri.php
It’s fascinating stuff, unless one prefers to lie back and think of England.
Junk Science:
In some places it’ll get you arrested.
In others it’ll get you into swinger’s groups.
I’m not convinced I’d recognise my own.
I’d have thought it would be weirder to have a different face. A penis is just this thing with blood vessels. It doesn’t have expressions like a face. (well, it has a couple). But like Geeno said, it’s an entirely different situation if you’ve already lost yours.
“In some places it’ll get you arrested.”
Dude, do I have to point out that that joke gets its humor from the idea that men own their sex partners?
Ick.
Don’t mean to threadspam, and you might already know…but Estelle Ramey died
Sept 8 this year.
http://www.drunkduck.com/Taking_Stock
Would it behave like it was 22 years old or as if it is 56 years old? (Guess which way I would prefer). - Moopaw
I dunno about you, but I would like the best of both worlds … the refractory period of a 22 year old but at least the stamina I have now (I’m young enough to be your … um … younger brother) or better the stamina I hope to continue to gain as I’m less, er, hyped up on young-’un impatience hormones …
I imagine it would very traumatic for a woman to wake with a strange penis attached to her. - Geeno
I always thought they should do a version of freeky-friday but instead of a mother/daughter swap, it should be a male/female swap.
When I die all of my organs will be donated to scince, except for my ding-dong. That will be bronzed and shot into space.
In all seriousness I can’t help but wonder if race was a motivating issue. Granted the swollen dong probably didn’t look like the old one, but was it the same color?
Also, did they contact that Indian man born with two who had one removed?
For my 2 bits I’f given the choice i’d keep my mug and swap the wang, not that i’m unhappy with it, but it would require less explanation to all my friends & family, and my identity is firmly entrenched in who I see in the mirror, not who I see in the shower.
Thomas:
Adultery is illegal in many places. Sloppiness of enforcement or imbalance of legislation has nothing to do with humor quality; it would seem you may not either.
It might seem silly, but a penis is pretty much any man’s very favorite part
Doesn’t seem silly to me. The penis is MY favorite body part and I’m a woman!
i think the point was when you said that about “having someone else’s pussy”. the only reason that’d be swinging or illegal is if you meant “having” as “partaking of” (or something), and the “someone else” to be a man, considering and the only way THAT makes sense is for you to have meant that man’s ownership “in a legal [not anatomical] sense”. that’s my guess. otherwise the joke doesn’t even make sense, i think.
sorry that comment was a little spastically written. i don’t know.
My question is why the patient didn’t demand a donated wang larger than 4 inches?
I think penis transplants might be more traumatic. Not that, as a female, I could quite understand the situation fully. However, I suspect that due to the rise of plastic surgery in celebrity culture and extreme makeover television, people as a whole are more conditioned to the idea of someone’s face changing through surgery.
Also playing into that, I think women are probably a lot more conditioned to the idea of changing our bodies to suit other people’s expectations, so I suspect that male face transplant recipients would be possibly more traumatised than female.
On the other hand, I’m not so sure, because for a woman who may have been critised/praised for her face, and has reconciled/incorporated part of that perception into her sense of self, it may be a lot more traumatic for that to suddenly change.
Men, can you read this without holding your johnson?
Does clapping your hand over it count?
Adultery is illegal in many places.
And yet, using “someone else’s pussy” to mean another man’s sex partner is still gross.
Men, can you read this without holding your johnson? I didn’t grab it, but I sure clamped my legs together.
And I think I’d be kinda creeped out if it were me with the new “mr happy”, kind of like I was having sex with my wife through someone else.
there’s at least a dozen psych dissertations in this topic.
If the reconditioned unit is fully functional, at least for urination …
AND
removing said transplant organ would impose a burden of catheterization, leading to bladder infections gallore, as well as the expense/availability of supplies …
AND
there is some chance of restoring sexual function
THEN
wouldn’t it be UNETHICAL to reamputate the reconditioned unit? Seriously, this means taking away something that is working. I’m sure amputation fetishists could claim that their usable limbs are causing them extreme psychological anguish too.
Oh yes, I’m really amazed that there are forty-something replies to this thread and not one link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detachable_Penis
Well, you know, I’ve heard it said (and I believe) that a face transplant really doesn’t change appearance that much. It’s bone structure that determines what you look like. But even if it was a Hollywood like face transplant that completely changed one’s appearance, I think the penis transplant is more freaky. I think *needing* the penis transplant is more freaky, in fact. Your face, hell, things can happen to your face; it’s right there, you know? And a guy only sees his face in the mirror (and I don’t do mirrors all that often).
Well, haven’t read the thread yet so sorry if someone mentioned this already, but I’m pretty sure the face transplant would be *less* traumatic. A lot of what makes your face look like you is your bone structure and surrounding muscle and fat, and I’m pretty sure what they did with the face transplant was replace mostly the skin and *some* muscle. So I don’t think she looked like the donor at all.
On the other hand, I can’t help but think that in a society with less weird penis hangups than ours the “psychological rejection” wouldn’t happen either. If I may be crude for a moment, it sounds like this may be an issue of freaking out about *another man’s penis* being anywhere near the wife.
I always thought they should do a version of freeky-friday but instead of a mother/daughter swap, it should be a male/female swap.
There’s a kid’s book called Bill’s New Frock which is like that. It’s quite an interesting introduction to feminism for little kids.
Re: the swelling. Despite my impulse to joke about that being a normal condition for any penis at the right time, I shall be serious. Any attachment is going to swell at first because while the large veins and arteries are connected, capillaries have to join up on their own and it results in some blood remaining in the body part. Leeches have actually been reintroduced to medical use because they are useful for removing the blood that isn’t leaving on its own.
While there’s a possibility of cultural issues, I wonder if things are really good in that marriage. Maybe she’d been on the verge of rejecting him before?
Very strange - they have been doing vagina transplants for years. At one point, women born without a vagina were offered to have their mothers transplanted into them.
They got the penis from their dead son, right? I can totally understand why the wife wigged. In fact, I’m shocked it didn’t occur to them earlier. I mean, how long would it be before you were able to forget that you were fucking your dead son’s penis? Probably never. I can’t really blame her for not being able to handle it.
Stories like this make me grateful I don’t have a penis. To paraphrase Elaine Benes, I don’t know how you guys deal with those things.
Until this comment I wasn’t disturbed by this thread. Urgh.
@ Caitlin- It wasn’t their son, it was someone else. It was the parents of the young man who consented to donate his penis.
Which is really quite sporting of them. Maybe they were all friends, which would definitely add a level of creepiness.
wouldn’t it be UNETHICAL to reamputate the reconditioned unit? Seriously, this means taking away something that is working. I’m sure amputation fetishists could claim that their usable limbs are causing them extreme psychological anguish too.
I think it falls under the right to refuse any medical treatment, at least for a certain amount of time. I do think that a couple of weeks is a very short time to get used to such a change, but I respect his wishes.
Until this comment I wasn’t disturbed by this thread. Urgh.
Oh. Then we won’t discuss the current miraculous advances in painless and gentle wound and burn debridement.
Maggots anyone?
Honestly, I’d be AMAZED if the penis is question was sexually functional. This is speaking as a complete layman, but I somehow doubt it’s that easy.
Even if it were, and even if people found sex too creepy, I sitll don’t see the harm. After all, having no penis would hardly be better, right?
For all of you gents that are completely freaked about the idea of losing your sexual parts. Bear in mind that 1/3 of all women in the U.S. undergo a hysterectomy. Most of these are probably unecessary.
Perhaps if the medical profession had traditionally had more female influence, you fellas would be losing functionality as we removed that pesky prostrate - because they are often problematic, and we’d get to keep our internal organs.
For all of you gents that are completely freaked about the idea of losing your sexual parts. Bear in mind that 1/3 of all women in the U.S. undergo a hysterectomy. Most of these are probably unecessary.
Yup. In some states, the numbers are much higher.