Monday, October 01, 2007

Penis Panic

Kyle told me E!'s The Soup made the same joke about National Alpaca Farm Day that I did. Then he noted that E! is an important source of information for issues like Hidden Penis Syndrome. I had no ideas what this syndrome entailed, so I did some web research. Suspiciously, you don't get webmd or NIMH articles about HPS, you get comics, blogs and Jerry Springer. This leads me to believe the syndrome might be made up - a fallacy - in order to prey upon the insecurities of those who might be hung more like red-bellied short-necked turtles than like snake-necked turtles. I bring up turtles, because there is a mass-hysteria related affliction called Penis Panic that shows up on Wikipedia. In Malaysia, Penis Panic is called Koro, which means "head of a turtle". Penis Panic can involve the belief that Zionists are out to melt your penis by dint of electrical combs and handshakes. If you buy an electrical comb, it probably serves you right.

This fear of losing your pe-nay-nay has parallels in vagina dentata, where individuals fear castration by toothy vaginas. I enjoyed the nod to Pillow Pants, the vagina troll in Clerks II in the popular culture section, although I didn't see a reference to the Bruce Boston story in Locus which I believe I read when I was much younger and involved a dentist. As a disgusting aside, Jaye's Blahg posts a clip from an article about dermoid cysts growing teeth and modblog has a repulsive armpit tattoo, which immediately reminded me of these not-so-safe-for-work (nsfw) tattoos posted by Planet Dan.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gross! No more reading your blog while I eat lunch!!

Anonymous said...

The HPS thing was on Dr. 90210, which is the show you watch after The Soup on E! when you are working on the computer and are too lazy to get up and get the remote from the other part of the living room.

It was all real - diagrams, blurred out footage and all. Apparently it's a result of the convergence of a small unit added to an overweight body. When they got to the footage of cutting/removing overhanging fat/skin folds I suddnely found myself more than motivated enough to find the remote and turn off the TV. Suffice it to say I don't think Cookiequeen would have been wanting to watch this during her lunchbreak :)

Anonymous said...

Hey! I don't think you were even trying in your search. Case in point - eMedicine from WebMD. All sorts of genital anomalies for both the gents and the ladies. Read through it and you'll appreciate genital normality in a whole new light.

http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic2798.htm

Just wake up each day and be thankful you aren't in possession of a webbed and buried penis or subject to penile torsion....

MeanMrMustard said...

Scooter: "fallacy" in a penis post? 10 points.

Kyle: what makes you so sure he doesn't have a webbed and buried penis?

Anonymous said...

We were in the same schools and gym classes from 4th grade through high school. I'm sure if he had a webbed and buried penis his other classmates and I all would have noticed such an anomaly at some point. I suppose he could have gotten one since college, but if so, I guess he's not telling.... you'll have to check with him on that possibility.