There is no doubt about the fact that penis
enhancement surgery can be of immense value to certain men. But present
techniques are woefully inadequate, produce dubious results, and are often
of short-lived value.
The Chief Medical Consultant of this site,
Dr.Sudhakar Krishnamurti, is presently working on a new surgical procedure
for `phalloplasty' - or surgical sculpting of the penis. This technique,
when tested, could represent an advance that could overcome present
limitations.
Who will benefit?
Surgical sculpting of the penis will help
three sets of people.
THE NEEDY These
people are penile cripples. They usually suffer from malformations or
deformities of the penis. On account of these deformities, the penis is
cosmetically and aesthetically unsightly. Besides, in many of these cases,
the patient is incapable of normal erectile ability and copulation.
Such people can have a normal sex life if
the new phalloplasty technique proves useful.
THE GREEDY
The second group of men are those with normal penises but who desire a
longer or thicker penis to either bolster their own sagging self-esteem or
to satisfy their sexual partners' unrealistic expectations of penis size.
AND TRANSSEXUALS
The third group, where this technique will help is female transsexuals who
desire a female-to-male sex change (gender reassignment) operation.
Why is it necessary?
A busy Andrologist may have as many as two
or three requests for penis enlargement daily. Many men have a penis
fixation just as women have a breast fixation.
We all know that breast size isn't really
important, but still no amount of explanation or reasoning will satisfy some
women who will insist on breast augmentation through implants. And if this
is not done they are unhappy indeed.
The same analogy holds true for men. Even
though their concept of penis size may be unrealistic, they will still
insist on a longer and thicker penis. If a penis means so much to a man why
not give him a penis that will make him happy ?
Especially if refusal to do so might ruin
both his self-esteem and his sex life. What's important is that the
technique should provide a real (rather than apparent) increase in both
length and girth, in both flaccid and erect states, without causing any
significant complications.
The present techniques
Penis enlargement is being practised in
many parts of the world, though the currently employed techniques are highly
controversial. Practitioners of these have come in for a lot of flak both
from colleagues within the medical profession as well as the laity.
The currently available techniques for
penis lengthening and girth-enhancement have many drawbacks
Broadly, a penis comprises of three
cylindrical tubes - the paired corpora cavernosa above, and the urethra (the
urine tube, that's anatomically contiguous with the glans penis) below.
The paired corpora (erectile bodies) are
attached to the pubic bone by a suspensory ligament that gives the penis
stability during erection. In the currently available lengthening procedure,
this ligament is cut. This produces a purely illusory and apparent increase
in penile length due to gravitational traction - and that too only in the
flaccid state.
This means that the penis will not really
be much longer in the erect state. Not only that, the patient also loses the
important stabilising support of the suspensory ligament which keeps the
erect penis steady during the vigorous movements accompanying sexual
intercourse.
Likewise, in the currently offered
girth-enhancement operation, fat from the lower abdominal wall is drawn out
through liposuction and injected beneath the loose skin of the penile shaft
to create an illusion of thickening.
This is actually quite ridiculous. You are
putting fat into an area that nature has intentionally kept bereft of fat.
It must be remembered that the subcutaneous (below skin) tissue in the penis
does not have a fat layer. There is a purpose to this. Injecting fat there
defeats this purpose completely.
Besides, this kind of fat injection
produces only a temporary illusion of thickening. With the passage of time,
the injected fat, which is avascular i.e. without blood supply, only dies -
a phenomenon known as fat necrosis. This necrosis will sooner or later cause
the penis to return to its original pre-operative girth. And, in the process
of necrosis, it leaves behind scars, fibrous nodules and a cosmetically
disfigured, uneven, lumpy penile contour .
What's even worse is that even this
temporary, complication-fraught girth-enhancement is only an apparent,
rather than real one. When the penis gets erect, all the fat is compressed
and flattened against the skin of the penile shaft (which also has
limitations to its elasticity) and the penis is no thicker in the erect
state than it was before operation. And it is this thicker erect penis that
most patients and their partners want.
So at most, what these techniques will
offer the patient is a few days' opportunity to fool their friends in the
swimming pool locker room. However, they won't be able to fool their sexual
partners. What's even worse is that they will have down-the-line problems of
explaining to the same friends why their organ has begun to suddenly shrivel
!
For Transsexuals
The phalloplasty technique hopes to be able
to provide a new operation for transsexual patients.
The goals of surgery for female-to-male
gender reassignment are manifold. In the first place, it is required to
create a penis that looks like a penis and not just a skin tube. Secondly,
the glans penis has to be simulated. Next, the organ should be capable of
perceiving erogenous sensations to the point of orgasm and should be capable
of erection and vaginal penetration. Testes have to be re-created. The new
man must be able to use a gents' loo without any hassles. And all this plus
more without too many complications.
The Status of the new technique
We are only now going from the conceptual
stage and cadaver dissection stage to the clinical trial stage. And we have
to begin with the `needy' group of penile cripples where a poor result will
at worst only return the patient to his status quo and where a small
complication or two will not be of real consequence. Only then can it be
tried on the `greedy' and the transsexual group. One cannot experiment on
human beings. Research methodology has to be thorough and fool-proof.
Of course ultimate acceptance and sanction
for the technique will come from the scientific community, especially the
peer review group of specialists and publications involved in similar work,
and the gratified patient population. But meanwhile, work must go on.
Dr.Sudhakar Krishnamurti has already
performed the first part of this operation on a 30-year old transsexual
woman. This woman has already undergone the first step operation and is
waiting for the next step.
Dr.Krishnamurti has been working on this
technique for the last two years. One only hopes that all his efforts will
finally bear fruit and provide much-needed succour to the needy, greedy and
transsexuals alike.
Citation:
an article published on the Internet by Andrology.com <www.andrology.com/>
