SECTION THREE
EMAIL PAGE THREE
sm
COLUMN
114, FEBRUARY
1, 2005
(Copyright © 2003 The Blacklisted Journalist)
THAILAND'S EPIDEMIC OF SEVERED PENISES
Subject:
Fwd: this is great
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 16:23:38 EDT
From: Khunrum1@aol.com
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
don't
leave your thermos at home.....
*
* *
Thai
doctors blame penis hacking craze on lingering polygamy
BANGKOK
(AFP) -- They have been boiled, fed to ducks, even attached to hot air
balloons and cast into the night sky---when it comes to permanently depriving a
cheating lover of a recently severed penis, the imagination of the wronged Thai
woman knows few bounds.
Thailand
has become the world centre of penis reattachment surgery, but then it has been
forced to be. While not unique to
the kingdom, penis severing has been honed here to its most devastating effect
through a heady mixture of routine infidelity, assertive womanhood and a
national cuisine that lends itself to a kitchen full of sharp knives.
The
men are now fearful of a rash of Thailand's most notorious crime of passion,
according to the surgeon who has stitched back many a male member for grateful
patients.
Sitting
in his office at Bangkok's Paolo Memorial Hospital, surgeon Surasak Muangsombot
recalled how he re-attached his first phallus in 1978 and soon discovered that
penis hacking was a peculiarly Thai form of sexual violence.
Since
then Sweden has had three cases, the United States two---including the notorious
case of John Wayne Bobbitt who returned from reattachment surgery to star in
porn films---and one in Australia.
In
the same period, Surasak's team alone has operated on 33 cases and many more
have been reported around Thailand.
"Some
years there are three or five and then it goes quiet. It goes in and out of
fashion but sometimes its like an epidemic," he said, mimicking with his
nimble surgeon's hands the swoop of a blade on an unsuspecting member.
Doctors
and psychologists blame the shocking attacks on a cultural mix of Thailand's
tradition of polygamy, which was banned about 100 years ago but still persists,
and the fact that the phallus is revered as a symbol of power and fertility.
The
phenomenon has become so widespread that doctors have had to keep up with
increasingly inventive and angry wives and lovers who want to prevent the
offending item from being reattached.
"They
boil them, feed them to ducks, flush them down the toilet, bury them and have
even tied them to hot air balloons and let them float away," Surasak said.
He
said his hardest case required bribing an angry wife to confess its location in
a septic tank and the hiring of a wrecking crew to retrieve it.
"I
asked the nurse to clean it up well and warned the patient that he may get
septicemia and he said, "do your best and if it gets septicemia I will die
with my penis."
"It
was 15 hours between it being chopped off and reattached, which is much longer
than the books say it can be done, but I went ahead and to my surprise
everything went fine," he said.
The
latest case was reported Tuesday when a 29-year-old farmer in northeastern
Thailand was admitted to hospital for surgery with a severed penis, claiming
that his wife kicked him.
The
couple had fought and she then denied his requests for sex and kicked him when
he complained, according to his account to doctors. Such were the length of her
toenails, she severed his penis.
Thai
psychologist and media commentator Doctor Wallop Piyamanotham said the practice
stemmed primarily from the outlawed, but flourishing, Thai habit of keeping
secret wives.
"Before
a man could have many wives but later we followed the western law of one man one
wife, but men still act the same and have many wives so the only revenge open to
the wife is to cut off his penis," Wallop told AFP.
"Very
few of these men have sex with their main wife and this leaves her feeling
sexually unimportant and the only joy they have is getting him to come home and
spend more time with his family," Wallop told AFP.
The
phallus also plays a special role in Thailand as a symbol of personal vigor and
prosperity, and carved wooden and stone phalluses are found everywhere from shop
fronts to ship prows.
Wallop
said this special symbolism also made it a prime target for a vengeful partner.
"It's
not just about being practical and getting his mind off sex,it is like a symbol
of potency so they cut off his power," said Wallop.
In
another reported case in Thailand this year, a bloodied Preecha Nasomyon, 31,
was found by neighbours after he had an argument with his wife over an
extramarital affair.
The
fight ended with Preecha's privates being nearly completely severed by a large
kitchen knife.
The
distraught man refused to press charges against his wife and had his penis
successfully re-attached by Thailand's experienced surgeons.
Doctor
Surasak said despite the damage done to patients such as Preecha, the recovery
rate is surprisingly high.
"The
operation success rate is 100 percent but I think only about 50 percent can
again experience normal reliable function again," he said.
"The
wife of one recovered patient complained her guy made love to her four to seven
times an night and was waking her up at all hours because it only lasted two to
three minutes," said Surasak with a resigned shrug, adding "we do our
best."
According
to the surgeon there are no solid numbers on how many Thai victims there have
been because embarrassed patients, including some public figures, always seek
discreet doctors, or disappear immediately after treatment.
He
said it was now possible to make replacement penises from arteries and skin
taken from other parts of the body that could be inflated with pumps, but warned
men who insist on being unfaithful to follow a few golden rules.
"If
you have a mistress they (wives) will get mad and cut it any time, so make her
very happy, always carry a thermos to put it in and keep the name of a good
doctor close by," he said. ##
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