6 Weirdest Things Men Do to Their Penises

You can't really say the penis doesn't get enough attention. There's a fertility festival in Japan called Kanamara Matsuri that celebrates the appendage, there's the Icelandic Phallological Museum, and a Chinese penis restaurant where diners can sup on the wangs of various animals. At one point, a luxury car manufacturer scrapped plans to produce an SUV upholstered in whale penis due to pressure from environmentalists.

The only place where penises seem to go overlooked is at the drugstore. While entire sections are devoted to the de-scenting and cleaning of women's genitals (most of which do more harm than good) there's no "masculine care" aisle. Men just aren't expected to put as much time and thought into maintaining and modifying their junk.

But that doesn't mean men haven't fallen prey to unattainable standards of perfection as well, going under the knife and performing dangerous procedures at home, to attain the perfect penis. And by "perfect," I mean huge. The majority of services available to men in the genital upkeep department promise to make their penises bigger and thicker. But while medically questionable procedures to enhance the penis abound, it's only one of the many things men can do to their nether regions in the name of perfection.

1. Lengthening Surgery

Part of the penis resides within the body, and naturally, some people think it should reside outside the body. Enter the surgeon. A procedure called ligamentolysis will give men two to three extra centimeters by severing the suspensory ligament that holds part of the penile shaft inside the body, allowing it to drop. (Because that ligament was not there for a reason.) Not surprisingly, all that severing for not much extra length has left most men dissatisfied with the results. One study put the rate of satisfaction with the operation at a dismal 35 percent, and the American Urological Association (AUA) sniffs that the procedure is neither "safe or efficacious." Not that this has stopped men from exploring alternate routes of medically assisted enhancement: like grafting the skin of dead people onto their genitals. 

2. Zombie Penis

AlloDerm is a product made by a company called LifeCell made from donated human skin tissue. Its Web site promotes it for the use of hernia repair and breast reconstruction, but some surgeon's Web sites advertise it for a different use: widening the penis. Sheets of cadaver harvested tissue are attached to the penis to increase its girth. This procedure is heartily endorsed by the American Academy of Phalloplasty Surgeons, despite the fact that LifeCell does not advocate using AlloDerm for penis widening. AAPS was founded in part by the father of penis enlargement, Sheldon Burman, and the one-time president of AAPS is Dr. E. Douglas Whitehead, a surgeon whose Web site also promotes the use of AlloDerm. Specifically, the adding of "multiple layers of of Allograft Dermal Matrix Graft (AlloDerm) under the penile skin on top of the erectile chambers to give thickness by 'stacking' or 'folding' the grafts."

Men who aren’t quite prepared to pay thousands of dollars to Soylent Green their junk can opt to have fat sucked out of various parts of their bodies and then re-injected into the penis. (The killjoys at AUA also frown on this procedure.) If the body doesn't re-absorb the fat, there's still the issue of side effects like bruising, swelling, lumps and infection. And these side effects pale in comparison to those suffered by men who undertake injections at home.

3. Injections

Despite a general aversion to poking the penis with sharp things, men have nonetheless taken up syringes and attempted to enlarge their members with a number of substances, with alarming results. While some shots are medically sanctioned (Caverject is just one of the medicines used to treat erectile dysfunction that can be injected directly into the penis), others are definitely not.