Generally speaking, I'm a huge fan of TED talks. Here's one that's related to material we covered in class last week:
"[The penis is] a really effective solution to a very basic biological problem.”
For many more TED talks, click here.
Penises and Scrotums
Foreskin restoration stretching.
There are several companies out there selling devices to restore, through stretching, circumcised men's foreskins. It has been well established that stretching of skin tissue promotes mitosis and can actually cause skin to regenerate. Based on this, foreskin stretching, in combination with topical steroids, is often prescribed to treat phimosis. Research has shown this type of treatment to be very effective.
These stretching devices take the concept one step further, the idea being that a foreskin can be recreated through stretching of the remaining skin (i.e., the skin left behind after circumcision). Whether or not these stretching devices actually work to restore foreskins (as opposed to treating phimosis) isn't clear - I couldn't find any research.
The Dual Tension Restore (pictured above) is one of the devices being marketed for foreskin restoration. The homepage for the device, with lots of photos of it in action (NSFW!), can be found here.
Manscaping.
Female pubic hair trimming, shaping, removing, sculpting, etc., is a relatively new phenomenon. While female body hair removal has been around for centuries, pubic hair removal has only become really popular among the Western female population in the last century (especially the last few decades). Not to be left out, men have very recently been jumping on the pubic hair removal bandwagon and many men of the younger generations are now dedicated manscapers. The execs at Gillette saw this shift as an opportunity to sell their products in a new market. Gillette is clearly trying to get ahead of the curve (i.e., get a jump on their competitors).
This is a recent ad from Gillete, which is part educational, part marketing:
I'm in no way promoting Gilette products - this is simply an interesting study in cultural shifts in preferences. To make the idea of manscaping more palatable to men who might be hesitant, Gillette has cleverly played the it looks bigger card.
Jonah Falcon frisked by the TSA.
Jonah Falcon, who I posted about last week, recently ran into some trouble at the San Francisco International Airport.
From the Huffington Post:
Jonah Falcon, Man With World's Largest Penis, Frisked By TSA At California Airport
Turns out it's legal to have a weapon of mass conception at the airport.
Jonah Falcon was stopped and frisked by the TSA at the San Francisco International Airport on July 9 because of a bulging package hidden in his pants. But the 41-year-old New Yorker wasn't packing a dirty bomb, drugs or a Costco-sized tube of toothpaste. The New Yorker has the world's largest recorded penis.
In an exclusive interview with The Huffington Post, Falcon described his hard times with security guards after his extra carry-on became suspect.
"I had my 'stuff' strapped to the left. I wasn't erect at the time," said Falcon, whose penis is 9 inches flaccid, 13.5 inches erect. "One of the guards asked if my pockets were empty and I said, 'Yes.'"
Falcon said he knew that his interview was about to get a lot more personal when he was led through one of the X-ray body scanners and passed a metal detector.
"Another guard stopped me and asked me if I had some sort of growth," Falcon said, laughing.
Indeed he did have a growth.
Man cooks and serves his own genitals at public banquet.
From the Huffington Post:
This chef's got balls.
Mao Sugiyama, a self-described "asexual" from Tokyo, cooked up, seasoned and served his own genitalia to five diners at a swanky banquet in Japan last month, Calorie Lab reported.
In most cases, "asexual" is a word used to describe a person who is non-sexual. Sugiyama, however, embraces it as a way to show that he does not affiliate with either gender.
Sugiyama sparked a firestorm of interest on April 8 with one tweet:
"[Please retweet] I am offering my male genitals (full penis, testes, scrotum) as a meal for 100,000 yen …Will prepare and cook as the buyer requests, at his chosen location."
Just days after Sugiyama's 22nd birthday, the artist underwent elective genital-removal surgery, divvied up the severed penis shaft, testicles, and scrotal skin between five people, and garnished it with button mushrooms and Italian parsley.
On April 13, five of six diners who signed up for the $250-a-plate feast, sat down to dinner. The sixth person was a no-show.
The next day, an organizer posted a blog -- subsequently deleted -- containing pictures of the event. Images showed dozens of people who attended the event just to catch a glimpse of the rare treat.
The extra diners were served crocodile-based dishes while Sugiyama cooked up the exclusive meal.
The story went viral in Japan. Some showed even more interest, while others complained. But Calorie Lab called Japanese authorities, who deemed the banquet legal because there is no law against cannibalism in the country.
To see more photos, click here.
Ouch.
Penis leggings.
Click to make larger:
From the Huffington Post:
In the past few weeks we've seen our share of ridiculous fashion statements, includngduck nails and the super cool bra (the latter of which is adorned with tiny "fish tanks").
But a find we stumbled upon last night takes the cake. Introducing: penis leggings.
Yes, folks -- someone decided creating a pair of pants with tiny little penises all over them was a good idea, although we have no idea who is wearing them. Jezebel describes them as "revolting and totally NSFW." Obviously, creating a sartorial statement like this is all about shock value.
But really? Really?! Has fashion come to a point where the only way to shock and awe is to wear a $150 pair of pants dubbed "Is That A Cock Or Your Legs?" What happened to bright colours or couture clothing?
This, dear readers, is what we call a fashion fail.
If you're interested in purchasing a pair, click here.
Man suing BMW for perma-erection-inducing motorcycle.
From SF Weekly:
Local Man Claims BMW Ride Gave Him a Permanent Boner
Turns out BMWs aren't always a chick magnet.
Sadly, a San Francisco man had to find out the hard way how unpleasurable a BMW ride can be -- literally. According to a lawsuit filed in San Francisco this week, Henry Wolf says his BMW motorcycle's ridge-like seat gave him a "severe case of priapism," otherwise known as a really, really long (lasting) erection.
On the surface, that sounds like nothing more than a literalization of why guys buy motorcycles in the first place. But Wolf claims his constant erection has ruined his sex life -- and we're guessing that's more painful than the erection itself.
The complaint states that on May 1, 2010, Wolf was riding his 1993 BMW motorcycle equipped with a Corbin-Pacfic seat for about four hours when he noticed he had a hard and painful erection, which he now blamed on BMW and its deficiently designed seat.
"Plaintiff ... has been experiencing continuing problems since his motorcycle ride. He is now unable to engage in sexual activity, which is causing him substantial emotional and mental anguish," his lawyer states.
Wolf is suing BMW of North America and Corbin-Pacific, seeking damages for lost wages, personal injury, medical expenses, product liability, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
Perhaps Wolf should trade in his BMW for a minivan -- those are definitely boner-killers.
It Gets Bigger.
High tech thermometer.
Passed along by Oscar (thanks!):
Dodson and Ross.
I regularly post videos from these lovely ladies, who are two of the best sex educators ever. The following clip is relevant to this week's topic:
An alternative explanation for penis shape.
Photo: Crocheted Penis Pillow, courtesy of Motives and Patterns, at Etsy.
Evolutionary biologists believe that the shape of the penis has an important adaptive function. They suggest that the corona acts as a plunger and scraper, removing sperm deposited by a previous reproductive partner.
An alternative, but somewhat similar, explanation has been proposed. Via Discover, and published in Archives of Sexual Behavior:
It has been proposed that the shape of the glans with its distinctive corona facilitates the scooping out of previously deposited semen, enabling the subsequent deposition of other genetic material. This is not a likely occurrence. The healthy vagina has a low pH to protect it from invading organisms. This intense acidity will kill all sperm not promptly reaching the safety of the cervical mucus. I suggest the evolutionary function of the glans and its corona is not to scoop out semen but vaginal secretions, which are then absorbed by the encompassing foreskin. The mucous membrane of the foreskin adjacent to the glans is highly absorbent, as evidenced by the increased susceptibility of the uncircumcised male to HIV. It has been suggested that there may be a glans protecting feature of the foreskin, but it is entirely possible that its primary function is to absorb behavior modifying chemical messengers from the female. Numerous studies have shown the vaginal mucosa to be secretory. In the primate rear-approach coital position, the corona rubs against the anatomically posterior wall of the vagina, the most dependent surface when the woman is standing, and therefore the place more likely to collect vaginal secretions. The deepest end of the posterior vagina is the cul de sac, which commonly contains a small amount of fluid. An analytical study of the vaginal secretions of an ovulating female for neuropeptides, such as pitocin and vasopressin, known to enhance pair bonding and protective behavior in the male, could be revealing. Sexual intercourse may be a medium of communication between humans older than language itself.
Full reference for the paper:
Edwin A. Bowman, E. A. (2010). An explanation for the shape of the human penis. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39, 216.
Penis slide?
South Korea's Haeshindang Park.
Fatherhood leads to a drop in testosterone.
From The New York Times:
This is probably not the news most fathers want to hear.
Testosterone, that most male of hormones, takes a dive after a man becomes a parent. And the more he gets involved in caring for his children — changing diapers, jiggling the boy or girl on his knee, reading “Goodnight Moon” for the umpteenth time — the lower his testosterone drops.
So says the first large study measuring testosterone in men when they were single and childless and several years after they had children. Experts say the research has implications for understanding the biology of fatherhood, hormone roles in men and even health issues like prostate cancer.
“The real take-home message,” said Peter Ellison, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard who was not involved in the study, is that “male parental care is important. It’s important enough that it’s actually shaped the physiology of men.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Eating penises.
I'm trying to imagine the Safe Handling Instructions.
Nine other penises that people eat: link here.
Conceptual art.
Loudest penis in the animal kingdom.
From Wired:
Bug’s Penis Makes Loudest Animal Sound.
This minuscule water boatman might be smaller than a drawing pin, but it’s also the loudest animal on the planet. Well, relative to its body size, at least.
The male lesser water boatman, aka Micronecta scholtzi, can create mating calls as loud as 99.2 decibels, which is the equivalent of sitting in the front row of a loud, full-blown orchestra, or standing 15 meters away from a hurtling freight train.
“Remarkably,” said Stratchclyde University’s James Windmill in a press release, “even though 99 percent of sound is lost when transferring from water to air, the song is so loud that a person walking along the bank can actually hear these tiny creatures singing from the bottom of the river.”
To make this colossal acoustic din, the male water boatman rubs his penis (or “genitalia appendage”) against the ridged surface of his abdomen, like a wooden spoon against a washboard. Size doesn’t matter for this tiny marine animal, though, as the whole area measures about 50 micrometers across — roughly the width of a human hair.
The act of rubbing two body parts together to make a noise is called stridulation, and is seen in insects from grasshoppers to spiders. The only known mammal to stridulate is the streaked tenrec, a spiky hedgehog-like critter from Madagascar that rubs its quills together.
Windmill and his team looked at lots of marine and terrestrial creatures and measured their different auditory outbursts in “acoustic pressure” to find out how loud animals are in relation to their body size.
So while an African elephant’s rumbling call can be 117 decibels, if the trunked beast was reduced to the size of a water boatman, the marine insect would far outclass it. As would, it turns out, a snapping shrimp, a speckled bush cricket, a bronze dainty frog, an alligator and a human.
Noseless saddles better for your penis.
From The New York Times:
Robert Brown is an officer in the Seattle Police Department’s bicycle patrol, which lacks the sleek machines and tight jerseys of the Tour de France. But Mr. Brown has something that could be more important to both male and female cyclists: a no-nose saddle.
Like most cyclists, Mr. Brown at first didn’t see any need to switch from the traditional saddle on the mountain bike he’d been riding full time for five years on the force. When researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and Safety offered new noseless saddles intended to prevent erectile dysfunction, he quickly told his supervisor, “No problems here!”
But then, after trying the new saddle, he felt the difference. His weight rested on his pelvic bones instead of the crotch area, which formerly pressed against the saddle’s nose. During his sleep, when he wore a monitor, the measure known as “percent of time erect” increased to 28 percent from 18 percent.
[...]
Before the study, nearly three-quarters of the officers complained of numbness while riding. After six months, fewer than one-fifth complained. They did better on the biothesiometer test of sensitivity and also reported improved erectile function.
Read the rest of the article here.