Best Sentence in a blog today: "Phantom penises were first observed in 1951."

Okay, this is from a blog entry about a story in New Scientist about men who have had sexual reassignment surgery to become women, and then still experience the sensation of having an erection, despite the fact that there's no penis to be erect. The phenomenon has clearly been written about by scientists before, though only recently have they been able to solve the problem, if indeed it is a problem. Then again, since it is reported that the sensation of having a phantom erection can last for hours, which would send you to the hospital if it were happening to a real live penis attached to you (as the makers of Viagra warn) I suppose this is equally problematic.

A few months back I read an amazing story about phantom limb pain in The New Yorker that was a fascinating exploration of how the brain perceives reality. The implications for Vipassana meditation, where one is taught to observe sensation and its connection to mental contents is something that deeper minds than mine should consider. The people who suffered  phantom limb pain in this story were cured simply by using a mirror to fool the brain about the existence of the lost limb. This clearly wouldn't work for phantom penises though, since we don't have symmetrical penises on each side of our bodies. At least I haven't met any men who do, though I'm sure they'd prove rather popular downtown.

Me, I'm still laughing about that sentence, and the idea of observing phantom penises. And wondering about whether I will ever have the sensation of a phantom foreskin.... Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts and minds of men...the phantom penis knows...