It is with great regret that yet another penis story has popped up. It’s been spotted by a fair few outlets, and is one of the grimmest tales yet in BMJ Case Reports, which is full of unique biological mishaps and horrors for professionals, and the press, to dig through.
This story involves a penis fracture. If you didn’t know that this was a thing that could happen, you can now consider yourself enlightened.
As one 2004 paper in the journal Reviews in Urology puts it, “the diagnosis of penile fracture describes the traumatic rupture of the tunica albuginea of an erect penis.” The tunica albuginea is the fibrous envelope that plays a key role in getting your ridiculous wrinklestick to stand to attention.
There are multiple ways to get a penile fracture, but they generally have the same symptoms. First, you will hear an audible pop as your engorged, blood-filled rocket buckles and snaps. You will then experience massive amounts of pain, some localized swelling, bleeding, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, a loss of erection.
Now, the BMJ Case Reports journal is full of examples like this. There’s this NSFW one, for example, which describes something genuinely called “eggplant deformity”. The images are, naturally, quite nauseating; viewing them is to let monsters gnaw and savage your soul.
The one that’s piqued the interest of a few other places is an atrocious parade of necessarily descriptive language and visuals, and is more of a lesson in bad luck than anything else.
Recently, a 36-year-old man from Lucknow in India’s Uttar Pradesh state turned up at the Department of Urology at King George’s Medical University. Somehow, after two days – not immediately, but two whole days – with a swollen, painful, and deformed penis, he decided to seek medical attention.
Turns out he was taking sildenafil, more commonly known by the brand name Viagra. Concerned that he still had a sustained erection post-intercourse, he “tried vigorous masturbation to relieve it, but he failed.”
After what the journal genuinely refers to as “exercise”, it appears that a child of his tripped and fell over his still fully erect penis as he slept, which resulted in a classic penile fracture and eggplant deformity.
The NSFW report – subtitled “out of frying pan into the fire” – showcases the tear in the side of his penis, which had to be repaired via surgery. Several weeks on, his erections are now fine and dandy.
The “learning points” of the case study are that drugs like Viagra can sometimes cause prolonged, painful erections, which are known as priapisms, and that recreational use of them should be discouraged. I’m not sure what we’ve all learned other than the fact that the world is a nightmare.
