Image: Canva
On the fringe of possibilities in Plastic Surgery there’s always a niche group of patients willing to put their bodies on the line and provide us a canvas to push boundaries. They aren’t too concerned with stigma and cultural ‘faux pas’. They don’t entertain opinions beyond their own, or hang onto the ideas of 140 character theses written by men posing as women who are experts on everything. Some people just want bigger penises because it makes them happy.
By African standards, a getting a bigger penis is pushing the envelope, because, historically…African men have been lead to believe they are sufficiently equipped. It’s one of the few racial profiles we never challenge. The importance of penile length and girth has been further exacerbated by the internet and social media age we live in. This may come as a disappointment, but I’m not here to discuss the significance of length and girth, I’m here to tell a story.
He wasn’t my patient, in fact, I only ever met him once. I’d come across him when I popped by a fellow Plastic Surgeon’s clinic to discuss the state of the industry and get tips on how to avoid giving out free consultations at the bar and weddings. My senior colleague had been doing his first post operative clinic reviews and asked me to take a look at this particular gentleman’s healing process. I was intrigued, it isn’t often that you come across a penile augmentation, so I quickly obliged.
He’d sat neatly on the examination bed, which had been propped up at 90 degrees with a brilliant white sheet draped over it. He sat butt naked from waste down with his knees apart, and the soles of his feet touching each other in a pose that made it look like he was meditating. He held up his white athleisure t-shirt with both his hands and, for good measure, pinned the t-shirt against his chest with his chin as he stared down proudly at his refurbished crown and jewels. His grey sweatpants lay on the floor next to his red puma sneakers, the kind worn by Formula 1 drivers wear and Luo men who’ve flown to Dubai once.
He beckoned me over from the door with great enthusiasm, not at all bashful at his nudity. I approached, slowly and respectfully. In surgery, there’s lots of occupational exposure to genitalia, but it’s always good bedside manner to remain even keel and not act too familiar with what you find in the abyss.
Some science on the The Augmentation Phalloplasty (Penile Augmentation): You can surgically enlarge a penis in all it’s 3 dimensions by increasing two things, length and girth. Think of the penis (don’t think too much), as being suspended off the abdominal and pelvic wall by ligaments and skin. In order to gain length, you need to release the skin and ligaments that tether it, but at the same time have enough support keeping it in the right place anatomically when erect and flaccid. To achieve this there a various techniques we use and there are specific ligaments we target. Through these techniques you can reasonably achieve an increase of 3.5 +/- 1.3 cm in the flaccid penis and 1.8 +/- 1.4 cm in the erect penis.
For girth, we achieve this through fat grafting. We harvest fat from your lower abdomen via liposuction , prepare it and circumferentially inject it around the penile shaft. It’s like a Brazilian butt lift, but for your penis. There are other ways of getting more girth like using alloderm grafts, but the complications associated with these make it a less preferred option.
I have to admit, the satisfaction with this procedure can vary quite a bit from patient to patient, but a little more here and there, can go a long way.
He seemed sufficiently chaffed by his results, despite the expected swelling that his member looking like a hissing deep fried sausage. He was keen to put it back in action. He could pee just fine, but he didn’t go through all this trouble just so he could hold a longer penis over a smelly urinal. He wanted to impress, and you can’t impress a urinal, they don’t judge or speak, they remain inclusive, professional and impartial no matter what size you present or how many times you do or don’t shake it off. (Side-note: 3 shakes is the prescribed maximum, anything above that, you’re playing with yourself sir)
You see, it was meant to be a surprise. His girlfriend was away on a business trip. She was older, but took good care of him. Fed him, paid his rent and once sent him to Dubai, first class, all expense paid. Not that he couldn’t hold his own, he tendered stuff to government, and made a pretty good living doing so. It was just their dynamic, and it worked. He’d always felt he owed it to her to give her the best sexual experience he could, and a few extra inches was how he would. Somewhere in here is a tale of chivalry, a man who would stop at nothing to give the woman he loved everything. Would it make a difference 3 months down the line when we’d give him the go ahead to get intimate? I really don’t know, like i said, this isn’t a debate about whether size really matters, I’m here to tell a story…a short story.
So, ‘JP…what the hell?Why? Isn’t this risky?’ is probably the reaction you would have reading this, the story sounds outrageous, but it sounds so only to you. The thing about insecurities is that only the person going through it can totally understand it, and whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant, they feel what they feel. The insecurity stems from somewhere, more often the not, the world shames us into not liking something about ourselves. The same world is also quick to tell us how not to deal with it, and to accept who we are as we are. Accepting and living with an insecurity is a glorious triumph, but choosing to intervene is equally brave and valiant provided it is done safely and professionally.
I emphasize on ‘safely and professionally’. Every surgery, cosmetic or otherwise carries a risk, heck, we spend every minute of our lives mitigating risk in one way or the other. Even in the best hands, things go wrong. Cosmetic surgeries fall under more scrutiny because they are driven by ‘choice’ rather than ‘necessity’. But if it boils down to risk, choice and necessity don’t matter, because the risk, for the most part, is mitigated by the professional assigned to deal with it. A professional in any field is ultimately measured by their ability to deal with a situation where everything goes completely wrong. Even then, we are bound by the limitations of medical science and the role of fate. What I’m trying to say is, a small percentage of the time, shit happens, just make sure it happens in the right hands. So for heavens sake, make sure your Plastic Surgeon is credentialed.
Cosmetic surgery has been vilified and stigmatized a lot. Plastic surgeons have long been perceived as vehicles of vanity; in our work we violate virtue and validate vice when in reality we fast, pray and tithe just as much as your Auntie. Whether these transformations are vindicated or not, will be debated in similar stride to whether size matters or not…I’m just here to tell a story, and much like a urinal, remain inclusive, professional and impartial despite the world occasionally pissing on a professional craft that we consider art.
Comments