Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?: And Other Reflections on Being Human

by Jesse Bering

  “Any account of descended ”: Ibid., 523.

  Or to think about it another way: That’s not to say that such individuals don’t exist. Cases of algolagnia (from the Greek algos [pain] and lagneia [lust]) do exist, and some of these people derive their primary sexual satisfaction from insults to their erogenous zones. But this is so bizarre that many contemporary researchers believe that algolagnia—especially when one can only get aroused by testicular pain or vaginal tearing—can only be understood as signaling a hazardous neurological disorder involving miscoding noxious stimuli.

  So Close, and Yet So Far Away: The Contorted History of Autofellatio

  “a considerable portion”: Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948), 510.

  had a bone removed: Grazia D’Annunzio, “The Randy Dandy,” New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/style/tmagazine/13slijperw.html.

  a “very disturbed” patient : Frances Millican et al., “Oral Autoaggressive Behavior and Oral Fixation,” in Masturbation: From Infancy to Senescence, ed. Irwin M. Marcus and John J. Francis (Madison, Conn.: International Universities Press, 1975), 150.

  lonely twenty-two-year-old serviceman: Jesse O. Cavenar, Jean G. Spaulding, and Nancy T. Butts, “Autofellatio: A Power and Dependency Conflict,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 165, no. 5 (1977): 356 – 60.

  typical jargon-filled language : Frank Orland, “Factors in Autofellatio Formation,” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 52, no. 3 (1971): 289–96.

  The very first published psychiatric case : Eugen Kahn and Ernest G. Lion, “A Clinical Note on a Self-Fellator,” American Journal of Psychiatry 95, no. 1 (1938): 131–33.

  a theme beginning to emerge : William Guy and Michael H. Finn, “A Review of Auto-Fellatio: A Psychological Study of Two New Cases,” Psychoanalytic Review 41, no. 4 (1954): 354 –58.

  virginal staff sergeant : Morris M. Kessler and George E. Poucher, “Auto-Fellatio: Report of a Case,” American Journal of Psychiatry 103, no. 1 (1946): 94 –96.

  especially self-sufficient female patient : Orland, “Factors in Autofellatio Formation.”

  Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That? The Extended Cut

  “a longer penis would ”: Gordon G. Gallup Jr. and Rebecca L. Burch, “Semen Displacement as a Sperm Competition Strategy in Humans,” Evolutionary Psychology 2, no. 1 (2004): 14.

  “Examples include group sex”: Ibid., 15.

  In a series of studies: Gordon G. Gallup Jr. et al., “The Human Penis as a Semen Displacement Device,” Evolution and Human Behavior 24, no. 4 (2003): 277–89.

  “Is it possible”: Gallup and Burch, “Semen Displacement as a Sperm Competition Strategy in Humans”: 16

  Not So Fast … What’s So “Premature” About Premature Ejaculation?

  “an expeditious partner who”: Lawrence K. Hong, “Survival of the Fastest: On the Origin of Premature Ejaculation,” Journal of Sex Research 20, no. 2 (1984): 113.

  “the ancestry of Homo sapiens”: Ibid., 117.

  a 2009 article : Patrick Jern et al., “Evidence for a Genetic Etiology to Ejaculatory Dysfunction,” International Journal of Impotence Research 21, no. 1 (2009): 62– 67.

  Adding further credence : Patrick Jern et al., “Subjectively Measured Ejaculation Latency Time and Its Association with Different Sexual Activities While Controlling for Age and Relationship Length,” Journal of Sexual Medicine 6, no. 9 (2009): 2568–78.

  “there would be little”: Ray Bixler, “Of Apes and Men (Including Females),” Journal of Sex Research 22, no. 2 (1986): 265.

  An Ode to the Many Evolved Virtues of Human Semen

  “Our interest in the”: Rebecca L. Burch and Gordon G. Gallup Jr., “The Psychobiology of Human Semen,” in Female Infidelity and Paternal Uncertainty: Evolutionary Perspectives on Male Anti-cuckoldry Tactics, ed. Steven M. Platek and Todd K. Shackelford (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 141.

  “this struck us as peculiar ”: Ibid., 141.

  The most significant findings: Gordon G. Gallup Jr., Rebecca L. Burch, and Steven M. Platek, “Does Semen Have Antidepressant Properties?,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 31, no. 3 (2002): 289–93.

  pulsing through one’s veins: And it gets better. A smaller percentage (4.5 percent) of the sexually active women who “never” used condoms were less likely to have attempted suicide than were those who “sometimes” (7.4 percent) and “usually” (28.9 percent) and “always” (13.2 percent) used condoms.

  “It is important to”: Ibid: 291.

  “The body becomes the”: Dave Holmes and Dan Warner, “The Anatomy of Forbidden Desire: Men, Penetration, and Semen Exchange,” Nursing Inquiry 12, no. 1 (2005): 18.

  make HIV up to: Jan Münch et al., “Semen-Derived Amyloid Fibrils Drastically Enhance HIV Infection,” Cell 131, no. 6 (2007): 1059–71.

  “by the age of 11–12”: Gilbert Herdt and Martha McClintock, “The Magical Age of 10,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 29, no. 6 (2000): 596.

  What are female hormones doing: Burch and Gallup Jr., “Psychobiology of Human Semen”: 159.

  “Thus it would appear”: Ibid., 160.

  The Hair Down There: What Human Pubic Hair Has in Common with Gorilla Fur

  “the pubic hair was”: Samar K. Bhowmick, Tracy Ricke, and Kenneth R. Retig, “Sexual Precocity in a 16-Month-Old Boy Induced by Indirect Topical Exposure to Testosterone,” Clinical Pediatrics 46, no. 6 (2007): 540 – 41.

  “Although naked apes [humans]”: Robin A. Weiss, “Apes, Lice, and Prehistory,” Journal of Biology 8, no. 2 (2009): 20.

  “On the basis of ”: Ibid.

  Flinders University psychologists: Marika Tiggemann and Suzanna Hodgson, “The Hairlessness Norm Extended: Reasons for and Predictors of Women’s Body Hair Removal at Different Body Sites,” Sex Roles 59, no. 11–12 (2008): 889–97.

  In a separate study: Marika Tiggemann, Yolanda Martins, and Libby Churchett, “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: A Comparison of Body Hair Removal Practices in Gay and Heterosexual Men,” Body Image 5, no. 3 (2008): 312–16.

  Bite Me: The Natural History of Cannibalism

  “The point is that”: Lewis Petrinovich, The Cannibal Within (Piscataway, N.J.: Aldine Transaction, 2000), 107.

  “After he cut the first toe”: Gregory M. De Moore and Marcus Clement, “Self-Cannibalism: An Unusual Case of Self-Mutilation,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 40, no. 10 (2006): 937.

  Osteoarchaeological research at : Alban Defleur et al., “Neanderthal Cannibalism at Moula-Guercy, Ardèche, France,” Science 286, no. 5437 (1999): 128–31.

  “This sustained heterozygote advantage”: John Brookfield, “Human Evolution: A Legacy of Cannibalism in Our Genes?,” Current Biology 13, no. 15 (2003): 592.

  such cases reflect essentialist beliefs: Bruce Hood, SuperSense : Why We Believe in the Unbelievable (New York: HarperOne, 2009).

  “There is no form”: Margaret St. Clair, foreword to To Serve Man: A Cookbook for People, by Karl Würf (Philadelphia: Owlswick Press, 1976), 1.

  The Human Skin Condition: Acne and the Hairless Ape

  dealing with hair-covered flesh: Stephen Kellett and Paul Gilbert, “Acne: A Biopsychosocial and Evolutionary Perspective with a Focus on Shame,” British Journal of Health Psychology 6, no. 1 (2001): 1–24.

  “Consider a scene”: Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit : And Three Other Plays (1946; New York: Vintage, 1989), 21.

  “I can feel the”: Craig Murray and Katherine Rhodes, “The Experience and Meaning of Adult Acne,” British Journal of Health Psychology 10, no. 2 (2005): 193.

  “When I’m talking to”: Ibid., 192.

  “Society doesn’t allow”: Ibid., 196.

  these were the results reported : Tracey A. Grandfield, Andrew R. Thompson, and Graham Turpin, “An Attitudinal Study of Responses to a Range of Dermatological Conditions Using the Implicit Association Test,” Journal of Health Psychology 10, no. 6 (2005): 821–
29.

  One-third of New Zealand: Diana Purvis et al., “Acne, Anxiety, Depression, and Suicide in Teenagers: A Cross-Sectional Survey of New Zealand Secondary School Students,” Journal of Paediatrics and Science Health 42, no. 12 (2006): 793–96.

  “it is our considered ”: Marion Sulzberger and Sadie Zaidens, “Psychogenic Factors in Dermatologic Disorders,” Medical Clinics of North America 32 (1948): 684.

  certain human populations: Loren Cordain et al., “Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization,” Archives of Dermatology 138, no. 12 (2002): 1584 –90.

  Naughty by Nature: When Brain Damage Makes People Very, Very Randy

  “The brain is the physical manifestation”: Shelley Batts, “Brain Lesions and Their Implications in Criminal Responsibility,” Behavioral Sciences and the Law 27, no. 2 (2009): 267.

  “all seven children”: Sunil Pradhan, Madhurendra N. Singh, and Nirmal Pandey, “Klüver-Bucy Syndrome in Young Children,” Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery 100, no. 4 (1998): 256.

  “Why don’t we”: Shawn J. Kile et al., “Alzheimer Abnormalities of the Amygdala with Klüver-Bucy Syndrome Symptoms: An Amygdaloid Variant of Alzheimer Disease,” Archives of Neurology 66, no. 1 (2009): 125.

  “was an intelligent”: D. N. Mendhekar and Harpreet S. Duggal, “Sertraline for Klüver-Bucy Syndrome in an Adolescent,” European Psychiatry 20, no. 4 (2005): 355.

  she began performing fellatio: John A. Anson and Donald T. Kuhlman, “Post-Ictal Klüver-Bucy Syndrome After Temporal Lobectomy,” Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 56, no. 3 (1993): 311–13.

  “becoming sexually aggressive”: Vanessa Arnedo, Kimberly Parker-Menzer, and Orrin Devinsky, “Forced Spousal Intercourse After Seizures,” Epilepsy and Behavior 16, no. 3 (2009): 563.

  join him and his wife : Dietrich Blumer, “Hypersexual Episodes in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy,” American Journal of Psychiatry 126, no. 8 (1970): 1099–106.

  In 2003, the neurologists: Jeffrey Burns and Russell Swerdlow, “Right Orbitofrontal Tumor with Pedophilia Symptom and Constructional Apraxia Sign,” Archives of Neurology 60, no. 3 (2003): 437– 40.

  In a more recent case : Julie Devinsky, Oliver Sacks, and Orrin Devinsky, “Klüver-Bucy Syndrome, Hypersexuality, and the Law,” Neurocase : The Neural Basis of Cognition 16, no. 2 (2009): 140 – 45.

  How the Brain Got Its Buttocks: Medieval Mischief in Neuroanatomy

  In their first article : Régis Olry and Duane Haines, “Fornix and Gyrus Fornicatus: Carnal Sins?,” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 6, no. 3 (1997): 338–39.

  “The real etymology of ”: Ibid., 338.

  In a follow-up article : Régis Olry and Duane Haines, “The Brain in Its Birthday Suit: No More Reason to Be Ashamed,” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 17, no. 4 (2008): 461– 64.

  Lascivious Zombies: Sex, Sleepwalking, Nocturnal Genitals—and You

  And thank goodness: Carlos H. Schenck, Isabelle Arnulf, and Mark W. Mahowald, “Sleep and Sex: What Can Go Wrong? A Review of the Literature on Sleep Related Disorders and Abnormal Sexual Behaviors and Experiences,” Sleep 30, no. 6 (2007): 683–702.

  Consider the case of : Peter B. Fenwick, “Sleep and Sexual Offending,” Medicine, Science, and the Law 36, no. 2 (1996): 122–34.

  In a 2007 issue : Monica L. Andersen et al., “Sexsomnia: Abnormal Sexual Behavior During Sleep,” Brain Research Reviews 56, no. 2 (2007): 271–82.

  In a 1996 issue : Fenwick, “Sleep and Sexual Offending.”

  “Some time later”: Mia Zaharna, Kumar Budur, and Stephen Noffsinger, “Sexual Behavior During Sleep: Convenient Alibi or Parasomnia,” Current Psychiatry 7, no. 7 (2008): 21.

  “An automatism is an”: Fenwick, “Sleep and Sexual Offending,” 131.

  the London sleep researcher : Irshaad Osman Ebrahim, “Somnambulistic Sexual Behavior (Sexsomnia),” Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine 13, no. 4 (2006): 219–24.

  After five years of waking up: Schenck, Arnulf, and Mahowald, “Sleep and Sex.”

  Humans Are Special and Unique: We Masturbate. A Lot

  “on the majority of occasions ”: R. Robin Baker and Mark A. Bellis, “Human Sperm Competition: Ejaculate Adjustment by Males and the Function of Masturbation,” Animal Behavior 46, no. 5 (1993): 871.

  “The advantage to the male”: Ibid., 863.

  “The flowback emerges”: Ibid., 864.

  “scourge of the human race”: Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, “G. Stanley Hall’s Adolescence : Brilliance and Nonsense,” History of Psychology 9, no. 3 (2006): 192.

  In the early 1980s, scientists: Simon J. Wallis, “Sexual Behavior and Reproduction of Cercocebus albigena johnstonii in Kibale Forest, Western Uganda,” International Journal of Primatology 4, no. 2 (1983): 153– 66.

  “During each observation”: E. D. Starin, “Masturbation Observations in Temminck’s Red Colobus,” Folia Primatologica 75, no. 2 (2004): 115.

  “The possibility that the types”: Gilbert Van Tassel Hamilton, “A Study of Sexual Tendencies in Monkeys and Baboons,” Journal of Animal Behavior 4, no. 5 (1914): 296.

  “Of all my male monkeys”: Ibid., 314.

  “Jimmy promptly endeavoured ”: Ibid., 315.

  “a sort of intoxication”: Wilhelm Stekel, Auto-Erotism: A Psychiatric Study of Onanism and Neurosis (New York: Grove Press, 1961), 139.

  “I see in front of me”: Narcyz Lukianowicz, “Imaginary Sexual Partner: Visual Masturbatory Fantasies,” Archives of General Psychiatry 3, no. 4 (1960): 438.

  “In them he ‘saw’”: Ibid., 441.

  In a 1990 study: Bruce J. Ellis and Donald Symons, “Sex Differences in Sexual Fantasy: An Evolutionary Psychological Approach,” Journal of Sex Research 27, no. 4 (1990): 527–55.

  In their review of research findings: Harold Leitenberg and Kris Henning, “Sexual Fantasy,” Psychological Bulletin 117, no. 3 (1995): 469–96.

  “Because people who are deprived ”: Ibid., 477.

  Pedophiles, Hebephiles, and Ephebophiles, Oh My: Erotic Age Orientation

  “Between the age limits”: Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955; New York: Random House, 1997), 16.

  “You are watching ”: Ray Blanchard et al., “Pedophilia, Hebephilia, and the DSM-V,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 38, no. 3 (2009): 339.

  “Imagine how much”: Thomas K. Zander, “Adult Sexual Attraction to Early-Stage Adolescents: Phallometry Doesn’t Equal Pathology,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 38, no. 3 (2008): 329.

  “alliance formation theory”: Frank Muscarella, “The Evolution of Homoerotic Behavior in Humans,” Journal of Homosexuality 40, no. 1 (2000): 51–77.

  “as there was between”: Oscar Wilde, “The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name,” www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name.html.

  The push to pathologize : Karen Franklin, “The Public Policy Implications of ‘Hebephilia’: A Response to Blanchard et al.,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 38, no. 3 (2008): 319–20.

  “a textbook example of ”: Ibid., 319.

  “Wilde took a key”: André Gide, If It Die : An Autobiography (New York: Random House, 1935), 288.

  “judged the greatest”: “André Gide Is Dead: Noted Novelist, 81,” www.andregide.org/remembrance/nytgide.html.

  “fleshy, full-lipped, languorous young boys”: Posner, Donald. “Caravaggio’s Homo-Erotic Early Works,” Art Quarterly 34 (1971): 301–324.

  Animal Lovers: Zoophiles Make Scientists Rethink Human Sexuality

  “To a considerable extent”: Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948), 675–76.

  The first case study: Christopher M. Earls and Martin L. Lalumière, “A Case Study of Preferential Bestiality (Zoophilia),” Sexual Abuse 14, no. 1 (2002): 83–88.

  “As I grew into adolescence”: Christopher M. Earls and Martin L. Lalumière, “A Case Study of Preferential Bestiality,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 38, no. 4 (2009): 606.

 
; “When that black mare”: Ibid., 606.

  Another pioneering researcher : Hani Miletski, Understanding Bestiality and Zoophilia (Bethesda, Md.: self-published, 2002).

  “The vehemence with which”: Peter Singer, “Heavy Petting,” Nerve, www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/2001----.htm.

  “Apparently uncertain as to”: Rebecca Cassidy, “Zoosex and Other Relationships with Animals,” in Transgressive Sex: Subversion and Control in Erotic Encounters, ed. Hastings Donnan and Fiona Magowan (New York: Berghahn Press, 2009), p. 95.

  One especially provocative : Colin Williams and Martin Weinberg, “Zoophilia in Men: A Study of Sexual Interest in Animals,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 32, no. 6 (2004): 523–35.

  In Maurice Temerlin’s book : Maurice Temerlin, Lucy: Growing Up Human (Palo Alto, Calif.: Science and Behavior Books, 1975).

  Asexuals Among Us

  “I would say I’ve”: Nicole Prause and Cynthia A. Graham, “Asexuality: Classification and Characterization,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 36, no. 3 (2007): 344.

  “I just don’t feel ”: Kristin S. Scherrer, “Coming to an Asexual Identity: Negotiating Identity, Negotiating Desire,” Sexualities 11, no. 5 (2008): 626.

  In 2004, Bogaert : Anthony F. Bogaert, “Asexuality: Prevalence and Associated Factors in a National Probability Sample,” Journal of Sex Research 41, no. 3 (2004): 279–87.

  “They were not particularly”: Prause and Graham, “Asexuality”: 344.

  Foot Play: Podophilia for Prudes

  “In a small but not inconsiderable”: Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex (online-ebooks.info, 2004), 5: 12.

  reports on male homosexual foot fetishism: Martin S. Weinberg, Colin J. Williams, and Cassandra Calhan, “Homosexual Foot Fetishism,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 23, no. 6 (1994): 611–26.

  In a subsequent article : Martin S. Weinberg, Colin J. Williams, and Cassandra Calhan, “‘If the Shoe Fits…’: Exploring Male Homosexual Foot Fetishism,” Journal of Sex Research 32, no. 1 (1995): 17–27.

  Ellis admonishes us: Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, 5:19.