I was told my local hospital was home to one of the nation’s leading experts in, catch this, penile fractures. This has me worried, Cecil. How might it happen that I would, you know, break it? Is this a hazard of everyday life? Are there any preventive measures I might take? –M. Toulouse-Lautrec, Hyde Park
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Cecil has heard about some stupid injuries in his day, but penile fracture takes the cake. Offhand you’d think the penis would be immune to fracture, since it contains no bones. It does get rigid, however, and things that get rigid can break. At risk are the corpora cavernosa, the two tubelike masses of tissue that run through the center of the penis. They become engorged with blood during sexual arousal and cause the penis to become erect. Each corpus cavernosum is covered with a fibrous sheath, which during erection gets stretched pretty thin. A sudden jolt in the wrong place and you could pop like a balloon. In severe cases, the urethra (through which urine passes) and the outer sheath of the penis can also be damaged.
A 67-year-old minister, obviously taking the parable of the good seed to heart, was having intercourse when his “penis rammed [the] mattress.” He began to bleed profusely and experienced pain and swelling.
In the old days treatment consisted of splinting, ice packs, insertion of a catheter (sometimes), and rest, augmented by drugs to suppress erection while the injury healed. However, such treatment sometimes resulted in permanent deformation and inhibited sexual performance. Accordingly, many doctors today recommend repairing the damage surgically–not a pleasant thing to watch, judging from the pictures. The operation is fairly straightforward, but there’s obviously not much room for error. One thing’s for sure: if this ever happens to you, make sure you get a surgeon who’s more coordinated than you are.
