- To have a bigger penis or to be able to pee. Choices, choices.
Two years ago, a Brazilian mother gave birth to a bouncing baby boy. But he was blessed (or cursed) with twice the masculinity of your average boy.
The baby was born with two penises.
Although being double-membered didn’t cause any issues for the baby, the parents wanted their child to have more… Conventional genitalia. So, they decided to have doctors remove one of the penises.
The good news is that the operation was a complete success. But the potentially worse news is that the doctors chopped off the boy’s bigger manhood.
Function Over Form
The strange case of the boy with two penises was detailed in a recent report published in the Journal of Pediatric Urology. According to the report, the boy was two years old by the time he arrived in the operating room.
The doctors noted that the boy’s penises were arranged side by side, with the left-side penis being larger. After this initial observation, they started figuring out which member they should remove.
In most people born with two penises, the second penis is what the doctors call an “accessory.” That means it’s an underdeveloped lump of flesh, which usually makes the decision straightforward.
In the case of the Brazilian boy, however, both his penises seemed fully developed. So, the doctors figured out they’d do him a solid and get rid of the smaller one.
However, then the boy’s mother pointed out that the boy could only urinate out of the smaller penis. Medical imaging indeed showed that the larger, left penis didn’t have a completely developed urethra.
In the end, the doctors made the call to favor functionality over size. They removed the larger penis and stitched the skin on the boy’s crotch to a normal shape.
According to reports, the operation has been a success. Let’s just hope the boy doesn’t have regrets once he grows up.
Meanwhile, in Uzbekistan
Bizarrely enough, this isn’t the only case of a child being born with two penises we’ve seen this year. Another report, published in Urology Case Reports, details another two-penised boy.
This second instance comes from Uzbekistan, halfway across the world from Brazil. This boy, however, had lived for seven years with two completely developed penises.
Unlike the Brazilian baby, this boy could urinate out of both penises, although he only had one bladder. This made the choice of which penis to remove — never mind the operation itself — much more difficult.
“Although each penis [was] structurally normal, it [was] a great surgical challenge for the surgeon,” the report notes.
There was no reported size difference in this case, but just like in Brazil, the doctors opted to remove the left penis. Maybe there’s just something about left-side penises that makes doctors not like them.
During the difficult operation, the doctors inserted a catheter into the right penis to make sure the boy’s bladder didn’t try to evacuate itself through the removed left penis. After 21 days, the boy left the hospital with a fully functional, single penis.
Interestingly enough, the boy was also born without an anus. Doctors reconstructed his butthole shortly after his birth, but it’s a mystery why they didn’t do anything about his double penises.
How Do People Grow Two Penises?
What makes these two cases so strange is how close together they appeared. The boys’ condition — known as diphallia — is exceedingly rare.
Only 100 cases have ever been reported, with the first appearing in 1609. The odds of being born with diphallia is roughly one in six million.
Additionally, as we mentioned, in most cases the second penis isn’t fully developed. Complete diphallia is an even rarer phenomenon, which makes these two cases that much more bizarre.
Diphallia’s causes aren’t completely clear. Researchers suspect that genetics play a large part in babies developing two penises.
Some studies have also suggested that drugs or infections could affect genital development in the fetus. Additionally, damage during the 23rd and 25th days of gestation can also result in diphallia.
Fortunately, having two penises generally doesn’t have a huge negative impact — at least medically. Boys and men with two dongs can usually urinate out of at least one of the penises.
They may also be able to, ahem… Raise the flag with one or even both members. As a result, they may be able to have normal sex lives and father children.
In some cases, however, diphallia could increase the risk of developing problems in the kidneys or the colon. This is why most boys get their second manhood removed before they grow up.