Men do lots of crazy things for love. Sometimes they spray paint His Initials "Heart" Her Initials on water towers. Other times we invade Troy. And, once in a blue moon, we get drunk, steal an airplane and run it off a runway. All of these things make sense. Manually removing one's genitalia (with a knife) does not.

Per AOL News, a man in southern Egypt, the so-called upper Nile, cut off his own penis with a knife because his parents would not permit him to marry a lady below his station. The scorned member was not in a condition to be reattached to the man's body. A stay in the hospital followed the man's life-saving surgery. And, I would guess, that he'll would benefit from some therapy.

Who among us hasn't maimed themselves as a way protest a really unfair decision by our parents? I used to eat gross food and destroy my possessions. My sister used to hold her breath until she passed out. Since our tactics were non-violent (except to our persons and belongings), we thought of ourselves as being kind of like Gandhi. Our parents were not amused and the tactic never really had the kind of payoff that we were looking for.

Flash forward 30 years, if I know my Shakespeare (or The Princess Bride), it's plain to see what the Young Turk (Egyptian, whatever) was going for. He wanted to prove to his parents that they're tyrannical regime could only control him so much. So instead of quaffing poison on the eve of his wedding (or preparing to commit seppuku on the wedding night), he heated a knife and removed his candidacy for a Viagra prescription. This swift, irreversible act eliminated the possibility of grandchildren and made a politically-beneficial marriage highly unlikely. Though he "showed them," I'm willing to bet that old dude would probably do things slightly differently if given a second shot at this act of defiance. Maybe something involving drugs, prostitutes or skipping school and wrecking dad's Ferrari. 

As far as I know, all dudes have a natural cringe reflex when castration is mentioned. Accidents happen (The Sun Also Rises) as does retribution (the coda to much torture porn and Freud's analysis of Oedipal fears), but the idea that we could be compelled to do this to ourselves (like Jackie Earle Haley in Little Children) is terrifying. The Reel Big Fish song "She Has A Girlfriend Now" that ends with the line "I'll even cut my penis off for you…" So they may not want to travel to the south of Egypt for a while. The good news is that I'm pretty sure I know what Meatloaf will not do for love now.

So, ladies, even if you're a serious ball-buster, do us a solid and keep the eunuch-making comments to a minimum, even in jest, OK?