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A new urban legend is in the process of being born.
By Christine Schoenwald — Written on Aug 04, 2015
A Georgia man cut off his penis to stop from jerking off. The more I read of this allegedly true story, the more I wished it wasn't true. I'll hand it to whoever came up with it.
The back story was pretty good, from the mother of the now-non-penis man being proud of him for trying to lead a life of purity, to the castration tool (no pun intended) of choice — an electric carving knife— to the pièce de résistance of him being unable to go back to his job at Applebee's.
Did I nearly throw up when it was reported that the doctors were unable to re-attach the penis, as the Georgia man had thrown his dismembered errr ... member to a neighbor dog who ate most of it. I can't even read that without feeling nauseous.
When I could find no reputable reporting of this story, I started to become suspicious. Finally, I found on Snopes that the story was indeed untrue; his mother hadn't suggested they get somebody to build him a metal glove with spikes on the palm to prevent him from self-pleasuring, or that he had decided that whacking off was better than whacking off his way to hell.
And this, my friends, is how urban legends are born.
Urban legends are an important part of popular culture. There's the slumber party favorite, where if you chant "We believe in Bloody Mary" three times in the bathroom mirror, a bloody woman appears. Or, how Walt Disney is cryogenically frozen, or the super popular one about how alligators live in the sewers of New York City.
"Life is so much more interesting with monsters in it," says Mikel J. Koven, a folklorist at the University of Wales. "It's the same with these legends; they're just good stories."
Finding out the truth behind the urban legends isn't as important as the lessons we learn from them.
"By looking at what's implied in a story, we get an insight into the fears of a group in society," Koven told LiveScience. Urban legends "need time to make cultural sense."
We may not know right away the lessons we're learning from the Georgia man who, after self-pleasuring himself up to 12 times a day, and had no luck finding a lady on Match.com or Craigslist, thought the answer to his problem — and what Jesus would want — was to saw off his own penis. You know, instead of seeking treatment or joining a self-help group.
I'm so glad I don't have to lament that someone was so dumb they'd rather remove their penis than wear an itchy glove to stop masturbating.
I wonder how long this urban legend will live on? Maybe forever.
