In studying for an upcoming exam, I came across a psychiatric disorder that I have never heard of before. It's called Koro.
Koro is an acute anxiety state seen mainly in Asian men in which they fear that their penis is shrinking (and often that this might be fatal). It can also manifest in women, where they fear their nipples are retracting. It's not known exactly what the cause is (there are likely many contributing factors), but there are also case reports of this happening to American men after smoking marijuana. (from now on I'm going to tell everyone that marijuana shrinks your genitals - which technically is not untrue)
Even more interesting is that this fear can be more than just an isolated incident and epidemics have been reported.
"Minor Koro epidemics have seized localised parts of Asia at various times, including a well documented 1967 outbreak in Singapore. As the panic spread hospitals became inundated with people worried that their penises were shrinking into their body. Many had resorted to pegs, clamps and even a constant firm grip from concerned family members attempting to prevent the member from vanishing entirely. According to an analysis of the incident reported in the Singapore Medical Journal, the panic stemmed from rumours that pork, poisoned from a swine fever inoculation, was causing genital shrinkage. Similar outbreaks in the Guangdong region in China have been related to an alleged sighting of the beautiful Hu Li Jung, a genital thieving fox spirit traditionally thought to wander the countryside in search of male victims."
(http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/9/16/81843/6555)
Interestingly, the word Koro may be derived from the malaysian word for "Tortoise".
No comments:
Post a Comment