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Medical Video: What's It Like To Have Two Penises? (Warning: Graphic Details)
Male snakes and lizards have two sex organs, called hemipenes, which are basically two-headed penis to be used interchangeably when mating with a female partner. But did you know that humans can also have two penises?
About 1 in 5-6 million births are accompanied by two penises. That means there are 600 to 700 men on earth who have two penises at a time, but only about 100 cases have been officially recorded in the medical literature since this condition was first discovered by Johannes Jacob Wecker in 1609. One of them included an American man who had a stir in 2014 by uploading a photo of his twin penis on Reddit, an online community forum.
How come, is there a man born with two penises?
The condition of birth with two penises is known as diphallia. Diphallia is a very rare medical condition, also known as penile duplication (PD), diphallic terata, or diphallasparatus.
The medical world classifies diphallia into three forms based on the characteristics of the duplicate penis, and there are no two cases that are exactly the same. The most rare duplication of the penis is the twin head of the penis, aka one double-headed penis. Other, smaller duplicate penises are located just above the main penis. The most common form of diphallia is two identical identical penises, intact and large, side by side apart (not from one branch).
There are also a number of cases in which the second penis grows in the body, which means that the man can only know he turns out to have another penis while undergoing internal treatment for urological problems. Several pairs of duplicate penises function normally. That is, men can urinate and / or tighten and ejaculate from one penis or both, alternately or at the same time. In other cases, one penis may not function at all - representing a lump of meat.
Diphallia to be distinguished from missing twin syndromes aka fetal resorption. Diphallia is not a hereditary condition, but can be caused by abnormalities in the expression of the homeobox gene - certain DNA series that regulate patterns of differences in body shape - which occur during the fourth week of fetal development in the womb. Changes in gene expression are caused by gene mutations or chemical injury or stress. Around the 24th to the 25th day of pregnancy, the channels that make up the urolo-genital organs can separate themselves from the developing genital and rectal organs. If there is a certain amount of stress that is received by the embryo at these times, cells can form twice.
Can Diphallia be treated?
Men with diphallia are usually infertile due to congenital defects. They also have an increased risk of developing spina bifida, a condition that causes spinal malformations designed to protect the spinal cord.
Duplicate penises can be removed by a surgical procedure, but come with their own risks, including erratic results. Unfortunately, men born with two penises due to diphallia tend to die at an early age due to infection and kidney failure.
