Penectomy

Penectomy is the practice of surgical removal of the penis for medical reasons.

Cancer, for example, sometimes necessitates removal of all or part of the penis. In very rare instances, botched circumcisions have also resulted in full or partial penectomies, as with David Reimer.

Genital surgical procedures for transsexual women undergoing sex reassignment surgery do not usually involve the complete removal of the penis. Instead, part or all of the glans is usually kept and reshaped as a clitoris, while the skin of the penile shaft may also be inverted to form the vagina. When procedures such as this are not possible, other procedures such as colovaginoplasty are used which may involve the removal of the penis.

Issues related to the removal of the penis appear in psychology, for example in the condition known as castration anxiety. Others, who associate the organ with rape, male dominance and aggression, may consciously or unconsciously see the organ (their own or those of others) as a weapon and express a hatred for it, potentially desiring to see it violently removed.

Some men have undergone penectomies as a voluntary body modification, but professional opinion is divided as to whether or not the desire for penile amputation is a pathology, thus including it as part of a body dysmorphic disorder. Voluntary subincision, removal of the glans penis, and bifurcation of the penis are related topics.