The Mythical Modifications Of Martin’s Member

Every once in a great while something catches me off guard. I am not ashamed to admit it. It hasn’t happened in quite some time but while meandering around I found this interview with Martin (the only name given).

Martin seems to have spent much of his life enamored of one hobby, namely modifying his penis. This is, in and of itself, not particularly off-putting, after all most of us have seen at least photos of, say, a Prince Albert. However, this is so far removed from the epic modifications that Martin has undertaken as to be irrelevant.

Littered throughout the interview are pictures of various surgeries, in various stages, that Martin has performed upon himself. This is when things become awkward for, you see, upon clicking on one of the small, pixelated/censored thumbnails I was presented with an image so abstract, so painful to me that my brain almost ceased to function. There I sat, slack-jawed, my breath slowly escaping from my lungs in a horrified wheeze for what seemed like an age.

Needless to say that, should someone have walked by and peered over my shoulder, the image may have instantly been rejected by their psyche as well, thus saving me the chore of explaining why I, a supposedly straight man in a monogamous relationship, was spending time staring at images of cocks.

At the time of this interview Martin has performed the following procedures on himself: circumcision, partial skinning, inflation, subincision and closing, meatotomy, another subincision, ligament cutting, scrotal release, and scrotal splitting and closing. Here is his description of closing his split scrotum:

“I cut open the right sack until it was fully open in the area that was originally split, and then I tried doing the same with the left one but the narrow neck where the cord was running through was so close to the testicle that when I cut it open, my testicle popped out and fell in my hand, hanging from its cord. It was out of its internal sack too, and started to give me stomach cramp pains. I started to panic because I could not push it back in, and I fumbled about for several minutes in pain and finally I pulled my stomach in while breathing — that tends to pull the balls up. Luckily my testicle pulled up into the mutilated scrotum, and I quickly sutured the two sacks back together again.”

I’m fascinated by people and cultures that are willing and able to modify their physical aspects in such a radical manner. What type of thought processes are involved with an individual who looks at their body and says “This physical aspect of my corporeal existence is not right. I mean why wouldn’t each testicle have its own, separate sac?” It is just so far beyond the point that I have allowed my body to be altered that it’s almost alien. My few piercings and tattoos are as nothing compared to the alterations this man has visited upon himself.

Which brings us, at last, to a very private place, one that is both evident and unexplored in the interview. What, exactly, is driving Martin to do this to his body? I am no psychologist and I have no window into Martin’s psyche but there are issues here that raise red flags with me. The most obvious being that all of his “modifications” focus on his genitalia.

After seeing his father pouring concrete around a pipe when he was six, he fixates on the thought of having his pants filled with the material and wearing them for the rest of his life, permanently denying him access to his penis. His acceptance of his sexuality itself seems to be at play here as well. He says that, having come out as a gay man late in life, he may not have tried these things had he access to other gay men and then goes on to say, “If I had left my penis well alone as I was when I was born, I’m sure I would have had more courage back then to go out looking for a female relationship and might have gotten married…”

Beyond that is the fact that Martin appears to be far more attracted to his own genitals than those of anyone else. The sexual arousal he feels from the sight of other men’s “bulging cocks” seems to be more about them reminding him of his own manhood. Indeed, masturbation lies at the heart of his sexual experience; he goes so far as to use it to keep himself from cutting too often. He is so enamored with himself that the biggest “downside” to his genital mutilations is that he has to cease masturbating until the wounds heal. Nowhere is it even mentioned that he has had any sexual contact with another human being.

These things and others beg the question: when does body modification end and mutilation begin? Is it a question of what is done or why it is done?

Martin: Genital Evolution [BodyTwo] : Warren Ellis