Koro, it’s a disease eerily reminiscent of old B-movies. You’re a not-so-mild-mannered shop keeper, engaged in a hearty argument with a foreign customer. You’re practically boiling over with anger when suddenly he firmly takes your hand and shakes it until you notice a strange feeling down below. Or perhaps you’re a customer yourself, wandering the bazaar looking for bargains, when a man offers to let you try a new electronic comb. You too, notice something is missing. Both of these men are thrown into a horrific panic, for they realize that they’ve lost that which is most precious to them.
Their penis.
The horror! The news floods the country via text message and the hospital fills up with patients, all complaining of the same symptoms. Rumors abound until no one feels safe shaking hands, either because they might catch the disease or because they’re afraid of being accused of causing it. Only repeated messages from the health officials quells the epidemic panic, and the news from doctors that their patients have nothing physically wrong with them, except for the damage done by the weights and hooks they have applied to their nether regions in the hopes of ceasing the shrinkage.
In retrospect it seems rather ridiculous, even more so because it actually happened, not centuries ago, but within the last five years. Then again, not being in current possession of a penis (stolen or otherwise) I suppose I couldn’t really begin to understand what all the fuss is about.
While we’re being honest, it’s not really a disease at all. Koro is a culture-bound syndrome: a series of symptoms without any objective physiological signs that is recognizable as disease only within certain cultures. It’s a psychological panic that, like most panics, is capable of spreading much like a normal communicable disease given the proper circumstances. The term itself comes from Southeast Asia where it means “head of a turtle,” assumingly given based on the image of a turtle retracting its head into its shell. But although the term comes from Asia the panic itself has sprung up in quite a few other places, most notably being the case of the “penis-melting Zionist cyborg combs” that happened in Sudan in 2003. It’s the details of this event that are referenced in the opening paragraphs of this post.
The term itself comes from the columns of journalist Ja’far Abbas who wrote that the comb was, “no doubt… a laser-controlled surgical robot that penetrates the skull to the lower body and emasculates a man” and that the man who was offering it was “an imperialist Zionist agent that was sent to prevent our people from procreating and multiplying.” Soon a meme was coined, bringing with it news stories, blog posts, and even a little-known myspace band.
But what causes Koro? The largest outbreaks take place in areas where there is a tradition of penis disappearance. In Asia, for example, there are several traditions regarding fox spirits stealing masculine energy and genitalia, as well as beliefs that sexual energy may be disrupted by non-spousal intercourse. But Koro is also closely tied to general sexual anxieties. Ja’far Abbas brought up the point that “our women dominate in public services and university classes… all that remains of our masculinity are our most prominent biological features,” clearly demonstrating a male fear of becoming, if not physically, at least socially impotent.
It’s this general sexual anxiety that seems to be the cause of non-culturally specific Koro. The same fear of genital shrinkage accompanied by extreme panic even though there is no physical evidence of either shrinkage or disappearance has been documented throughout the world. This includes cases in Greece, Jordan, and several in American males. Most of those affected shared a worry about not being sexually desirable. Oftentimes this fear had a triggering factor, such as stroke, AIDS, drug use, or depression. Occasionally the patients had heard of Koro before developing it.
All of these cases illustrate the fact that our perception of the world around us is skewed. We are easily swayed by things around us, by the fears of our neighbors, by our traditions, by our worries of how we appear to the world. Koro shows that sometimes what’s on our mind is as important to how feel as the microbes floating around inside us.
