Lynchings in the Congo over theft of penises

I never cease to be amazed at the delusions that the human mind is capable of believing. One of the more amusing -- but still serious -- delusions is genital retraction syndrome, GRS, where victims believe that their penis is shrinking and that they will die once it disappears completely.

In addition to affecting individually disturbed sufferers, GRS can also be a form of mass-hysteria. Outbreaks of GRS are surprisingly common, particularly in parts of Asia and Africa, where it is often attributed to witchcraft, communist agents or Zionists. In 2003, in the midst of an outbreak in the Sudan, the journalist Ja'far Abbas blamed laser-controlled penis-melting Zionist cyborg combs for emasculating men who combed their hair.

In mid-April of this year, rumours of penis theft started spreading in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. 13 supposed sorcerers, and 14 supposed victims, were arrested by police in an effort to prevent the murders that followed a previous outbreak in Ghana.

Police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko was quoted by Reuters as saying:

"We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten."

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke. But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'."

Lest you think GRS is purely a problem for "funny little foreigners", I have a book, "Only Human", by Dr Stephen Juan, that describes a case in heartland USA. And then there's the rampant fear among certain circles of conservative Christians that soy products (a.k.a. "a devil food") is turning good ol' American boys gay and shrinking their penises.

And lets not forget that the reason so much spam offers penile enhancements is that people buy that garbage. Spammers make rather tidy profits from selling snake oil to men who worry about their penis size.

As much as I would love to come up with a long and detailed investigation into the social and psychiatric factors behind the fear of penis shrinkage, I think I'll just take the easy way out and just laugh at it.