Micropenis: Encyclopedia II - Micropenis - Treatment

Micropenis - Treatment

A number of surgical techniques for penis enlargement have been devised and performed but are not generally considered successful enough to be widely adopted and are rarely performed in childhood.

In extreme cases of micropenis, there is barely any shaft, and the glans appears to sit almost on the pubic skin. From the 1960s until the late 1970s, it was not unusual for sex reassignment and surgery to be recommended. This was especially likely if evidence suggested that response to additional testosterone and pubertal testosterone would be poor. If parents accepted, the boy would be reassigned and renamed as a girl, and surgery performed to remove the testes and construct an artificial vagina. This was based on three now questioned assumptions:

1. gender identity and sex differences were solely a matter of social learning rather than biology (a primary tenet of some feminist and liberal academic ideology in the 1970s).
2. a male with a penis too small to put into a vagina would be unlikely to find a satisfactory social and sexual place in society.
3. a functionally acceptable vagina could be constructed surgically.

The center most known for this approach (Johns Hopkins Hospital) performed twelve such reassignments between 1960 and 1980. By the mid-1990s reassignment was less often offered, and all three premises had been challenged. Former subjects of such surgery, vocally dissatified with adult outcome, played a large part in discouraging this practice. As a result, sexual reassignment is rarely performed today for severe micropenis. Much inaccurate or exaggerated folklore on this topic is available on the internet. See History of intersex surgery for a more complete discussion of this issue.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Treatment", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki