Debbie says:
Even when I’m screening for good Body Impolitic fodder, I rarely find three great links on any one topic … and when I do, it’s not usually male sexual organs.
***
First, Diane Kelly at Throb reports on a genuinely new anatomical discovery.
… no one knew much about how the lymphatic vessels were arranged underneath the skin, which limited treatments for swelling and increased the risk of complications during surgery.
So in a wince-inducing imaging experiment, Yan Liu and his colleagues at the Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China built a map of the penile lymphatic system using MRI images captured from volunteers who agreed to have a medical contrast agent injected under their foreskins.
The results, published in the Anatomical Record this week, show that lymphatic vessels in the glans and foreskin form a network across the upper surface of the penis before merging to form larger vessels that send fluid into lymph nodes embedded in the groin. The network isn’t connected to the erectile tissues in the center of the penis, suggesting that those tissues have their own independent set of lymphatic vessels.
Then, Alana Massey at Medium has some scorching things to say about “dickonomics” on dating sites (especially Tinder), and how heterosexual women can think about choosing among possible partners.
Dick is abundant and low value. I had gotten my new motto amidst the worst break-up of my life. Shaken to my core by the degrading insults my ex had hurled at me but also mourning the permanent departure of some poetically good dick, I was spending a day mindlessly refreshing Twitter and reading up on how to spot sociopaths. I came across two tweets from Madeleine Holden, a lawyer and writer who regularly entertains the Twitter masses with her unapologetic analyses of toxic masculinity and her praise of amazing female-identified people:
For all its faults, I still find Tinder delightful. I’m now 29, and I set my upper age limit to a reasonable 37, my lower age limit to a rather scandalous 23. No one can address me without my consent, which I can withdraw with an unceremonious “Unmatch” at any time. … But I’ve found enough value on Tinder to keep going, swiping and unmatching bad profiles out of my life at the first sign of unreasonable expectations. Their corner of Tinder is a dark place, dense with hapless souls who didn’t realize that the centuries-long period of dick overvaluation is over.
***
Finally, George Dvorsky at io9 has entirely too much fun imagining “the penis of the future,” which is, among other things,
- disease resistant (“a high-tech penis could be implanted with bio-sensors that detect specific foreign pathogens, alerting the rest of the body to their presence,”),
- shape-shifting (“Ideally, men should be able to change the smoothness of their penis, or its surface structure. Penis 2.0 should be like an on-demand French tickler, with modifiable ridges, grooves, and bumps to enhance the sexual pleasure of the receiver.”) and
- internet ready (“Once your dick is online you’ll be able to participate in virtual sex. … With the enhanced, Internet-ready penis, no external devices will be required. You could also use your bluetooth-enabled penis to track and transmit biometric data and other statistics to an online app. … Oh, and a connection to the Internet will also allow you to update any software that’s resident in your upgraded penis.)
You’ve heard of the “internet of things”; this is the “internet of schlongs.” Read the whole thing, some of which is serious and all of which is entertaining.
Thanks to hitchhiker for the dickonomics link.
