Page 17 | Do phalloplasties actually work?

SilverTapz · 2025-05-11T21:38:51+00:00

After wondering about this for a while, I ended up searching phalloplasty online and ended up on a Reddit page where people post their progress. I had never seen one before an was curious, I guess. It was actually quite shocking. People with what looks like no muscle left on their forearms, someone with a necrotic 'scrotum', someone where the stitches were wide open and the tip has turned black and left a gaping hole etc etc. People seem to be commenting saying that they look great, they've made the right decision etc, but honestly they look absolutely butchered. It's scary. And I guess my question is, do they actually function? Some of these people are so young and it's scary what they've done to their bodies. I can't help but think a lot of them will regret the decision. Is it mainly cosmetic? Can they orgasm? Honestly just very shocked by what I've seen!

NautilusLionfish · 12/05/2025 20:45

GarlicPile · 12/05/2025 20:03

If to include sperms production then probably not 🤣🤣

Erm, definitely not! No surgeon can implant working testes with sperm vesicles and all the hormonal, chromosomal, nervous and vascular connections to manufacture sperm and ejaculate seminal fluid.

You realise these are reproductive organs, right? One sex (reproductive category) cannot become the other sex.

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Reproductive organs you say? Never heard of those.
As to whether they can produce sperms, I would say never say never. There may be a 1 to 200 trillion chances but it's a chance. And there is always mutation. A chromosomal mutation triggered by ...hmmm....hmmm... sheer will? Read Rhonda Bryne. We can think things into being

Seriously though if you read my posts you would understand where am coming from but I appreciate that's not always possible. Or desired.

ArtTheClown · 12/05/2025 20:52

I’m afraid that most if not all surgical procedures have been trialled on animals at some point (happy to be corrected if someone knows otherwise), though in past times humans were often the unwitting guinea pigs

We reluctantly accept that if the outcome is to improve human wellness though.
It's harder to swallow when what's being tested so manifestly does not.

borntobequiet · 12/05/2025 21:01

ArtTheClown · 12/05/2025 20:52

I’m afraid that most if not all surgical procedures have been trialled on animals at some point (happy to be corrected if someone knows otherwise), though in past times humans were often the unwitting guinea pigs

We reluctantly accept that if the outcome is to improve human wellness though.
It's harder to swallow when what's being tested so manifestly does not.

Oh, I agree.

LesserCelandine · 12/05/2025 21:21

In the past ten years, so many vulnerable teens and children were sold an absolute load of horseshit about how meds and surgery would 'fix dysphoria', based on a total paucity of evidence and a total lack of questioning that was the foundation of 'affirming' healthcare.

There isn’t a ‘total paucity of evidence’ though. The problem is the evidence doesn’t support what they want it to support.

BundleBoogie · 12/05/2025 21:31

Nameychangington · 12/05/2025 14:38

I have seen this discussed at some length on the kiwi farms. The consensus (as much as there is ever consensus on KF) is that either:

A) these girls are so young and totally lacking in sexual experience that they have never seen or interacted with a real penis or

B) these girls have had such awful childhood experiences of penises that they believe that they are meant to be the size of two coke cans (phalloplasty creates huge flesh rolls which are later 'debulked' in other surgeries) because in the interactions they've had with penises, the penises were that scale to them.

Either of those possibilities being true is horrifying.

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Oh good grief. I keep thinking it can’t get any worse but then it does.

Ferro · 12/05/2025 21:47

Do we define a penis purely by ability to be erect and ejaculate? To orgasm? How diminishing would that be to millions of men who cant.

Erection and ejaculation are pretty much what men want their penises to do, yes. It is fundamental to male sexual satisfaction. Of those millions of men who can’t, I expect close to 100% wish they could.

borntobequiet · 12/05/2025 22:48

Do we define a penis purely by ability to be erect and ejaculate?

Well, that is its primary purpose, and what it’s evolved to do. The fact that it sometimes doesn’t work for some men isn’t nice for them, but that’s not really relevant.

GarlicPile · 12/05/2025 23:04

I know, it's such a mad question 😂 Like "No, it's a fashion accessory".

BundleBoogie · 12/05/2025 23:07

GarlicPile · 12/05/2025 23:04

I know, it's such a mad question 😂 Like "No, it's a fashion accessory".

The knots that people tie themselves into to argue that black is white and up is down….

TheKeatingFive · 12/05/2025 23:07

Ferro · 12/05/2025 21:47

Do we define a penis purely by ability to be erect and ejaculate? To orgasm? How diminishing would that be to millions of men who cant.

Erection and ejaculation are pretty much what men want their penises to do, yes. It is fundamental to male sexual satisfaction. Of those millions of men who can’t, I expect close to 100% wish they could.

If it doesn't do those things, it's malfunctioning, right?

So is this what these girls are actually looking for? A malfunctioning penis?

EilonwyWithRedGoldHair · 12/05/2025 23:37

TheOriginalEmu · 12/05/2025 04:16

It’s not different, because to s trans person there is something massively wrong with their body. A persons mental health is as much a medical reason as any other. We have been doing ‘cosmetic’ surgery for mental health reasons for a long time now.

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It's generally not considered acceptable to remove a limb to treat BIID, do you think we should? They also believe there is something massively wrong with their body and that causes them great distress but it's considered a mental disorder.

FlakyCritic · 13/05/2025 02:15

MyOliveHelper · 12/05/2025 08:59

So is much of the cosmetic surgery on yoing women who suffer from.their own forms of dysphoria. You think a young woman who believes that she needs big rubber lips and a massive arse to look good is mentally well?

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Um.... they don't actually think they're not women.

That's the difference.

FlakyCritic · 13/05/2025 02:32

peachgreen · 12/05/2025 10:25

Your first paragraph is a very good point, thank you. I still think it would be unfortunate if OP only asks these questions here, as it's not going to give her a range of views. But I do take your point about not invading trans people's space.

I asked the question because I was genuinely curious about the answer. OP might well have come back and said "actually I've also asked in X Y and Z spaces to get a range of views". Or she might have come back and said "I think phalloplasty is awful and actually what I wanted to do was talk about it in a place where I suspect my concerns will be shared". Both valid responses.

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No you're not genuinely curious. You're trying to stop discussion. An AS of your name shows you are very pro-trans/anti-women and believe transwomen are women. Your own words in one post are that transwomen are women.

Stop the act.

FlakyCritic · 13/05/2025 02:46

TheOriginalEmu · 12/05/2025 11:32

It’s no different to breast enlargements or nose jobs or labioplasty or any number of surgeries people have because they dislike how their body looks. Do you protest against those?

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How can you be so wilfully ignorant? It is a LOT different! It re-routes the urinary system for one.

And wanting to change your looks for beauty reasons are completely different from being so mentally ill that you think you're the opposite sex.

TempestTost · 13/05/2025 03:11

GarlicPile · 12/05/2025 19:53

Unusually, I agree with Olive on this - in a generalised sense, at least. It's a surgical culture of "Be your best self!" when your best and even your self are fully predicated on how you look - to yourself or others.

Shallow doesn't even come close to what this is: it reduces people to sets of body parts. With older women in the public eye, for instance, you can often identify how they've stopped seeing their own faces and had a blepharoplasty here, a cheek lift there and so on, with no awareness of how the whole face now works as a whole.

Men are increasingly having penis enlargement surgeries, ffs, on perfectly average organs, and six-pack implants.

The physical risks of all these surgeries are quite high, though not as frightening as the 1 in 2 risk of severe complications to GRS. The psychological risks, I would surmise, are at least as high.

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Yeah, I don't think we can really separate the acceptance of "gender-affirming" surgeries from the general acceptance now of cosmetic procedures of all kinds.

It's odd because it's so out of line with self-acceptance language.

Medically, cosmetic surgery has always been considered questionable from a medical ethics standpoint. Personally I don't think it's compatible - I don't think doctors should be allowed to do it at all. If anyone is it should be people who are not understood as medical practitioners, and it should be clear that its nothing to do with health, and that it's high risk in many cases.

akkakk · 13/05/2025 05:55

TheKeatingFive · 12/05/2025 23:07

If it doesn't do those things, it's malfunctioning, right?

So is this what these girls are actually looking for? A malfunctioning penis?

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For something to be malfunctioning it must originally have functioned… a malfunctioning car engine was once working as a car engine, if it never did that it is simply a block of metal.

so, no the end result is not a malfunctioning penis - it is a tube of flesh trying to give a visual appearance of a penis…

it has never been a penis, never had the function of a penis, will never be a penis. In an era of returning to honesty and removing obfuscation - as a man I would like to reclaim the word (not quite sure I want to wear equivalent t-shirts to the brilliant women ones though!) a penis is only ever something that starts life on a male (boy/man) it is not a distorted piece of flesh made from parts of a woman.

this whole discussion is about returning to honesty and biological reality - a woman can’t have a penis, never will; in exactly the same way that a man can’t have a vagina / can’t be a woman… 😉

Outofthebluemonday · 13/05/2025 06:59

NautilusLionfish · 12/05/2025 09:54

I put a link to two metareviews earlier. The second link talks of voiding while standing (i.e. peeing standing) being most successful outcome at 92% . I have pasted it here again and highlighted it for you @StellaAndCrow Am not sure if the rate of complications is higher than other surgeries but again, hard to compare surgeries (And in this case, hard to say what is lifesaving surgery as some trans people will say such a surgery saved their life (or will save it) and I cannot disprove that)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29019859/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2050052122000129
database searching generated 39 final articles, with 19 case series, 3 cross-sectional studies, and 17 retrospective cohort studies. A total of 1731 patients underwent phalloplasty, with the most common type of reconstruction performed being the radial forearm free flap (75.1%). Overall complication rate was high at 76.5%, of which urethral complications were high in all reconstructive subgroups (urethral fistula rate of 34.1% and urethral stricture rate of 25.4%). Postoperative functional outcomes were reported in 57.6% of patients, finding that most had tactile sensation (93.9%) and can void while standing (92.2%). Aesthetic outcomes were only reported in 6.3% of patients, with mean length achieved being 12.26 cm (SD = 0.81 cm) and mean circumference being 10.18 cm (SD = 3.69 cm).

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think the patients are being experimented on by surgeons ….

MyOliveHelper · 13/05/2025 07:53

FlakyCritic · 13/05/2025 02:15

Um.... they don't actually think they're not women.

That's the difference.

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So ss long as the deluded person doesn't think they're a man, you don't care what surgeries they have?

Again clearly about hating trans people over worry for the mental and physical health of other humans.

MyOliveHelper · 13/05/2025 07:55

FlakyCritic · 13/05/2025 02:46

How can you be so wilfully ignorant? It is a LOT different! It re-routes the urinary system for one.

And wanting to change your looks for beauty reasons are completely different from being so mentally ill that you think you're the opposite sex.

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Many of these surgeries need to do similarly drastic steps to achieve the goal.

MyOliveHelper · 13/05/2025 08:01

FlirtsWithRhinos · 12/05/2025 11:57

Wow - lot of projection going on in that post. Do you really think feminist women who raise concerns about the many ways the sexist concept of gender identity is harmful to women and children (and also men by the way) are going to be people who are on board with 23-year old having botox? Half of us don't even shave our legs for God's sake 😂

I think this is one you may need to educate yourself about.

Honestly I thought you were genuine at first and agreed you had a point, but the later posts have made it clear you don't care about those girls either, it's just the usual TRA "throw in anything that might work to delegitimise criticism of trans choices"

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Yes I do think that. And no I don't think that just not liking trans people = feminism. It has to be more than that. I don't see any feminist arguments here. I see anti-trans arguments. A feminist argument would encompass all women. Not just trans people.

borntobequiet · 13/05/2025 08:01

MyOliveHelper · 13/05/2025 07:53

So ss long as the deluded person doesn't think they're a man, you don't care what surgeries they have?

Again clearly about hating trans people over worry for the mental and physical health of other humans.

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Their delusion that the pp was referring to is thinking that this cosmetic surgery will do the impossible, and turn them into someone of the opposite sex, which is of a different order than the expectations of more conventional cosmetic surgery, hence more concerning.

borntobequiet · 13/05/2025 08:03

MyOliveHelper · 13/05/2025 07:55

Many of these surgeries need to do similarly drastic steps to achieve the goal.

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Which ones?

MyOliveHelper · 13/05/2025 08:03

FOJN · 12/05/2025 10:40

Just highlighting another manipulative tactic of the activists.

.....stopping trans people from existing....

The language suggests that anyone questioning gender ideology is motivated by bigoted attitudes which lead to genocidal intentions. It's deliberate. You wouldn't want to have something in common with the Nazis, would you?

It's manipulative and childish. Questioning whether radical body modification, which creates lifelong medical patients, is the most effective treatment for the mental health condition gender dysphoria does not make you an advocate for genocide and you should not take anyone who uses this argument seriously.

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No it suggests that your hypocritical arguments against trans people are transparent and weak and you should up your game if you want to have any real impact on this social issue.

Blueredyellowgreen · 13/05/2025 08:06

borntobequiet · 13/05/2025 08:01

Their delusion that the pp was referring to is thinking that this cosmetic surgery will do the impossible, and turn them into someone of the opposite sex, which is of a different order than the expectations of more conventional cosmetic surgery, hence more concerning.

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Having looked at pictures, you'd need to be suffering severe body dysmorphia to do that to yourself. Of course its not a working penis. Are there no regulations for these surgeons. Lopping off healthy breast tissue, butchering arms, using colons for fake vaginas. It's like Mary Shelley's story. Immensely sad.

MyOliveHelper · 13/05/2025 08:06

borntobequiet · 13/05/2025 08:03

Which ones?

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Labioplasty for one. Doesn't reroute the urinary system but risks major damage to tissue and nerves in that area. Breast implants. The various body modification procedures one can consent to legally which can involve nullification of the genitalia. The various fillers and things you can have injected into you all have risks. Major risks.

There is no logical basis to being against these surgeries on trans people, but legal and fine for your young adult daughter.