Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
A Thai Buddhist monk cut off his penis with a machete because he had an erection during meditation and declined to have it reattached, saying he had renounced all earthly cares, a doctor and a newspaper said on Wednesday.The 35-year-old monk, whose name was withheld for privacy reasons, allowed medical staff at Maharaj hospital, 780 km (480 miles) south of Bangkok to dress his wound, but refused reattachment, hospital chief Prawing Euanontouch said.
"We cleaned up the wound, gave him some stitches, but he declined to have it reattached because he said had abandoned everything," Prawing told Reuters by telephone.
They say after you lose a limb, sometimes you can still feel it there...
Comments
While I think this man is an idiot, I also think this is the kind of idiots I like.
Some other idiots do all they can to impose their idiotic beliefs on others, while the peniless monk just harmed himself.
Posted by: diegopig | November 25, 2006 9:22 AM
The irony here is that it isn't the Buddhist monks who are forcing their "earthly cares" on their followers. Perhaps the Catholic church should take notice.
Posted by: ericnh | November 25, 2006 10:14 AM
This guy is still alive, but he has definitely removed himself permanently from the gene pool, so shouldn't he be eligible for a Darwin Award?
Posted by: Elf Eye | November 25, 2006 10:50 AM
He cut off his penis, not balls. So he will still continue to produce sperm, but will lack in terms of delivery.
Perhaps he just had an urge to become a tax collector?http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/11/09/india.eunuchs.ap/index.html
Posted by: kehrsam | November 25, 2006 11:01 AM
I wonder what he was meditating about ....
Posted by: Dave S. | November 25, 2006 11:04 AM
I find this incredibly sad.
I understand being annoyed by your biology, impulses and all that, but what a profoundly cruel thing to do to oneself. What kind of self-loathing does one have to feel to do something like that? It's sad.
Posted by: Leni | November 25, 2006 11:31 AM
It might not even work. Hasn't he seen Parsifal? Guess they're not into Wagner in Thailand.
Posted by: Dave M | November 25, 2006 11:38 AM
All I can think of is Bruce Campbell doing battle with his own severed hand in Army Of Darkness ;-)
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | November 25, 2006 1:21 PM
Surprised to see a Buddhist doing this. More surprised to see fewer Christians doing so.
Mark 9:43 "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched..."
...And so on, with feet and eyes. So important is this advice, it's mentioned twice verbatim in Matthew. You'd think self-mutiliation was a sacrament!
Posted by: Grumpy | November 25, 2006 3:19 PM
Grumpy- well, Origen *did* go that route, although he went for the balls instead.
All in all, though, this is not as impressive as the monk who burned himself alive during the Vietnam War. He held a meditative pose while burning, until he died and fell over.
http://www.quangduc.com/BoTatQuangDuc/25photo.html
Posted by: MJ Memphis | November 25, 2006 10:09 PM
Interesting that if a monk cuts off his whole penis, people think he's the crazy one. But we all iatrogenic harm by circumcising nonconsenting infants in the US and remove up to half their penises and sexual feeling and function, and we're the "normal" ones? Who's crying "ouch" for our babies?
Posted by: Julie | November 25, 2006 11:42 PM
My circumcised member has all the sensation I can stand and I've never known anything else. I consider my circumstances to be substantially different from this monk.
Posted by: Matt | November 26, 2006 9:44 PM
Julie said -
Interesting that if a monk cuts off his whole penis, people think he's the crazy one. But we all iatrogenic harm by circumcising nonconsenting infants in the US and remove up to half their penises and sexual feeling and function, and we're the "normal" ones? Who's crying "ouch" for our babies?
We do it for them as infants because it is incredibly painfull later. Infants have hardly any nerves in their penis - it doesn't hurt then. But if you wait, odds are good that it will have to be done when they are older. I dread the notion that my son will probably have to because we thought we would be nice and leave it intact. He is having increasing pain, when the forskin is rolled back to clean it. If it isn't rolled back and cleaned it gets infected - a lot of males expierience excrutiating pain doing that.
My dad had to get circumsised when he was twelve. Unfortunately, I did not know that until it was too late. Last year a friends seven year old had to have it done. I got a chance to see him a couple days after, the pain had barely begun to slow - it kept him out of school for a week.
There is a damn good reason that most males get circumsized. It is easier and less painfull when they are newborns, it is likely they will eventualy need one regardless. And they don't take half the damn penis off either, just the foreskin.
And I am really not looking forward to the likely need to have it done for my four year old son. He already has enough mixed feelings about the doctor.
Posted by: DuWayne | November 26, 2006 11:36 PM
What's the original citation for this? Do you have a URL?
Posted by: Pinku-Sensei | November 27, 2006 12:33 AM
Posted by: Alan B. | November 27, 2006 6:06 AM
There is a damn good reason that most males get circumsized. It is easier and less painfull when they are newborns, it is likely they will eventualy need one regardless. And they don't take half the damn penis off either, just the foreskin.
I would like to see some studies that show most males will eventually need a circumcision.
Posted by: Will | November 27, 2006 8:21 AM
Ok, a female chiming in, so take that for what it's worth...
But circumcised males have less chnace of passing STDs to their partners (in unprotected sex) and also are less likely to give their partner a yeast infection (also in unprotected sex).
As for whether or not it's necessary... if I should ever have children I'll let my husband make that call.
Oh, and on the OT, did the name "Bobbit" pop into anyone else's heads?
Posted by: Kate | November 27, 2006 8:47 AM
Me too. I think that would be news to the majority of the male population of Europe.
Still, I've heard of men who got circumcised and are unhappy about it, but I don't know any of them personally. I'm just happy that I'll never have any kids and hence never have to make that decision for them.
Posted by: Gretchen | November 27, 2006 9:33 AM