Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/24/penis-transplant-successful.html
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phone rings at digital media firm…
“Hello. This is Digital Media R Us”
“Yes. This is John Hopkins hospital. We have a job for you”
“Ok what do you need?”
“We need a digital video rendering done.”
“We do those. Of what?”
“You know those old text book style anatomy drawings?”
“Yeah”
“We need one of those digitally animated.”
“Ok. Of what?”
“It’s of a penis being reattached to a person”
“…”
“Hello? Are you there?”
“Yeah. Uh. Did you say you need a digital rendering of a penis being reattached to a person?!”
“Yes. Exactly. But ya know. Old school anatomy drawing style.”
“…”
“Hello? Are you still there?”
“Yeah. Yeah. Just. Hold on let me put you on speaker. …now say that again!”
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The “ethics” of not attaching the ballsack seems a bit odd. Couldn’t the guy just think of it as being a personal, mobile sperm bank? I guess he’d have to check he wasn’t about to get jiggy with his donor’s sister.
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This could probably be arranged to be ethical and legal with the prior consent of the donor. But given the bleeding-edge nature of the procedure, they probably didn’t even have a form for that yet…
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Dust off those Nixon jokes.
John: Oh, I say, have you seen page eight? Nixon’s had an asshole transplant.
Terry: Ohhh, have you seen the stop press then?
John: No.
Terry: The asshole has rejected him.
I know this has been all over my trans masculine sites. We are always looking for a bigger better penis.
(Personally, I think I’d pass. I wouldn’t want to take anti-rejection meds forever, or necessarily feel comfortable with a donor penis.)
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The donor’s testes were not transplanted due to ethical guidelines…
I found myself wondering - whose ethical guidelines? Did the doctors consult one another and nod sagely and render their decision? Or was the recipient consulted? He may have altogether different ethics about nutlessness. I didn’t even know they had ethical guidelines for cock transplants.
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Actually…it does make sense as the testes are what would be the procreative part of the genitals. The penis itself is just a vehicle for fluids.
Edit: Additionally, taking away your sarcasm in that…it would have been a donor board who decided it…not just the transplant Drs sitting at the table. Exactly what @agies pointed out more quickly than I. I would also add the recipient if told the choice was “reattached penis sans testicles OR be Varys for every Halloween hence forth.” he’d take the former.
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Medical ethics. The donor consented to being an organ donor, not a sperm donor. And while he may be dead he presumably has a family that doesn’t want someone else walking around fathering his children.
Not to mention the fact that having testicles that produce someone else’s sperm might actually heighten dissociative feelings.
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The ballsack is there, only sans said balls.
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In my mind I hope he awoke to these chords:
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Those objective ethics that just “exist” independent of messy things like opinions? My point is not about penises, it’s about white guys in white labcoats being the deciders, which really is another ethical question. Or metaethical - is that a word?
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No Orchids For Miss Blandish, then. 
not attaching the ballsack
In this case they did attach the scrotum (aka ballsack) but left out the testicles (aka balls.)
I presume they haven’t attempted to transplant a scrotum in the past because genital transplantation is still a pretty new field. Transplanting a penis (which has been done in the past) is complicated already, and bringing the scrotum along for the trip would mean even more nerves and blood vessels to worry about during surgery and recovery.
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It was the first thing I thought but, as you said, the possibility of rejection and lifetime taking immunodepressants would suck.
I hope that in the future people can cultivate organs from patient stem cells.
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As a typical guy, normally I would be making all kinds of jokes here, but for some reason I’m cringing and feeling really uncomfortable.
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It really is feckin’ miraculous what modern medical science can do.
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Again…there are donor transplant boards that make decisions like this. Now you can make an assumption that it is a bunch of white guys in white labcoats if you like; however, woman are allowed to be Doctors as well as minorities too. Quite a few of them are in fact Doctors. You would most likely need to look up the members of that particular board to determine the exact mix.
Which…I will ask…why does it matter? We are talking about a man who has had part of his abdominal wall and all of his genitals destroyed. The Doctors are ethically bound to do what is best for the patient. The gender or skin color of the Doctors in this case is irrelevant…their dedication to the oath they took and their experience and expertise to make competent decisions IS.
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