- Men are seeking out silicone penile implants even in spite of troublesome side effects.
- One patient was left with fractured pieces of the implant under his skin, according to a 2021 complaint.
Men are increasingly turning to retractable silicone implants to get girthier, longer penises.
But the litany of surgical side effects — including stabbing pain during sex, difficulty urinating, infection, and a total loss of sensation — has left some men permanently disfigured down there, Insider reported earlier this year.
In a similar report from The New Yorker and ProPublica published in conjunction Monday, the outlets trace the rise of the Penuma, a penile enlargement device invented by "the Thomas Edison of penis surgery," urologist James Elist, as well as the scores of eager men who have undergone the $15,000 procedure in recent years.
Insider reported in March that nearly 5,000 men have gotten Penuma since 2004, which increases men's midshaft circumference by an average of 56.7%, according to a 2018 study.
While some patients were left elated with their new member, others described a harrowing experience they said began with a rushed consultation, included several unnecessary follow-up procedures, and eventually ended with a reversal operation that left them worse off than when they started.
A spokesperson for Elist told Insider that The New Yorker piece cherry-picked and sensationalized the potential risks and complications involved in the Penuma procedure, while "conveniently" ignoring the "vast majority" of Dr. Elist's "highly satisfied patients."
"Thousands of men have traveled from around the globe to his Beverly Hills clinic to undergo cosmetic surgery," the spokesperson said. "As a result, men have regained their self-confidence in and out of the bedroom."
In one of the more horrifying anecdotes, however, a then-26-year-old model named Emmanuel Jackson won a free Penuma in a 2013 contest, per the New Yorker. He would later go on to file a complaint against Elist with the California Medical Board in 2021.
In 2018, Jackson sought medical counsel at the Cleveland Clinic where a doctor told him his implant had fractured into pieces and those pieces were floating beneath his skin, he told The New Yorker. Around that time, Jackson said he started chatting on online message boards with other unhappy men who had undergone the Penuma procedure. One man reportedly told Jackson that having his now-defunct implant removed could be worse than leaving it in, he told The New Yorker.
"He told me, 'Manny, you're going to lose your mind,'" Jackson said. "He was right."
Not long after the fragments were removed, Jackson attempted suicide, the outlet reported, citing medical records.
When the foreign device, made partly of mesh, is inserted just under the skin, the body responds by creating a layer of tissue around it, Mark Solomon, a plastic surgeon, told the outlet. Because the penis is a retractable organ, the new tissue can lead to a deformed shape and lesser mobility, which in turn, can cause the penis to curve or even shorten, the outlet reported, and those side effects are often exacerbated if the device is removed.
"Once this goes in, these men are never going to be the same again, because their penis is never the same again," Solomon said of the Penuma.
The pandemic saw a boom of interest in male augmentation devices, according to The New Yorker, which cited industry experts who attributed increased activity in the penile enlargement sphere to an uptick in porn consumption and remote work policies that allowed patients to recover discreetly at home.
The penile-implants market is set to hit $640.5 million worldwide by 2027, Insider previously reported.
And as Penuma procedures became more popular, so too did the need for subsequent removals among men that Solomon deemed "penile cripples." One urologist told the outlet that he is now performing as many as 10 Penuma reversals each month.
The California Medical Board investigated Elist's treatment of 10 Penuma patients, including Jackson, earlier this year and accused the doctor of gross negligence and incompetence, citing patients who said they were told to treat post-op infections with Neosporin and aloe vera and told not to seek outside medical care.
Elist told The New Yorker that the shroud of secrecy around penile enlargement procedures means the satisfied implantees rarely speak out.