http://www.wiscnews.com/bnr/opinion/283917
Ben: Shrinkage: It's not just on 'Seinfeld' anymore
Occasionally we are reminded that this is the greatest nation in the world, and that we are lucky to be Americans. Not because you can get a chalupa at the drive-through window at 4 a.m., or even because every resident eventually gets a reality show on cable.
It's because a guy can walk the streets unafraid that a sorcerer will put a whammy on his manhood.
Not every nation can make that claim. In the Congo, men say black magic is leaving them, um, dis-membered.
According to the Reuters news service, police have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers for theft. Their booty? Well, it wasn't "booty" at all, but rather another area of the male anatomy. The sorcerers are suspected of stealing or shrinking men's penises. And you thought the guys had just gotten out of the pool or something.
Reports of penis snatching are common in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain body parts still occur. No doubt this is where Joan Rivers gets spare parts for her face.
Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, capital of the Congo. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, as listeners were advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings. What, are they disguised as Frodo?
Purported victims, 14 of whom were detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear. Some victims said it was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.
To the average American, this sounds like a hoax. How could someone remove that organ on the spot against the victim's will? Even America's top divorce lawyers haven't figured out how to do that.
"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters. Not so fast, chief: There are some things guys don't joke about, and the well-being of their little friend is one of them. Any threat south of the border moves our homeland security alert level to orange.
Need evidence? A wave of panic over the purported penis attacks triggered attempted lynchings. If these sorcerers have the power of invisibility, now would be the time to use it.
"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you," Oleko told Reuters. "We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten."
Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs.
"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it?'" Oleko said.
Not everyone shares Oleko's humorous take on these events. Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from the nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft, seeking revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.
"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," 29-year-old Alain Kalala said.
Maybe there is something to these allegations, after all. No guy is going to confess to shrinkage in public except in the most dire circumstances. Men want the world to think they resemble the Washington Monument, and strive not to give anyone cause for doubt.
Ah yes, the Washington Monument: A symbol of American strength and power. It is a 555-foot reminder — think the architect was compensating for something? — that ours is a free, virile land where men needn't fear wang whammies.
In this country, we don't use black magic to settle political scores. Instead we concoct hurtful lies about our opponent's past and repeat them in the media until they become accepted as facts and he is disgraced.
We practice a more civilized brand of emasculation.
Submit shrinkage confessions to columnist Ben Bromley at bbromley@capitalnewspapers.com
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