I read an article in The Miami Herald that figuratively pained me: “Surgeons Reattach Severed Penis.”
An unnamed 44-year-old man in Anchorage, Alaska, had his penis cut off by his ex-girlfriend Kim Tran, 35, in late February. She used a kitchen knife to dismember him after an intense argument involving his wanting out of their relationship.
The article said a city wastewater utility-worker recovered the penis from the toilet from which the woman had flushed it. It was rushed to Providence Alaska Medical Center, where doctors performed reattachment surgery, according to police reports.
The offense of the case painfully slices a pattern of, “If I can’t have you, no one else will either.”
Time invested in a relationship means nothing if the other party is ready to move on with his or her life.
Why would this woman want a man that did not desire her anymore?
The article said neither drugs nor alcohol were involved in the attack. Police spokeswoman Anita Shell said in her final statement to The Miami Herald, “This (case) was, if anything, more of a mental anguish.”
Why Tran chose to cut off this man’s penis is open to assumptions. Perhaps this action symbolizes her hoping that he would never be able to reach another woman.
Her reasons might have included the time spent and invested in the relationship; along with the equity of emotions involved, and that part of him she assumed no else would feel.
Lorena Bobbitt made national attention when she cut her husband’s sexual organ off after becoming exhausted from alleged bouts of physical abuse in Virginia in 1993.
Tran’s action is no different than a disgruntled woman keying a man’s car or smashing out the windows to his home. This type of response proved she allowed her emotions to overwhelm and get the best of her-as we humans are sometimes inclined to do.
But when does one say to his or herself I am better than stroking someone else’s ego through my crazed antics, all for the sake of holding onto fragments of a relationship that has been let go at one end?
What’s more distressing is while Tran hoped to cut off any feelings, she added insult to injury by flushing his member down the toilet and then driving him to the hospital.
Clearly, Tran believed herself to own something and someone that in reality, could not be owned.
No matter how much one can become involved with another person, the desire of one’s affections can’t be bridled through gifts, make-up sex or keyed cars and smashed-out windows.
Some would agree memories and a person’s affections are what have resulted in acts where tears are often shed and blood is sometimes spilled.
Nonetheless, it is important that male machismo is checked when dealing with an angry woman. I partially fault this man for allowing Tran to tie him up after an argument that was supposed to sever ties with her.
In conclusion, when it is over, it is over. There is a song I have heard before that sings these words: ” It’s so good loving somebody -when somebody loves you back!”
Jarrell Douse is a senior public relations student from Miami. He can be reached at famuanopinions@hotmail.com.