Phantom Penis: Extrapolating Neuroscience and Employing Imagination for Trans Male Sexual Embodiment

Abstract

This article investigates transgender men’s phantom penis experience with respect to several contexts: historical reportage and medical explanations of phantom limbs and phantom penises following amputation; body dysphoria and “melancholic strength”; all renditions of trans penis including the testosterone-morphed clitoris; phenomenology and prosthetic incorporation; the neurobiology of metoidioplasty and phalloplasty; and neuroscience research on cortical mapping, hard-wired gender, proprioception, brain plasticity, epiphenomenal orgasm, the rubber hand illusion (RHI), virtual reality (VR) embodiment, and mirror neurons. Although a unique phantom instantiation, trans men’s phantom penises are instructively related to congenital aplasia, visual and motor neural simulation, and cis men’s phantom penises. I examine three aspects of trans men’s phantom penis: phantom presence of a penis, phantom penile erogenous sensation, and the volitional phantom penis. An emphasis on function over visibility, pleasure over presence, and synthesis over staidness enables an understanding of phantom penis sensation as the neurological underpinning of all erogenous penile perception and therefore a desirable asset for trans men’s sexuality. In that vein, cognitive imagination is deployed to postulate volitional phantom penises.