Testocalypse

Koro — a name taken from the Malay kuru, meaning how it looks when a turtle’s head retracts into its shell — refers to a well-documented, cross-cultural mass hysteria phenomenon during which large groups of men believe their penises are shrinking, sometimes completely disappearing, which they think will lead to their death. Though relatively unknown, the phenomenon has occurred broadly: in China, men thought it was caused by female fox spirits; in Thailand and Singapore, in the 1960s, by poisoning; in Africa between 1998 and 2005, by black magic, during which time 56 people reported instances of genital “shrinking, disappearance, and snatching.” In one instance in Nigeria, in 2001, men who believed their penises were shrinking accused five men of “penis theft” and killed them. Koro, previously thought to be a culture-dependent psychological problem, is now viewed by some as a universal sociocultural phenomenon that tends to arise in moments of social or political strife.