When COVID-19 smashed the economy, people got desperate. And when people got desperate, they tried selling their dicks. This is the only acceptable explanation I can muster for a tremendous spike in Google searches like “can you sell your penis?” and “how much can you sell your penis for?” (Google searches really are a window to the collective mind of humanity.)
Because of this trend, against my better judgment, I feel like we need to have a talk about what it means to sell your penis and mostly how ridiculous that is. Let me answer a few important questions.
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Can you sell your penis?
Legally, no. At least not in the way I imagine most people are thinking when they type “can you sell your penis?” into a search bar. Under the federal National Organ Transplant Act of 1984, anyone convicted of buying or selling human organs “for use in human transplantation” in the U.S. faces a five-year prison sentence and/or a fine of up to $50,000. The purpose of this act was to establish a regulatory framework for organ donations, and part of that meant preventing people from randomly selling and transplanting their peens (or other bits) without proper oversight.
However, you can legally donate your dead body — cock included — for education or research, and body brokers can legally sell them. Although, the body broker business is highly questionable in the U.S., “in almost every state, it’s legal to sell the human remains of adults,” reads a 2019 press release from the National Funeral Directors Association. “Generally, a broker can sell a donated human body for about $5,000, though prices sometimes top $10,000. Bodies and body parts can be bought, sold and leased, again and again. As a result, it can be difficult to track what becomes of donors’ bodies, ensure they are handled with dignity and returned to their loved ones after cremation.”
Congress introduced a bill to help regulate the body broker business in 2019, but it appears to be halted for the time being. There are also a whole bunch of state laws that try to control the sales of human remains, but they’re vague and rarely enforced. Speaking of vague and rarely enforced, you could of course turn to the black market to try and sell your dick, which brings us to our next question…
How much can you sell your penis for?
If you go the black market route, it really is hard to say, because prices vary. A price list belonging to an Arizona body broker was seized by the FBI a few years back, and a full pelvis was listed for only $1,750, which hardly seems worthwhile. Surely you could make more than that by keeping your penis and selling sperm? An active donor who cums — ahem, produces specimens — twice a week can make close to that much in a single month. That said, you may be able to find someone to illegally sell your penis to for a higher price, if you look hard enough.
However, there have been other attempts at putting a reasonable price on a dick. In 2008, a Romanian court ordered a surgeon to pay $795,000 to a patient whose penis he accidentally sliced during an operation. So financially speaking, experiencing a penis-related accident that you can then sue over seems much more viable than selling your penis on the black market — just something to consider.
Another interesting case is that of the dong allegedly belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte, which sold at a 1977 auction for $3,000. This is obviously a special case, though. For one, there are doubts that the penis actually belongs to Bonaparte. If it does indeed belong to Bonaparte, the penis was removed and brought into circulation long before the laws we have now, which would have theoretically prevented that. And lastly, while there may be a demand for penises belonging to famous conquerors, the average penis would obviously have less market value than this particular — ahem — boner part.
But of course, we have one more important question to answer…
Why would you want to sell your penis?
Per the recent spike in interest regarding penis selling, it seems like people want money more than anything, which is telling of the horrible state people are in right now. I found a couple guys who were trying to sell their penises online a while back, and they appear to have the same motivation. On Yahoo! Answers, one man writes, “I’m looking to buy a PC right now and I am extremely desperate. I need to know ASAP how much my penis is worth. If so, does girth or length matter? Its length is six inches and the circumference is 3.5 inches. Any help is appreciated.”
In a chaotic Google Group, another man writes, “I need money badly, and so, I have to sell my dick. You can have it for $100.” (What a steal!) Another person in the Group says they would display the penis in a jar of formaldehyde under some nice lighting if they were to buy it.
A perhaps more reasonable reason for wanting to sell your penis is so someone else can have it transplanted onto them and actually use it, which is a thing, albeit a pretty damn rare thing. But again, that involves you being dead and donating — not selling — your penis.
So, sorry guys: Selling your penis is a bad way to afford life during a pandemic. I can certainly appreciate the hustle, though.
Ian Lecklitner
Ian Lecklitner is a staff writer at MEL Magazine. He mostly writes about everyone's favorite things: Sex, drugs and food.
