365 Random Questions: One Woman's Attempt at Genius: Super Bad

January 23, 2010

I had another day off from The Game today and met up at Jack Astor's with a couple of friends. As I have the freedom to eat and drink what I like today, I indulged in a burger and fries washed down with a number of glasses of white zinfandel. I used to frequent Jack Astor's in my youth, one of the major draws was the brown paper they used as a table cloth and supplied crayons - and regardless of age, it provided endless hours of entertainment. This time, we were seated at the bar tables and didn't get any paper, but had a prime view of the large rolls that they used to cover the restaurant tables. After copious amounts of alcohol, my friend told us that he wanted to wrap himself up in the paper. I happily passed this information to the waitress, who agreed to give him a sheet if he let her draw on it. He agreed. She brought 2 crayons - one for me and one for her. She whispered to me that we will draw penises on his back. I agreed. He was quite upset when he learned what we had done. I blamed it on the syndrome that Seth has in the movie Superbad. Today's question is: does the dick drawing syndrome actually exist?

A: So, if you watched the above video, Seth (Jonah Hill) says that 8% of kids have this disease. However, this is nothing more than a funny, fictional syndrome made up by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg - the film's writers. Apparently they say so on the DVD special features.

In researching, there was the suggestion of Tourette's Syndrome, which is characterized by the presence of involuntary motor or vocal tics. The drawing of penises (or peni as I like to refer to them in the plural) has never been documented as a symptom, yet this does not conclusively prove that it is not Tourettes - although it is highly unlikely.

Also through researching, I came across a number of disorders and syndromes related to genitalia including one called Genital Retraction Syndrome. This is a belief that the penis (or nipples in females) are shrinking, retracting into the body or have disappeared altogether. There have been recorded cases of mass hysteria, where numerous male members of a population experience Genital Retraction Syndrome, which is called penis panic.

I leave you with one more video.