April 29, 2008 | Sex & Society

African cocks targeted by sorcerers

13 suspected sorcerers have been arrested in the city of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, West Africa. They have been accused of using magic to steal or shrink men's penises. The bastards!

Reports of the thefts were circulated over radio talk shows, warning male listeners to be wary of men wearing gold rings. Victims say it only took a single touch to make their genitals shrink or disappear. The sorcerer then promises a cure, but only if you have the money to pay for it.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

A decade ago, in Ghana, 12 suspected sorcerers were killed by angry mobs.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said. "But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'."

"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," claimed 29-year-old Alain Kalala.

And where, pray tell, are the "before" pictures?