Free Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V. S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee Page A

years I've been studying Parkinson's disease. But recently I decided to switch to the study of phantom limbs."
    "Wonderful," I said. "The subject has been ignored far too long. Tell me what you are studying."
    "Last year I had a terrible accident on my uncle's farm. I lost my left leg below the knee and I've had a phantom limb ever since. But I'm calling to thank you because your article made me understand what is going on." She cleared her throat. "Something really strange happened to me after the amputation that didn't make sense. Every time I have sex I experience these strange sensations in my phantom foot. I didn't dare tell anybody because it's so weird. But when I saw your diagrams, that in the brain the foot is next to the genitals, it became instantly clear to me."
    She had experienced and understood, as few of us ever will, the remapping phenomenon. Recall that in the Penfield map the foot is beside the genitals. Therefore, if a person loses a leg and is then stimulated in the genitals, she will experience sensations in the phantom leg. This is what you'd expect if input from the genital area were to invade the territory vacated by the foot.
    The next day the phone rang again. This time it was an engineer from Arkansas.
    "Is this Dr. Ramachandran?"
    "Yes."
    "You know, I read about your work in the newspaper, and it's really exciting. I lost my leg below the knee about two months ago but there's still something I don't understand. I'd like your advice."
    "What's that?"
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    "Well, I feel a little embarrassed to tell you this."
    I knew what he was going to say, but unlike the graduate student, he didn't know about the Penfield map.
    "Doctor, every time I have sexual intercourse, I experience sensations in my phantom foot. How do you explain that? My doctor said it doesn't make sense."
    "Look," I said. "One possibility is that the genitals are right next to the foot in the body's brain maps. Don't worry about it."
    He laughed nervously. "All that's fine, doctor. But you still don't understand. You see, I actually experience my orgasm in my foot. And therefore it's much bigger than it used to be because it's no longer just confined to my genitals."
    Patients don't make up such stories. Ninety−nine percent of the time they're telling the truth, and if it seems incomprehensible, it's usually because we are not smart enough to figure out what's going on in their brains.
    This gentleman was telling me that he sometimes enjoyed sex more after his amputation. The curious implication is that it's not just the tactile sensation that transferred to his phantom but the erotic sensations of sexual pleasure as well. (A colleague suggested I title this book "The Man Who Mistook His Foot for a Penis.")
    This makes me wonder about the basis of foot fetishes in normal people, a subject that—although not exactly central to our mental life— everyone is curious about. (Madonna's book, Sex, has a whole chapter devoted to the foot.) The traditional explanation for foot fetishes comes, not surprisingly, from Freud. The penis resembles the foot, he argues, hence the fetish. But if that's the case, why not some other elongated body part?
    Why not a hand fetish or a nose fetish? I suggest that the reason is quite simply that in the brain the foot lies right next to the genitalia. Maybe even many of us so−called normal people have a bit of cross−wiring, which would explain why we like to have our toes sucked. The journeys of science are often tortuous with many unexpected twists and turns, but I never suspected that I would begin seeking an explanation for phantom limbs and end up explaining foot fetishes as well.
    Given these assumptions, other predictions follow.10 What happens when the penis is amputated? Carcinoma of the penis is sometimes treated with amputation, and many of these patients experience a phantom penis—sometimes even phantom erections! In such cases you would expect that stimulation of the feet would be felt in the