'Small' penis leads to suicide

2006-04-19 07:51

Singapore - An 18-year-old Singaporean student committed suicide last month because he was convinced his penis was too small, a report said on Wednesday.

State Coroner Tan Boon Heng said the case highlighted the importance of sex education in schools and recommended the details be forwarded to the education ministry, the Straits Times reported.

The teenager, who was not named, jumped from a building on March 3. A suicide note explained why, an investigation to determine the cause of death said.

"He said it was not due to the stress of his examination, but it was more about his physical development... He still knew there was something wrong with his body parts," said the report quoted by the newspaper.

It said the teenager had confided in his mother in October 2005 that he was worried about the size of his penis. She took him to a clinic where a doctor said it was normal for an Asian man and prescribed multi-vitamins.

State Coroner Tan said the boy's case showed that even in the age of the internet when information can be easily obtained, "the less informed also become victims to junk information and worse, untruths."

Psychiatrist Daniel Fung, deputy chief of the child and adolescent department at the Institute of Mental Health, said the teenager might have been suffering from depression.

"It might be more about depression than his private parts being too small," Fung told AFP.

"Sometimes depression can lead to delusions about how you look and how you are. It makes you see things from a dark perspective."

- AFP