I sometimes make forays into strange places, psychologically. I find it fascinating to explore the limits of strange and different thoughts people can have while still being sane. I’m talking about REALLY strange places, like the world of eunuch/castration fetishism. I liken the experience to watching a car crash in slow motion: you know that what is coming will be gut-wrenching, but it is impossible to turn away.

Yes folks, I read this stuff so you don’t have to.

This post contains frank sexuality and extreme body modification. Although there are no pictures, readers may find it offensive or disturbing. You have been warned.

Remember Freud’s ideas about castration anxiety? What if there was a perfect opposite to that idea – instead of being worried about the possibility of castration, men might become obsessed with the fantasy of castration – and do unbelievable things to try to be castrated.

But why?

To get a greater insight into why people have castration fantasies, I browsed an archive of eunuch fantasy stories. This was the scarring part of my research. Many of the stories touched on, shall we say, the dark side of human sexuality – violence, abuse and humiliation. I was amazed by the breadth of motivation in the stories. Most of them, though, could be sorted into broad categories:

• Homosexual writers described castrator/castratee stories which were essentially extreme dominance/submission fantasies
• Heterosexual writers described extreme version of the cuckold fantasy. Married men were forcibly castrated, leaving the male as a servant for their wife and her dominant male lover (dominance/submission again)
• Others seemed to be tormented by sexual thoughts which could only be relived by removing the source of their libido
• One of the most disturbing stories was a homosexually motivated revenge fantasy on a father figure (incest is amazingly common in online sex stories)
• Some female writers like University Girl seemed to be essentially motivated by revenge fantasies, with strong female characters righting the wrongs done to them by philandering males by removing their testicles through force or trickery

These stories are just the start. Thousands of men are castrated every year in the US. Medically, castrations are performed for various reasons from cancer and gender reassignment, to a (controversial) treatment for pedophilia. But I was interested in men who personally want to get their healthy testicles removed for entirely psychological reasons.

I found a message board where men who wish to become eunuchs (for non-medical reasons) discuss their own castrations, their motivations, and the effect of living without testicles. The posters, who had named like N_O_johnson, ukeunuch and gay2neuter, have signatures such as “I am Eunuch hear me purrrr”. Reading their stories was amazing. They are ordinary men who jobs, families and partners. But they also feel that their lives will be improved without their testicles – their irritating high sex drive will be gone, their (through their eyes) disgusting genitals will be improved, their uncontrollable masculine anger and temper will be removed. To these men, their mental health demands the removal of their testicles. And I grew to believe them.

Skoptic syndrome, in which men desire to be castrated, have a penectomy, or both (called nullification), is a combination of gender identity disorder (feeling like one was born in a wrongly-gendered body) and body integrity identity disorder or BIID (wanting to lose part of the body, like legs or arms). A ‘skoptic’ man typically feels as if he was supposed to be born a eunuch, and that having to live with testicles is disgusting and wrong. So, like in BIID, they attempt to have the offending part of their body removed. (Don’t get castration – where both testicles are fully removed – mixed up with vasectomy – where only the sperm-carrying tube is cut).

Unfortunately, as in BIID, doctors usually refuse to remove healthy body parts, so in desperation the skoptic will begin to explore other methods. They typically start off slowly. Many skoptic men, as part of their obsesion with castration, abuse the scrotum (CBT). To experience what life would be like without their testicles, they can take androgen blockers (Depo Provera) to chemically castrate themselves and block the effect of testosterone for months at a time.

When they are sure that castration is the right choice, some skoptic men try the methods of castration used in veterinary practise on themselves: banding using an elastrator (a tight band which cuts off the blood supply and causes the entire scrotum to eventually drop off) and the Burdizzo (a clamp which crushes the spermatic cords, killing the testicles and causing them to be absorbed). Unbelievably, this is generally done without proper anaesthetic. It is more painful as you are imagining. Unfortunately, the human spermatic cord is quite different to ovine and bovine cords, and instead of the treatment working, human testicles usually survive. Often the injuries become so painful or infected that the individual is forced to go to hospital, where their injuries are fixed and they are often forced to spend time in psyc wards.

A slightly better option is to go to an underground network of cutters, who are untrained people prepared to do the surgery. Not being medical personnel, the cutters often can’t get anaesthetic either. This account of having the left testicle removed without anaesthetic is mind-blowing.

Skoptics may be lucky enough to find a rare sympathetic doctor who will either do the castration themselves or recommend the surgery to a surgical specialist. After finally achieving his goal of being castrated, the skoptic male’s body produces almost no testosterone, leading to severe and pervasive changes in the body and brain:

• sex drive quickly drops to nil
• erections become rare and the penis shrinks
• muscles waste away
• body often runs to fat
• gentler emotional reactions in, for example, road rage incidents
• greater emotional reactions to, for example, sad movies
• hot flashes and osteoporosis (similar to menopause)

Skoptic men agree that these changes are difficult to live with, but worth it.

I was castrated five years ago. It’s a decision I don’t think I’ll ever regret … The only advice I might often give to others is that balls are not essential for a full life, but that one shouldn’t proceed even if there’s a seed of doubt.

Another man wrote:

I am tired a lot … I have very little strength anymore and I fear that I may break a bone anytime. That said I am mentally stable, I have control over my temper, and I am happy with who I really am. To this day I would not hesitate to do it again.

That statement is from a man who perceives himself to be asexual. He has a close romantic relationship with another man, who was castrated on the same day. They are soulmates, living in a relationship with no sexual component. What kind of category would you put these men into?

One poster on the eunuch message board has the signature:

When fantasy finally becomes reality, the reality is never as good as the fantasy.

How many of us have that much insight into our fantasies?

Castration is essentially identical to suicide, in evolutionary terms. One poster described “three disastrous dates in seven years” and many weren’t interested in women at all. Are some skoptic men, disgusted with the ‘game’ of being a successful male to attract a mate, and struggling with their own biological urges, simply … giving up? It is as if they have overturned the board of game theory and screamed: I don’t want to play any more!

Obviously castration is utterly irreversible, and some men may make choices they will later regret. But most of the men who are serious about becoming eunuchs have put a lot of thought and preparation into the idea. These rare men may never be understood by society, but I think I understand their motivations more now. They have made the right decision for their bodies and sexualities, and I think that’s inspiring.

Posted by Luke H on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 3:56 pm.