People who carefully read this blog might recall a post last year about a young man in Brisbane who decided to provide a castration service to men who wanted it. (To be honest, it makes me feel a bit queasy just imagining this.)
It turns out he's been in jail for a about a year, waiting for a sentence for "malicious acts with intent", and has now been released on probation for another 3 years.
Two of the guys on whom he had performed this gruesome service spoke up for him:
Judge Jones told the court the two men involved had provided "positive" victim impact statements, with one saying the procedure had been a "great benefit to his health and wellbeing".
Judge Jones read victim impact statements to the court.
"I am eternally grateful to Ryan for enabling me to enjoy life," he read.
Judge Jones said the younger man had wanted all of his sexual organs removed ever since he was a child because he "wanted to be a eunuch".
And how does one locate someone willing to help you achieve this end?:
The court was told King met the men, a 26-year-old from New South Wales and a 66-year-old from Victoria, on a eunuch-interest website, and the two surgeries occurred at a motel in Logan and a hostel in Brisbane.
Am I brave enough to Google that topic? I presume it might be like those pro-anorexia sites - all people trying to turn a mental issue into something unobjectionable.
Anyway, I had forgotten that in my post last year I had found some 2004 research on what motivates men who want to be castrated. You can refresh your memory, too, at the first link in this post.
Actually, I see now that a Melbourne based researcher has studied this too (about a decade ago):
Professor Wassersug is researching the motivating factors behind the modern day voluntary eunuch.
“At the moment there are probably over 600 in Australia and interest in and access to voluntary castration here and around the world is growing because of the Internet,” he says.
“Some of these men have a non-specific Gender Identity Disorder, others a Body Integrity Identity Disorder, and some have extreme sadomasochistic paraphilias (fetishes),” he says.
“The common theme is that they are opting to change their fundamental identity as male – they wish to be emasculated but do not want to be female.”
Other motivating factors, according to Professor Wassersug who has conducted a review of personal histories from 200 voluntary eunuchs include sexual abuse as a child, having witnessed the castration of animals in their youth, having been threatened with castration in their youth and having a strict religious background that condemned sexuality.
Professor Wassersug’s area of research is providing valuable insight into unfamiliar parts of the human condition and in an area of science that has been too long ignored.
“What we are discovering is a tangle of motivating factors which are not being addressed by the medical profession at all – and it needs to be,” he said.....
Wassersug and colleagues have been posting questionnaires on the Internet a to understand more about this little discussed area.
Among 178 castrated individuals who have responded to the questionnaire, only 37% had received surgery from medically qualified professionals.
“We are talking about a highly educated population who want to get sexual urges under control. They don’t actually identify themselves as wanting to be a eunuch.”
‘Many who have undergone voluntary castration are neither informed, nor prepared, for the plethora of additional long-term side effects of castration,’ he added.
“Worse still, because they are not discussing these issues with their doctors, they often seek the services of people who are not medically qualified for free or at costs below those of medically qualified personnel. Some of the would-be eunuchs end up in emergency rooms as a result.
The same survey has discussed voluntary castration with 108 ‘underground cutters’, some of whom are experienced in surgery but are putting their clients at risk because of inadequate equipment and procedures.
What is even more disturbing is that nearly a quarter of the voluntarily castrated men did their own surgeries,” he said.
Good grief: surely those 108 "cutters" weren't just in Australia? What a world.
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