By delaying castration until two years of age, the horse may have a heavier more masculine appearance, which some people may prefer. Yoou are too likely to go into shock with the pain. If the surgeon finds that there is no hemorrhage, then the stump is will be released and allowed to retract back into the scrotum. For Gelding - an adopted alias for the American internet guru to all wanna-be eunuchs - that between came when he was 12 years old and thrown against an older boy in a packed bus. Earinus later sent a how to castrate a man at home of his hair in a jeweled, golden box to Asclepius to honor him. He then went to seek some from the neighbors. Gusto leaders planned to dismember Sincopus: break his legs, cut off his hands, and tear out his tongue. Gynocentrism, however, becomes merely a term of facile intellectual posing if deployed as a totalizing master narrative. He would have preferred to have been one of those who rationalised their way out of it, something he encourages all his correspondents to do. If you just want to reduce the level of testosterone, you can go for medical castration which is achieved by LH-RH analogues, which can induce a feminising effect.
Some people can identify a defining moment in their childhood - an incident that brings an idea to mind which is then indelibly fixed in the psyche. For Gelding - an adopted alias for the American internet guru to all wanna-be eunuchs - that moment came when he was 12 years old and thrown against an older boy in a packed bus. The pain was as piercing as the pleasure. And so began a lifetime's quest to be castrated. Men who want to be castrated fit no stereotype, have no common neuroses or childhood experience. Some are androgynous types thin and underdeveloped who want to remain in a prepubescent, asexual phase, others are eroto-phobes who don't like to feel driven by their libidos and want to become surgically tranquillised. Some want to be feminised, a few - known as nullos or smoothies - want to become nullified by having their penis removed along with their testicles. In Gelding's experience a quarter of those who get castrated continue to regulate their libidos with testosterone, which allows them to have full sex. But what compulsion drives grown men to be castrated in the first place? According to Gelding, for most men the desire to be castrated stems from puberty but does not develop into a fixation for at least 10 years. This was certainly his experience. Now in his early 50s, he has been without his testicles for six years and is keen to point out that he has no desire to be feminised. By 1991 Gelding's testicles had become an unbearable affront to him. The idea of cutting aroused him sexually, but more than that, there was an aching need to be rid of something that had begun to take a stranglehold of his life. At first he tried to cut off the offending items himself by using rubber bands as a tourniquet and drenching his balls in ice water. But after an hour he ran out of adrenaline and went into clinical shock. Three years later he went to a cutter in California and got rid of them safely and efficiently. In order to receive the testosterone that he requires to keep him functioning as a man he has occasional erectile problems but can still ejaculate he has devised a cover story which makes him eligible for medical treatment. As well as resurrecting the libido, testosterone prevents osteoporosis and reduces the flab that castration causes to the hips and breasts. On the down side, it also increases the risk of prostate cancer. A self-confessed mother hen, Gelding has for four years been dispensing advice on his website to men who want, or think they want, to be castrated. In that time he's had 5,000 enquiries from both gay and straight men, all believing that their obsession is unique. Gelding's response to this interpretation is equivocal. Being castrated can be a huge release because they become pre-pubital, and sex is no longer an overwhelming preoccupation. But eunuchs are nothing new. For 4,000 years they have represented some of the most marginalised and most honoured in society. In ancient India, eunuchs advised princes and guarded their harems, and the Biblical Daniel was a eunuch who rose to become prime minister of Babylon and later Persia. More recently there have been the Italian castrati of the 19th century - boys who sacrificed their manhood for the sake of singing careers in the opera houses of Europe. Today there are the cross-dressing Hijras in India and religious extremists such as members of the Russian Skoptsy sect who see the testicles as an organ of weakness. But Gelding disregards the connection with the body modification scene, believing the desire to be castrated is far more complex. Dr Felix Spector, who advertises castration on his business card, has become something of a celebrity in the murky world of eunochdom, having performed his first castration in 1957. But the vast majority are amateur cutters, subject to prosecution for practising medicine without a licence, and desperately sought after on the net by men in urgent need. Although these cutters offer a necessary service reducing the instance of self-castration , for the most part they too find the act of cutting erotic. Burdizzos, elastators and other animal castration devices can all be purchased on the net. The internet has become a sanctuary to these would-be eunuchs. There are numerous websites providing information, and chat lines link men from all over the world who share this compulsion. When Gelding was delivering himself into the hands of the cutter there were no such support services and perhaps that's why it wasn't until he was in his 40s that he finally did what he had always wanted to do. Since then, he says, he has found some kind of inner peace, but at a price. He would have preferred to have been one of those who rationalised their way out of it, something he encourages all his correspondents to do. He considers those who manage it to be the lucky ones. The others must join him among one of the most disenfranchised of groups. Men who are ridiculed, despised and misunderstood by a society which will never be able to make any sense of why they feel incomplete with their testicles and yet complete without them. Hidden Love: Modern Day Eunuchs is on Channel 4 next Tuesday at 10pm.
