Castration for kicks

Penis envy. Freud believed this was a repressed desire, on the part of women, to possess a penis. Given the news out of Charlotte NC, Freud got the gender wrong.

Yesterday, three men - none licensed to practice medicine - were arrested and charged with performing illegal castrations. They had performed at least eight surgeries on six different clients. These surgeries included castrations, testicle replacements, urethra rerouting and penis removal.

The men had a "dungeon" where, in addition to lopping off the odd testicle, they produced S&M content for a local website. Their surgical "clients" had come from as far away as South America, demonstrating the power of the internet in bringing the crazy to the perverse. There is even a website for eunuch wannabes that casts itself under the rubric of "body modification." It comes complete with busy message boards and thousands of stories, so this fascination cum compulsion is hardly unique.

The three would be surgeons have each been charged with "five counts of felonious castration without malice, five counts of felonious conspiracy to commit castration without malice and eight counts of misdemeanor performing medical acts without a license." Just how many castrations have occurred in South Carolina to make the law distinguish between the malicious and the non-malicious sort?

Some men are obsessed with penises. Before the German cannibal's meal passed out the from blood loss following his penectomy, Meiwes and the donor/dinner tried to eat the man's penis. By comparison, what happened in the dungeon seems almost benign. And while it's certainly not a good idea for unlicensed people to be performing serious operations in their basement, there is one upside to this story. None of the willing patients will be able to further reproduce.