After last year's "Barbie" movie - no, I didn't and won't see it - we can't help but be reminded of the Ken doll, Barbie's erstwhile male(?) companion who, when the clothing was removed, as every kid did sooner or later, was notable for his lack of anatomical correctness. Now, on a doll meant for children, that's probably just as well; it saves parents from having to answer awkward questions from little kids who aren't quite yet ready to understand the birds and the bees.
However, it seems there are some erstwhile men (?) who envy Ken his non-anatomically correct status and seek to emulate it. Just when you thought things couldn't get any stranger, now it seems "Nullos" are a thing - men who have had all of their external genitalia removed, and some of the culture that surrounds this is truly disturbing. At UnCheck, scribe Jarryd Bartle, a "writer, educator, and consultant on vice regulation," informs us of this strange trend.
If one man asks another if he can cut off his penis, and that other man agrees, whose place is it to say they can’t go through with it? The UK courts faced just this question in the case of Damien Byrnes, found guilty last month of using a kitchen knife to remove the genitals of Marius Gustavson, who consented to the procedure, and paid Byrnes over £1,500 to do it. Byrnes, a male escort, said his motives were financial (he has been sentenced to 5 years in prison). This is not an isolated incident.
In fact, Gustavson himself — who is due to be sentenced this week after admitting conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm — maintained a now-defunct “Eunuch Maker” website, for men who are or aspire to be “nullos” (short for genital nullification). Not only did the site promote the niche fetish, it featured videos of these procedures for subscribers. Many of Gustavson’s co-conspirators have pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm, their crimes ranging from freezing limbs for removal to the resection of nipples. But legal cases involving instances of consensual castration are becoming increasingly common.
It seems like the idea of "consenting adults doing as they please with their bodies" should stop well short of this, especially when it's done with a kitchen knife. The subject of this impromptu surgery, Marius Gustavson, likely has no idea how badly that could have turned out, with everything from infection to death by exsanguination on the table. The event described here took place in the United Kingdom, but one would assume that, like here in the United States, the law would frown upon such amateur, not to mention irrevocably life-altering surgery.
But what's truly disturbing about all this is the culture that seems to have popped up around it.
Online communities catering to nullo fetishists — which have been around since the late Nineties — involve sexualising the submissive role of castrato. Men attracted to these forums post gruesome fantasy fiction and share castration tips. In one fantasy story posted on The Eunuch Archive, a young prostitute in Victorian London knocks to the ground a man they suspect is Jack the Ripper. The Dickensian dominatrix then swiftly removes the Ripper’s penis with a scalpel. In another, slave boys wriggle against restraints as they are castrated like cattle and sold off to servitude.
Look again at that last sentence: "In another, slave boys wriggle against restraints as they are castrated like cattle and sold off to servitude."
Why does it always come back to abusing children?
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There are just way too many problems with this. The fetishization of genital mutilation - that is what this is, and there can be no denying that - is disturbing in and of itself, but its extension to encompass fantasy fiction of mutilating children crosses a whole bunch of lines.
And then there is the notion of involving health care providers; while there always seem to be physicians who, for the right amount of green and serene folding cash, will carry out any bizarre treatment or surgery, the abandonment of medical ethics by those people is likewise disturbing. I'm not a doctor nor do I play one on television, but I was educated as a biologist, and casually removing or irreversibly altering one's reproductive organs has all manner of consequences, few of them being good.
The real question, of course, is how a healthcare provider squares this with Hippocrates' admonition to "first, do no harm." There is clearly harm done here; cutting away healthy tissue can be seen in no other light.
This entire "Nullo" movement is not only disturbing, it is inarguably self-destructive. These people should be seeking mental health treatment, not castration.
