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Voluntary Genital Ablations: Contrasting the Cutters and Their Clients

INTRODUCTION: Some healthy males voluntarily seek castration without a recognized medical need. There are currently no standards of care for these individuals, which cause many of them to obtain surgery outside of a licensed medical setting. We seek to understand who performs these surgeries. AIM: T...

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Autores principales: Jackowich, Robyn A, Vale, Rachel, Vale, Kayla, Wassersug, Richard J, Johnson, Thomas W
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4184492/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25356309
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sm2.33
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author Jackowich, Robyn A
Vale, Rachel
Vale, Kayla
Wassersug, Richard J
Johnson, Thomas W
author_facet Jackowich, Robyn A
Vale, Rachel
Vale, Kayla
Wassersug, Richard J
Johnson, Thomas W
author_sort Jackowich, Robyn A
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Some healthy males voluntarily seek castration without a recognized medical need. There are currently no standards of care for these individuals, which cause many of them to obtain surgery outside of a licensed medical setting. We seek to understand who performs these surgeries. AIM: This study aims to characterize individuals who perform or assist in genital ablations outside of the healthcare system. METHODS: A cross-sectional Internet survey posted on eunuch.org received 2,871 responses. We identified individuals who had performed or assisted in human castrations (“cutters”; n = 98) and compared this group with all other survey respondents (n = 2,773), who had not assisted in castrations. Next we compared the cutters with the voluntary eunuchs. Lastly, because many of the cutters have themselves been castrated, we also divided the physically castrated population (n = 278) into cutters (n = 44) and noncutters (n = 234) and compared them. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Self-reported questionnaires were used to collect demographic information, gender identity and presentation, selected childhood experiences, and history of aggressive behaviors, self-harming behaviors, and hospitalization. RESULTS: Distinguishing characteristics of cutters included: (i) presenting themselves as very masculine, (ii) having had their longest sexual relationship with a man, (iii) growing up on a farm, (iv) witnessing animal castrations, (v) having a history of sexually inappropriate behavior, (vi) having been threatened with genital mutilation as a child, (vii) having a history of self-harm, (viii) being raised in a devoutly Christian household, (ix) having had an underground castration themselves, and (x) having body piercings and/or tattoos. CONCLUSIONS: This study may help identify individuals who are at risk of performing illegal castrations. That information may help healthcare providers protect individuals with extreme castration ideations from injuring themselves or others. Jackowich RA, Vale R, Vale K, Wassersug RJ, and Johnson TW. Voluntary genital ablations: Contrasting the cutters and their clients. Sex Med 2014;2:121–132.
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spelling pubmed-41844922014-10-29 Voluntary Genital Ablations: Contrasting the Cutters and Their Clients Jackowich, Robyn A Vale, Rachel Vale, Kayla Wassersug, Richard J Johnson, Thomas W Sex Med Original Research—Psychology INTRODUCTION: Some healthy males voluntarily seek castration without a recognized medical need. There are currently no standards of care for these individuals, which cause many of them to obtain surgery outside of a licensed medical setting. We seek to understand who performs these surgeries. AIM: This study aims to characterize individuals who perform or assist in genital ablations outside of the healthcare system. METHODS: A cross-sectional Internet survey posted on eunuch.org received 2,871 responses. We identified individuals who had performed or assisted in human castrations (“cutters”; n = 98) and compared this group with all other survey respondents (n = 2,773), who had not assisted in castrations. Next we compared the cutters with the voluntary eunuchs. Lastly, because many of the cutters have themselves been castrated, we also divided the physically castrated population (n = 278) into cutters (n = 44) and noncutters (n = 234) and compared them. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Self-reported questionnaires were used to collect demographic information, gender identity and presentation, selected childhood experiences, and history of aggressive behaviors, self-harming behaviors, and hospitalization. RESULTS: Distinguishing characteristics of cutters included: (i) presenting themselves as very masculine, (ii) having had their longest sexual relationship with a man, (iii) growing up on a farm, (iv) witnessing animal castrations, (v) having a history of sexually inappropriate behavior, (vi) having been threatened with genital mutilation as a child, (vii) having a history of self-harm, (viii) being raised in a devoutly Christian household, (ix) having had an underground castration themselves, and (x) having body piercings and/or tattoos. CONCLUSIONS: This study may help identify individuals who are at risk of performing illegal castrations. That information may help healthcare providers protect individuals with extreme castration ideations from injuring themselves or others. Jackowich RA, Vale R, Vale K, Wassersug RJ, and Johnson TW. Voluntary genital ablations: Contrasting the cutters and their clients. Sex Med 2014;2:121–132. Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2014-08 2014-07-17 /pmc/articles/PMC4184492/ /pubmed/25356309 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sm2.33 Text en © 2014 The Authors. Sexual Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Sexual Medicine. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
spellingShingle Original Research—Psychology
Jackowich, Robyn A
Vale, Rachel
Vale, Kayla
Wassersug, Richard J
Johnson, Thomas W
Voluntary Genital Ablations: Contrasting the Cutters and Their Clients
title Voluntary Genital Ablations: Contrasting the Cutters and Their Clients
title_full Voluntary Genital Ablations: Contrasting the Cutters and Their Clients
title_fullStr Voluntary Genital Ablations: Contrasting the Cutters and Their Clients
title_full_unstemmed Voluntary Genital Ablations: Contrasting the Cutters and Their Clients
title_short Voluntary Genital Ablations: Contrasting the Cutters and Their Clients
title_sort voluntary genital ablations: contrasting the cutters and their clients
topic Original Research—Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4184492/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25356309
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/sm2.33
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