I was recently involved in a discussion about female genital cutting. The entire concept makes me feel sick in my stomach but it also raises questions about human sexuality and the body. Don’t you wish your brain would stop thinking so much sometimes?
Anyway, take either sex and destroy the core of their body’s ability to receive sexual pleasure and achieve satisfaction – remove a man’s penis or remove a woman’s clitoris. Won’t they still have a libido? Won’t they still have lust? Won’t they be trapped in a hell on earth situation where they will become deeply aroused yet stranded with no outlet for relief? I don’t see why this wouldn’t be true.
I suppose a man could have his prostate massaged, although without a penis this is cold comfort in terms of sexual satisfaction. And a minority of women (according to the latest research I’ve read, but I could be wrong) have what would popularly be described as a g-spot, although it’s a little more complicated than that and, like a man, without her main sexual organ it wouldn’t be nearly the same (i.e. the roots of the clitoris, homologous to the penile shaft, are extensive and interact in interesting ways, although I know that there are different types of female cutting and the less extreme types “only” remove the head of the clitoris, but let’s assume the entire clitoris is excised). I personally think these are poor substitutes but if anyone really wants to bring them up for our unlucky hypothetical person we can pretend to surgically remove those as well.
If the libido remains, would or could a doctor give medication to the patient to kill their sexual desire? I know there are some medicines which have that as an unfortunate and unintended side effect but is there anything that is designed specifically with that goal in mind? Is there anything else they could do to help?
Has there ever been any clinical documentation on anyone unlucky enough to live like this? This happens to hundreds of millions of women around the world and surely someone might have done some research on this. Or maybe not. Maybe on men who have lost their manhood to accident or disease? But I imagine it could easily lead to severe depression or, well, I’m not sure if insanity is the correct technical term, but a person could become mentally unhinged, surely.
As a tangent to the main topic above, I’m not sure on this next part because I’ve read some conflicting information while searching. Tell me if I’m wrong but as I (used to) understand things with the removal of the ovaries/testicles the libido is greatly decreased and a man will have difficulty even getting it up let alone achieving an orgasm but hormone replacement therapy can return normal sexual function/libido. Does it work pretty much all the time? Is it that simple? Or are there other effects which aren’t as easily replaced artificially?
But then I wonder regarding women who go through menopause. A whole host of effects are caused by this transition but it affects individuals differently both in the range and intensity of symptoms. Focusing on their sexuality, for some this seems to kill their sexual desire and they need hormone replacement therapy to regain it. But for others it only slightly decreases it and they still have a healthy sex life. Is this a female/male difference here or is the loss of functional gonads highly variant in affecting both male and female sexuality?