To be fair, I always had the impression that while a bit odd, Dr. Maturin was more or less trolling the crew when he said stuff like that, even if he was half-serious.
It dosen’t suggest anything, as instantly, all the rapists and murderers who get killed, people in prison who get killed, people who catch STDs severely screw up that number. Remove all of them and see the stats then.
bomberswarm2,neither complete removal nor leaving the penis in place will completely remove the possibility of STD, jail time or the guy being a murderer or a rapist. It might be interesting to compare stats for those between whole males and those castrated in different ways, but getting enough data is going to be complicated.
As for women, we’d have to begin by looking at stats on current hysterectomies (complete and partial both). There the question wouldn’t so much be “what are the benefits” but “how do effects vary with age” (partials are more common before menopause specifically to try and minimize negative effects) and “are there any indirect benefits?” (Direct benefits being hereby defined as “those why the procedure was done”, be it fertility, PCOS…). I imagine there are such studies, but I’m feeling lazy.
I searched but I couldn’t find anything on indirect benefits of hysterectomy. Not surprising - there is no population of women who had their uterus and ovaries removed for non-medical reasons, like eunuchs.
The only benefits I could find are the obvious ones - no uterine cancer, no fibroids, no more menstruation or heavy bleeding, and things like that*. Removing the ovaries might increase the risk of osteoporosis but that is kind of unclear.
Regards,
Shodan
*Unrelated joke - how many surgeons does it take to change a light bulb?
Well, none, but why don’t we remove that empty socket? It isn’t doing you any good, and it might cause problems later on.
ok, I’m hijacking the thread a bit, but –
Why do dogs and cats get castrations or hysterectomies for sterilization purposes instead of vasectomies or tubal ligations? In humans, vasectomies/tubal ligations are much easier on the person – is this not true for dogs and cats?
I would think that animal rights people would be pushing for this, with the theory that if people insist on sterilizing their companion animals (I almost typed “pets” but I don’t think the animal rights folks like that term), they should use the method that allows the animal as natural a life as possible.
Yes, neutering the animal provides other advantages to the pet owner, but I’ve never had anyone suggest that I have my cat get a vasectomy or tubal ligation – it’s always assumed it’d be castration or hysterectomy.
(Side note – a mildly amusing anecdote: When I took my cats Jimmy Morrison and Willie Dixon in to be neutered, the vet told me that only once did she have a man by himself bring a male pet in to be neutered – it was always a woman or a couple who brought the animal in. That one man told her that he was dropping off his dog on the way to getting a vasectomy.)
Yes, it would be easier on the animal (although the smaller size of the relevant organs would make it trickier surgery). But much of the point of neutering is to remove the organs that produce sex hormones, the ovaries and testes, so the females don’t go into heat and the males lose interest. Castrating males is also supposed to reduce aggression, and territorial spraying in male cats.
My dad was a small animal vet for forty years, and he must have spayed or neutered thousands of animals. And he was really, really good at it.
You know the Chinese term “kung fu”? it doesn’t refer only to martial arts - it refers to many kinds of physical expertise. When my dad operated, he had kung fu. I was assisting him once when he was performing a spay on a pregnant bitch. All the time, he was talking on his headset phone to another client about a completely unrelated matter. And the hands just went by themselves - slice slice clip clip snip snip ligate and then he removed the organ and tossed it, without looking, off to the side. And it landed in the exact center of the slop bucket.
He hung up his phone, and I said “Geez, dad, did you see what you just did?”
He said, “What, did I miss?”
“No”, I said, “you hit it dead center without looking.”
“Well, you have to remember” he said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve done this.”
I watched him do a procedure on a male cat with chronic urinary blockage. He castrated the animal, amputated the penis, and rerouted the ureter into the small intestine. “Where did you learn to do that, dad?” I asked. “Oh, I read about it in one of my journals.” And the cat made a full and uneventful recovery and went on to live a long life of happy peeing out his butt.
Of course his surgical expertise had its drawbacks. My mother had a hysterectomy about thirty five years ago, and he still refers to it as “the time your mother was spayed”. He is a wonderful person and a superb surgeon, but Phil Donahue he’s not.
Regards,
Shodan
As a young teenager, I watched that procedure done on a “waterbelly” steer. Talk about inspiring feelings of inadequacy.
Well, by my definition above that would mean that a woman whose uterus is removed due to prolapse gets “no uterine cancer” as a secondary benefit. But, since that benefit is viewed as self-evident and it affects 100% of patients, it doesn’t get tracked. It still is a benefit.
Well, if the comparison is between castrated court officials and uncastrated court officials, or castrated asylum inmates and uncastrated asylum inmates, I don’t think that the numbers getting killed for being rapists and murderers, or getting killed in prison are going to be statistically significant on either side.
Even if the comparison was with the male population at large, I seriously doubt that the numbers in the general population who are killed in prison, or who are killed for being rapists or murderers (those would be lynching victims, right?) are statistically significant to mortality in the general male population. Nor have we any reason to think that eunuchs are less likely to end up in prison than other men.
As for STDs, as Nava points out a eunuch can certainly contract an STD. It’s entirely possible to be a eunuch and have an active, if perhaps unorthodox, sex life. The body has other orifices, to put it delicately, and while eunuchs experience little or no sex drive they do experience some of the other things that lead people to have sex. Like financial stress, or an abusive relationship. (Indeed, sex motivated by such things tends to carry a higher than typical risk of infection with an STD.)
He was definitely trolling in Post Captain:
I was agreeing with you, in case I wasn’t clear.
The risk of heart disease in women goes up after menopause. Removing the ovaries probably mimics menopause - I wonder if the risk goes up correspondingly.
That would be the opposite of a benefit. Of course, hysterectomy is usually performed on older women, which confuses the issue.
Regards,
Shodan