It appears to me that most men have a “castration complex”, where they are afraid of someone cutting off their testicles.
They say things like “I’d rather die than lose a testicle”, and if threatened with castration would contemplate commiting suicide.
Why do men value their testicles more than women value their ovaries?
Why do men think that having no testicles is “the end of the world”?
It’s probably an evolutionary advantage. Men who take care of their testicles tend to have more children than men who try to chop down trees with their groins.
Also, testicles are extremely sensitive and a blow to them produces a sensation quite unlike any other, and most unpleasant. I’ve heard it described as pain, but to me, it’s not really pain. It’s totally different. Thus, from a young age boys learn to protect their testicles. Castration anxiety is just an extension.
As for women, ovaries are much more intangible. You cannot lose your ovaries as easily as your testicles and they require no special protection. They’re just there.
For me it’s visceral: testicular pain is beyond anything else I can comprehend.
There might also be some machismo thrown in there - loss of ability to reproduce, loss of the essence of manliness.
Then there’s also the perception that you’ll lose interest in, and the ability to have, sex. However these days, this isn’t necessarily true: I know someone who underwent castration, and he has prostheses and hormone supplements, and enjoys a perfectly normal life, and has a steady girlfriend.
Why do people make wild generalizations? It’s a machismo thing.
I dunno about a “castration complex” but I don’t want anyone cutting off my apendages, if that’s what you’re getting at.
How’d you like the idea of someone slicing off one of you’re breasts? Same principle.
I don’t why it’s so shocking that men don’t want to have their balls cut off - do you know any men that wouldn’t mind this being done?
It’s a preposterous question, IMO.
I think it’s a perfectly reasonable question.
OK, I’ll try to answer the question more directly:
- I’ll never be able to be naked in the gym again
- I enjoy having sex
- Hi, Opal!
IANADoctor, but I think there is also some level of bio-chemical involvement in testes as well. Without them men’s hormone levels go out of whack and set-up all sorts of other physical & phsycological problems.
Ask yourself: Why does a dog become more docile after fixing?
Maybe you should ask an oncologist. I’d bet he or she could tell you stories about men who didn’t want to lose a testicle or women who didn’t want to lose a breast despite the fact that not to do so would result in almost certain death.
Some people’s self-images rest heavily on physical characteristics and/or perceived sexual potency.
Priceguy
Not sure I am reading what you meant to say correctly, so apologies if this is the case, but whilst ovaries “cannot be touched” in quite the same way that testicles can be, some would argue that the pain of having one poked is very real and probably similar to what men experience.
I would also query the assumption that women cannot lose their ovaries “as easily” as men might their testicles - aside from any obvious impact injury - cycling falls and the like.
I think I’d prefer to have testicles sometimes: you at least have the “bonus” of being able to see and feel any changes; the situation of the ovaries does not offer that same luxury. I am of course thinking primarily of ovarian cancer being the “silent killer” here.
If men lose a testicle for whatever reason, personally, I cannot see it making them any less of a man. Likewise for women. It seems that advertising etc exerts pressure on people to fit “norms” - to have both breasts; to have all reproductive organs in tact; to be seen to be virile etc. and I would assume that it is *this * that is far more damaging than the actual loss of a body part. Just my opinion though.
Or in this case actual sexual potency.
I would say since it is sort of a external part that could be removed by even an amature without killing the person, coupled with the long term effects & the total loss of someones sex life is a big part of that. Add to that common lauguage usage of sayings like “i’ll cut your balls off” reinforces it.
It’s in some respects worse then killing the man - ending (sexual)pleasure in his life.
But do young girls automatically connect this sensation with their ovaries? I think not. As painful as it may be, you don’t slam your body into something and go “Ow, my ovaries!” any more than you would take a blow to the throat and think “Ouch, my esophagus!”. Testicles are there and in your face.
Not literally, of course.
Usually.
**
This I disagree with. I could be wrong, not being a doctor, but losing your testicles to a hard blow must be easier and more common than losing your ovaries to one.
The rest of your post, regarding ovarian cancer and so on, is correct but not what I was yabbing about.
Priceguy
Agreed. You did not mention “young girls” initially though?
heh, again agreed, which is why I said: “aside from any obvious impact injury.”
Impact injuries for women resulting in the damage to, or loss of ovaries might include being kicked, punched, beaten - it may not be as common as impact injuries for men, but it does happen.
heh.
I didn’t recall saying they were not, literally or otherwise? 
Only if you lose both. If you only lose one, the other one still keeps chugging out the little white dudes, and sperm count remains normal.
I did mention young boys. My point was that part of the reason men are so careful with their testicles is that as young boys they learn that if they’re not, it hurts. Badly. Young girls don’t have that experience regarding their ovaries.
Look, I’m not saying women don’t lose their ovaries to physical abuse. I’m just trying to answer the original poster’s question “Why do men value their testicles more than women value their ovaries?”
>> It appears to me that most men have a “castration complex”, where they are afraid of someone cutting off their testicles.
Is that so? You run into many men who, when asked what they were thinking about, say “I am afraid of someone cutting off my testicles”? If most men are like that then I am not normal because I do not think I have ever been afraid or considered te possibility that someone might want to cut off my testicles. Why would someone want my testicles?
Here’s what "castration complex really means (at least from a Freudian psychanalytical approach): http://www.sla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/psychoanalysis/definitions/castration.html
It has nothing to do with how much testicles vs. ovaries.
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Hey girls, if you had something like that dangling off your body, you’d be in the habit both of protecting it and of having horrific visions of something happening to it. It’s mere shape and vulnerability lends itself to be “mothered,” so to speak.
No jokes about my scrotal shape, please.
For Priceguy:
[italics mine]
Fair enough.
However, in relation to * I am merely trying to do the same, and in answering the OP’s question, suggesting that the value women place on their ovaries is the same as the value men place on their reproductive organs. As I said above, it’s just my opinion.
To plnr:
I never said it did.
NO, you didn’t. The OP did.