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Hi guys! Have you heard about the Eunuch Archive?
The Eunuch Archive is a friendly support site for the Eunuch Community. Originally a part of the Body Modification E-Zine (with the tagline "the fetish is reality"), since the late 90's they've been hosting erotic fiction by and for people with a kink for being castrated.
Can't say I read a lot of these stories, but going through the titles there seems to be a some amount of "wife gets back at husband", or "help, I've been sold into sex slavery". One theme that stood out was the idea of castration being normalized in the future. For example the user "Jesus" wrote a story "Orchiectomy: Is It Right for You?", describing the procedure, and praising it's health benefits. The punchline comes at the end (keep in mind the story was written in 2002):
There also many stories that are far more disturbing, or as they put it themselves:
The summary for one states:
Yikes... you can't say they didn't warn you.
Well, I suppose it's better that people get their rocks off on some seedy website. After all it's just fantasy, and the people running the site make it clear they don't condone anyone actually trying to do this sort of stuff.
Hey guys! Have you heard about the WPATH?
WPATH is the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, a non-profit, interdisciplinary professional and educational organization devoted to transgender health. It is often cited in academic literature, and invites the world's top experts in the field to write the standards of care for transgender people.
Among these experts are people like Thomas W. Johnson, Richard Wassersug, and Krister H. Willette, who attended several WPATH conferences, and all have accounts on the Eunuch Archive ("Jesus", "Eunuchunique", and "Kristoff" respectively) that were active for over 20 years. Johnson and Wassersug have even published research based on a survey of EA's users, and the stories posted there.
Well, I suppose I can't criticize what people do off the clock. Ok, so maybe their academic research was actually still on the clock, but isn't the whole point of academia to explore and document all, even the weirdest corners of society? If they can combine their work with their hobby, all I can say is: good for them!
As for their work in WPATH, I'm sure they are proffesional and wouldn't dream of letting their fetish affect their work.
Hey guys! Have you heard about the WPATH's latest Standard of Care?
As mentioned above the SOC is a set of guidelines developed by the WPATH with the goal to "provide clinical guidance for health professionals to assist transgender and gender diverse people with safe and effective pathways to achieve lasting personal comfort with their gendered selves, and to maximize their overall health, psychological well-being, and self-fulfillment".
This latest version has been the subject of some controversy. For example, the previous version contained "suggested minimum ages" for a number of procedures, like:
14+ years old for cross-sex hormones
15+ years old for double mastectomies
16+ years old for breast implants, facial feminisation surgery
17+ years old for metoidioplasty, orchiectomy, vaginoplasty, hysterectomy, fronto-orbital remodelling
18+ years old for phalloplasty.
In the latest version the only one that remains is the limit on phalloplasty. In another controversial decision, they decided that children can move straight to cross-sex hormones – they will no longer be requested to start with a suppression of puberty. Perhaps most controversially, the latest Standards of Care now includes an entire chapter on eunuchs, and proposes a new "eunuch-identity":
Well, I suppose it could be a coincidence. I mean just because they suddenly came up with a eunuch-identity, doesn't mean they got it from the regulars of the fetish webs-...
...
Well, I̵ ̴s̷u̸p̴p̸o̴s̶e̷ t̴̮͒ĥ̷͙a̴̦̒t̶̥́ ̴̞̓I̵̟̍ ̷̢͝c̷͜͠a̶̱͗n̷̫̽'̷͖̇ẗ̸̪.̷̢̫̂̍.̷͔̱̏̈.̴̦̳͐ ̸̡̥̪̄o̸̝̅̋́h̸̛̖̗̰̓͗ ̷̤͔̲͑͗G̵̼͒̎͝o̶̯͇͓̓ḋ̵͈̻͈͛̈́, ṋ̴̞̹͉̊̐̀ͅở̴̱̀̎̂͛!̴̖͓̟̬̊̇̓̾ P̴͕̗͚͙̘̏̿̀l̸̥͚͕̺̤̺̙͇̉̉͆̈́͗̃͘̚ë̸̟̘̟́̑̾a̸͈̗̦̟̘̱͓͊̇͋ș̷̱͚͔̤̀̇́͑͜e̶̘̿́͂̋ ̶̬̈́̒m̷͇̓͗͐̔̿̿̚͝ắ̶̲̫͖̪̺́̈͒̂́͜͠k̸͍͔̙̣̰̖̻̩͆e̴̱̤̤͎̟̐̀ ̴̹̪͇͈͚̉̾̈̚i̷̡̖̹͇̤̝͛̽̎̍t̴̻̓̾͠ ̵̭̿ş̶̧͔͖̹̣̃̂̈́͐̚̕ṱ̴̡̜̀͋̉̃̉̃͜o̶̬̹̒͌p̷͍͖̼͔̓̌͜͝!̷̛͉̎́͐̕͘̚
I was familiar with the EA and the mentioned posters back when they enforced the rules about not supporting this stuff on minors. Honestly, I participated in some of Jesus's research threads (never knew he posted in the stories section. The others don't surprise me.) Seeing them going from careful and professional to doing cartwheels down the slippery slope is ... disappointing, to put it mildly. I remember when people got modded for seeming too enthusiastic about the new policy recommendations. Heck, mods there provided plenty of information in agreement with the prevalence of both desisting after puberty and fettish-driven fixation on castration. And that's just what I got from the handful of boards I bothered reading (Eunuch Central, the general health board, and occasionally the surgical/chemical castration boards. I once poked my head into the stories section, read the titles, and noped the f out of there.)
Wow, thanks for talking about it. Didn't expect we'd have any firsthand experience here. Do you have insights into the board culture you think would help explain the whole thing to people, if you're comfortable talking about it?
Think I kinda recognize some things by analogy to niche groups I've been in. Is there like this undercurrent of equivocation between an official community slogan of "haha imagine not being able to tell the difference between fiction and reality", and very active community leaders obviously taking it uncomfortably seriously?
I'm not sure I was ever involved deeply enough to give a meaningful response, but to the best of my recollection...
I was most active around 2008-2012. At the time, there was a very sharp divide between the different sections of the forums (and there were quite a lot of sections, organized into categories). It seemed like most of the active participants in the sections I visited were middle-aged men/eunuchs, with a smattering of 18-50s filling things out. User motivations ranged from fettishistic and body modification (I recall a frequent poster whose username was "splitdick"), to gender identity and BIID, to medical issues requiring castration (prostate/testicular cancer or injury, etc), to autistic or religious people citing a desire to remove the distraction/temptation of sexuality to focus on what they really cared about. There were lots of personal anecdotes, and Jesus et al (but mostly Jesus) provided academic references when appropriate.
The general pattern was to always, always discourage rushing into castration, even though there was frequent lamenting the lack of support from the medical community. One young, fit christian poster kinda scared most of the active members by confidently skipping the recommended preparation and getting surgically castrated very quickly after opening discussion. On the other hand, there was a middle-aged autist who spent many years trying to convince doctors to help, and wound up bringing an elastrator to an appointment to demonstrate the ability to castrate himself if no surgeon would do it in a safer way (this was apparently when the doctor in question was utterly terrified of anyone discovering that he gave in to the threat).
There were threads about castration of minors, and the mods seemed to watch those closely and take action if anyone seemed too supportive of castrating minors IRL. I think there were also serious concerns about doxxing (one poster apparently had direct experience with at least one-three teenagers who were castrated in the Netherlands for non-trans medical reasons, and had a habit of revealing more detail than was necessary, and got modded for it). One of the admins not mentioned here (Palo, IIRC) had plenty of stories about boys expressing interest in castration prior to puberty, then changing their minds almost immediately afterward.
And as I recall, there were lots and lots of origin stories involving boys observing the castration of livestock.
Now that I'm trying to remember everything I can, I do recall a discussion that got uncomfortably positive toward sexual experiences for boys, particularly between 10 and 14. I recall someone (I forget who) posting large chunks of an article about various men's experiences when they were underaged, to which some posters replied with fond recollections of being 10-14 and getting molested by older teenagers.
Ultimately, what I got out of it was a lot of medical information, and a confusing mix of support for wanting to escape sexuality and also so much explicit sexuality, that I really couldn't say much about what was really going on. In the bits of the forums I read, Jesus generally posted in a very dry, academic manner, and Kristof came across as a grumpy old vet who was getting too old for this shit and really just wanted to be a nun. I kinda got the impression that some accounts, like Kristof and Palo, were often held by older people in the community, and might have changed hands when the original user died, but I never confirmed that. Palo came across as both the top mod and the one who took moderating for safety most seriously (though, there are mods I don't remember so well, so take that with some salt).
Oh, and the pushing for a male-to-eunuch identity thing was always there. Jesus was pretty open about trying to publish research to encourage medical recognition of such an identity. I'm more surprised that the others got involved in the publications and such, since they always struck me as more oriented toward the community than being involved as researchers directly.
I feel like I have not answered the question. :(
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