WEBVTT - How Castration Works 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:04.600 Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:14.120 to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.840 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles Debuto, Bryant, 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:19.680 Jerry's over there, and we all want to warn you 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:22.480 that if you were squeamish, you should skip this one. 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.079 And if you're a man, you may just sit there 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.160 with your legs crossed the entire episode. Yeah, don't be confused. 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:31.680 We're not talking about circumcision. We already did that one. 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.400 This one's castration, and it is nothing like circumcision. Really. 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:39.040 Uh And as a matter of fact, I'm pretty proud 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.199 of our circumcision episode. That one was really good at 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:49.360 head at All had history, anatomy um scalpels, controversy, controversy. 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:51.240 That was a good one. This one's a little different. 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:53.960 This is castration. It better not be anything like circumcision, 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.320 because that means something has gone very wrong or you 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.880 just haven't finished. Yeah, all right, yeah, castration. I don't 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:03.800 remember how this came up, but this is from a 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:07.600 bog post. I wrote, Hey, yeah, you did a great job. Yeah, well, 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:09.240 I just wanted to find out everything there is to 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:12.080 know about castration. I did pretty much. I've got a 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:18.440 couple of historical bullet points for you. Okay, Um, Apparently 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:22.400 in seventeen seventy eight, Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill reducing 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:27.959 punishment for rape, polygamy, and sodomy from death to castration. Okay, 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.000 t J. And you know, we should also point out 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:32.120 we got a lot of letters from people about the 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.959 revisionist history with Thomas Jefferson that said, you know, Sally 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:41.880 Hemmings was more than likely forced into that relationship. And 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:44.400 some people go so far as to call Thomas Jefferson 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:49.680 a rapist himself for that relationship. And um, so I 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:51.600 had never seen that, but then I did some reading, 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.480 and that is a theory that we can't really base 0:01:54.560 --> 0:02:00.160 and say, hey, they were in love. Yeah, so are 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.400 in love because they made love. I don't know that 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:04.960 I'm going to go out and say that he was 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.760 a rapist, but um, it's it's definitely some hinky history. 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.400 Well that's a really excellent point. Like with revisionist history again, 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:15.800 like a lot of its interpretation. But I mean, if 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.080 you do look at it, like she was his slave 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.560 and they had a relationship, Like how can it be 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.000 consentual right at the very least, it's it's tarnished with 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.520 the concept that she was a slave, and there's a 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.720 chance that he forced her into it. So thanks for 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:33.160 everyone who wrote in. Yeah. Um. And also the other 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.200 quick thing is that Genghis Khan supposedly like says that 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:40.079 Jingis might have been castrated himself by princess seeking revenge. 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:46.480 I can't remember his name, Jingis, No, no Hang See 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:48.720 or Hang Fee. I can't remember. He was like the 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.760 admiral of the Chinese navy when they were undertaking basically 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.200 their own age of exploration. That again named Gavin Menzies 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:01.760 thinks beat Columbus too the New World in four he 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.160 was castrated as well. There's actually been a lot of 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.600 very prominent people in history who have held positions of 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.240 great power who were castrated people. It's very interesting. Hadn't 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.480 heard a Jengis though, Yeah, and that's you know, that's 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:18.520 not verified. No, you can see that being like a 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.880 rumor that his enemies made up to see make him 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.480 seem weaker or something. Sure, but you know we should 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.880 point out that. Um with this, with the concept of 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.400 castration as as shocking and as weird, and horrific as 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.400 it sounds, there is like a certain, um, certain group 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.840 of people who are either castrated or interested in being castrated, 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:45.000 that there's nothing really weird to it at all from 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:49.080 their perspective. So, um, let's talk about this. This is 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:54.000 not like a widespread thing today, but if you look 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:58.280 back into the ancient world, um, it was actually fairly common, 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:02.040 especially in parts of Asia like Korea and China. A 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:06.440 lot of their high bureaucrats were actually castrated, and UM, 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:08.200 like I said, a lot of them went on to 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:13.080 hold great places of prominence in history. And very oddly, 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.640 there's been some sort of um longevity research into the 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:21.359 idea that if you're castrated mail, you may live longer 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.080 than the average mail. Yeah. You found a study, uh 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.360 from two thousand twelve from Korea that unix and that's 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.000 the word you're gonna hear a lot. Um the subject 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:36.520 group group produced more centenarians. That's people who live a 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.680 hundred or older than UM a hundred and thirty times 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.000 more than just normal folks in the West. And yeah, 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:44.520 not say they're abnormal, but you know what I mean, 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.480 well in their right and their average lifespan of that 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:53.839 group was fourteen and nineteen years higher than the control group. Interesting. Um, 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.080 the thing is that somebody pointed out like, well, they 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.800 were high bureaucrats, so their life was cushier. They were 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.360 less likely to be killed in an ox accident or 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.479 something than their contemporaries. They're also less likely to die 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.760 from a STD. Yeah. That's another really good point in 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.000 that I hadn't thought about another study though that that 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:15.400 um had similar findings too, though, so it is possible. 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:20.440 The theory goes that without testostro in raging through your body, um, 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:25.920 your lifespan could conceivably increase over time. That's true. Okay, 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:30.799 So who else famous I know? Uh? Boston Corbett, Thomas 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:34.160 Boston Corbett. Yeah, you said you knew about him already. 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:36.520 I'm impressed I had heard this before. It might have 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:39.160 been like a Jeopardy thing. Um. But he was the 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:43.680 guy who most people believe shot John Wokes Booth, who 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:50.120 shot Lincoln, and he was castrated himself. He castrated himself. 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.960 He was a case of auto castration, and there aren't 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:57.080 that many on record of auto castration. But um may 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:01.760 I so, Mr orbit Um, you said he was the 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.000 guy who shot John Wolkespooth against orders even Yeah, he 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.040 was to be taken alive and this guy shot him. Yeah, 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:08.880 I didn't know. It's disputed, but some people say he 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.920 didn't do it. But um, I think he's largely held responsible. 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.880 So later on in life, he uh, he became widowed. 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.880 He was a widower, his wife died, is another way 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:22.080 to put it. And he was worried about being tempted 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.880 by other people, other women. So he one night took 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.680 a pair of scissors and castrated himself, and then he 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.320 went to church for the evening service, went home and 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:36.280 had dinner, and then decided to go to the local 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:40.240 doctor's house to see if it should get checked out. UM. 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.039 That obviously made national news. One of the one of 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:49.880 the ideas that UM suggests Corbett was crazy when he 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.720 did this was that he was a hatter. That was 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:56.360 his profession, and hatters at the time worked with mercury. Mercury, 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.920 which the phrase mad as a hatter, the mad hatter. 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.320 That's because people who made hats worked with mercury, and 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.640 all of that mercury poisoning over time supposedly affected their 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.760 personality and their i Q. What they did with the mercury. 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:13.600 You know, I think it was had something to do 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:16.240 with giving the head as shape. Okay, I'm not sure. 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:18.200 I look, I looked for this and I couldn't find it. 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.360 But I did find that that idea is in dispute. Um. Well, 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.720 I did see that Corbett cited a Bible verse. Um, 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.760 it's not surprising they went to church after Matthew nineteen 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:33.280 twelve May. For there are eunuchs who were born that 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.400 way from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.680 were made so by man. And then there are also 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.320 eunuchs who made themselves Unichs for the sake of the 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.640 Kingdom of heaven. The one who was able to do this, 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.840 let him do it. So there was another early church 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:55.400 father who carried out auto castration because of that same 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:59.240 Bible verse. So talking about in the Bible, if you're 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.320 able to castrate yourself for the King of Heaven, just 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:03.200 go ahead and do that. Right. There is a passage 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.320 in the Bible that has led to at least two 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:08.680 people cutting off their own genitalia. And this is New Testament, 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:15.560 by the way. Yeah, I noticed the s Matthew, the supermodern. So. Um, 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:18.960 the Corbett was nineteenth century. That's a fairly recent case. 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.400 The early church father was obviously in the first couple 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.840 of centuries a d and then the Korean eunuchs, although 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:32.480 um they the the last one died in pretty recent Um, 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.199 they were really operating in the more than nineteenth and 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.040 early twentieth century, and then way you know, earlier in 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:41.120 the millennia. But there are cases every once in a while, 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:45.480 like an auto castration. Um, like every once in a while, 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.679 like I think in two thousand six or something like that, 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:50.920 I came across the case study of a person who 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.960 castrated himself. Um. He was a twenty year old with 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.120 what sounds like Cottard's delusion. He said that he had 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.720 died and he was trying to wake himself up. That 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:02.120 was one reason that he was awake. He also said 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.640 he felt guilty for experiencing lust, and then overall he 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:10.319 said he felt more female than male, but he was heterosexual. 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:12.520 So it sounds like he was throwing everything at the 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.360 wall to see what's stuck. But ultimately the thing that 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.839 stuck out to me was he said he felt relief afterwards, 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:22.960 like he was he was fine. His affect was flat, 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:25.320 but he was fine. He wasn't like, oh my god, 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.800 what have I done? And apparently he expressed relief at 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.079 no longer having a sanitalia, which is something we'll get 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.439 into it comes up later on. But the point is 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.760 when he went into the hospital and doctors found out 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.240 what he'd done to himself, they thought he was totally crazy, 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.680 and a lot of people would. But it's really important 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:49.480 to point out that with castration, it's typically auto castration 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:54.640 that is deemed the results of psychosis, and it's not 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.880 the castration part. It's the fact that you've harmed yourself. Yeah, 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.880 just self mutilation exactly. That that's the that's the part 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.360 that has the psychosis label attached, not being castrated. And 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.480 so there's this internet survey that I think kind of 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:11.240 really um explodes the idea that you have to be 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.680 crazy to be castrated, or want to be castrated. Yeah. 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:19.480 A hundred and twelve people responded UM. Of those reported 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.520 a desire to be free from sexual urges, and another 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.360 thirty percent said they either wanted to be castrated for 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:31.560 the cosmetics, uh, the appearance. I guess you reference kindall 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:36.600 appropriately or as a way to act out of sexual fetish, 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:41.320 which later is a thing it is a North Carolina 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:43.840 there was. Yeah. So as bizarre as it sounds and 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:46.760 is is um I guess across the board and universal. 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.720 It might seem that that, you know, thinking that you'd 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.680 have to be crazy to be castrated, or you you 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.839 would never want to be castrated. There are some people 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:01.280 out there who do, I think, and I don't think 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:03.439 it makes sense for me. But that makes more sense 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.800 to me than the people who say, like, I just 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.200 feel like my left arm shouldn't be on my body. Yeah, 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.760 because at least castration is tied to lust and these 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:18.160 other things that people think might ruin their lives, these 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:22.240 sexual urges or in the case of like pedophilia, you 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.600 know that that comes up later too, So that makes 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.040 more sense to me than cutting off my left arm 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.400 because it feels weird. Yeah, you know, like with your 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:36.160 left arm every due Yeah, well you know my left arm. 0:11:36.280 --> 0:11:38.000 Have you ever seen my left foot? I knew you 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:39.840 were going to say that I have, of course I 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.120 have not. Oh, it's good. That was That was the 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.079 beginnings of Daniel day Lewis is like mastery of acting. 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:49.920 He was amazing and that was the first time I've 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:51.880 heard of him. I remember, Yeah, I think I don't 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.640 think that was his first movie. I think My Beautiful 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.080 Laundrette was before that. No, there was another one that 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:00.960 I saw that was before that was the merchant Ivory film. Yeah. Yeah, 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:02.719 he was in it and it was man, it was 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.920 a merchant Ivory. I think he made his name though, 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.440 and one the Academy Award for that. Yeah. Sure, alright, 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.520 let's talk about the history. Yeah, Um, I saw a 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:16.240 thing that was disturbing that in Korea, Um, they would 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.960 cast rate boys. You might want to not listen to this. 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.880 Fair warning me here it comes. I have to you 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.959 know the other people. Um, that they would allegedly dip 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:31.640 the genitals in feces and have a dog eat the 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:35.320 genitals off. Well that's a really awful way to do it. 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.920 I can't imagine anything worse weird. Yeah, that's it's it's 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:44.800 pretty awful. Um. So let's get into why someone do this. 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:49.040 If you're a eunuch, you were a trusted um friend 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.880 of the court, perhaps, yeah, well, especially in Korea, the 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:56.040 reasoning went and again, like for millennia, eunuchs ran Korea 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:00.800 at the behest of the royal families that had the 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.520 dynasty's in power. Well, you're not gonna start your own dynasty, 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.079 so there's one reason to trust you. That's the point. Uh. 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.040 Unuchs were allowed to have families, but they had to 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:12.800 adopt kids obviously, and any males that they adopted had 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:16.439 to be unix themselves to prevent them founding. Since they 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.640 were very powerful people. They had to kind of die out. 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.280 Can you that's so awful? These kids are like, yeah, 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:27.120 I'm adopted finally and then then oh, yeah, oh you're unich. 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:31.160 Can I go back to the orphanage? Right? Um. The 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.920 other thing that eunuchs, The other reason unuchs were trusted 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:38.559 obviously because they weren't gonna be making any moves on 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:42.160 the queen. Well in in the Middle East especially, harms 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.320 were very popular, and if you have a harem of wives, uh, 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.760 they need protecting, and you want the guy who's going 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:54.520 to protect them to be physically incapable of doing anything 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.880 with them. Yeah, so hence eunuchs. But these are the 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:04.440 point is with the removal of these men's genitalia, they 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:09.559 were automatically imbued with a trust because they simply were 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:15.040 incapable of of circumventing that trust. So that's that's like 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:17.720 one of these weird things about unichs is like, what 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.440 goes hand in hand with being a eunuch at least 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.840 as far as government or powers concerned. Sure, trust goes 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:25.920 hand in hand with it. Isn't the history of this 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.240 world crazy when you really kind of get down to 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.360 the nitty gritty. That's how we're trying to show a 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:35.200 little by little just how insane humanity is. Uh So, 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:41.040 let's move on to the eighteenth century century in Italy. Um, 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:46.480 where saw a movie called Farinellie. Did you ever see that? No? Again? 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:51.480 It was it was a movie about a castrato singer. Um, 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:55.440 that's I'm glad you said that. Castrato, the pluralist castrati. 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.440 Same with gelato. Little little do you know? So if 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:03.600 your family goes out, you get Gelatti. So his name 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:09.160 was Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi, and his stage name 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.800 was Faranelli. And it's a good movie. You should get it. 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.720 It was a biopic. It's a biopic about a famous castrado. 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:20.040 And in Italy at the time there were women weren't 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:22.280 allowed to sing in church. So if you wanted that 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:27.720 mezzo soprano, you just got a grown man. With no genitalia. 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:30.960 Well he said, sing your heart out. The thing is 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:34.720 it was illegal to castrate somebody in Italy at the time. 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:37.640 Well in in eighteen seventy it became illegal, So before 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:39.760 that I think they were just sort of well so 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.040 from my understanding, at the very least, it was frowned upon. 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:46.080 Because in the eighteenth century, the seventeen hundreds, UM, there 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:53.119 were there was basically an underground network of castration surgeons, 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.840 and there was an anonymous book that came out that 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.720 was published on it that basically explained how it was 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.880 one and apparently they would, um, they would basically take 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.800 a boy. Here's the thing. You wanted your kid to 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.160 possibly be a castrado because it could mean wealth for 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:14.040 you and your family. So a kid's parents, a boy's 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:18.280 parents would take him to this castration surgeon. The castration 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.720 surgeon would pinch the boy's karated artery until he passed 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.640 out and then cut his testis off the death grip 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.320 pretty much, then cut his tests off. And this is 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:30.120 the way they did it, according to this book from 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.920 seventeen eighteen UM. Because they tried opium before, but too 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.080 many of the boys like died from from Yeah, they 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.000 odeed and died, so they would just pinch their karate 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:44.360 and then remove their tests. Uh. And a lot of 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.960 people think that you could do this at any stage 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.440 and produce a high pitched voice. Yeah, that's like the 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:52.800 whole thing. Like even when you get kicked in the 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:57.400 groin and guy, you can thank Martin Short for perpetuating 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.400 that joke. Uh, that's not true. It has to be 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:06.680 done before puberty, before your vocal cords have lengthened, and 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:11.560 those of the male sex hormones are produced in the testy. 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:13.720 So if you get rid of those, what you've got 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:19.080 is a man that continues to grow. And interestingly, castrato castrati, 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.040 their limbs grow really long, and their ribs, the rib 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:29.560 cage gets bigger because there without testosterone, their bone joints 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:32.800 don't harden like they should. So that produces an effect 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:37.359 of better able to breathe and so like it makes 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:39.480 you a better singer. But you're singing through the vocal 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:41.840 cords of a child, right because during puberty one of 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.400 the things your voice change. You remember that Brady bunch 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.360 where Peter Brady's voice changes. Can forget what was going on? 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.520 Was the testosterone in his body was lengthening his vocal 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:54.920 cords by anywhere between thirty five and ninety two millimeters. 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:59.800 So your vocal cords increased by length during puberty. Within 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.679 a castrado, the vocal chords don't link and nearly as 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:05.800 much because they've only got about five percent of the 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:10.800 testosterone compared to an uncastrated person. But their pharynx grows, 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:14.320 their oral cavity grows, their lungs grow, and then, like 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.159 you said, their ribcage grows to allow their lungs to 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.600 grow even more. Take a deeper breath. So you have 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.320 somebody who has, like this, the ability to hold a 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:27.159 note like a male, a male adult, but a high pitched, 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.600 resonant voice. Yes, it's a weird combination of like a 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:34.439 super powerful, like an extra powerful singing voice through the 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.720 vocal chords of a kid. But the upshot is if 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.920 you remove the testings of an adult male, his voice 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.359 isn't going to change a bit. He's just going to 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:46.199 be really mad. His demeanor might right. Um, so I 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:50.040 guess what'd you say? Eighteen? What when they outlawedit is 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.879 when it became officially illegal. The thing is is it 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.760 was definitely frowned upon because I found criticism of the 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:00.840 church that the acchoir at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.200 which is where the Pope says masks um, had tons 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:08.480 of castrati even though you weren't really supposed to, and 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:10.800 the opera houses would have castrati. The thing is it 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.680 was very, very very competitive. So there are a lot 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.359 of boys who were castrated and never went anywhere with 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:19.480 their singing career, and then over time they outlawed it. 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:22.159 In Italy was kind of like, we should probably stop 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.240 doing this, Yeah, and maybe we should just let girls 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:26.439 sing in church. Yeah, you know, I'm sure that had 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.159 a pretty big impact. Um. You should see Fairnelly. Check 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:33.919 it out. It's good. Um. So you might think that 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.520 this is the kind of thing that went away and like, 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:41.159 let's say the eight hundreds, But no, it happened up 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:45.960 until in England, at least chemically the nineteen fifties. Because 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:49.480 we've talked about this before. The great father of computing 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.680 an adventure of the Turing test. Alan Turing was homosexual, 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:57.320 which is illegal. It was was at the time, and 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.720 he was given a choice and go to prison or 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:05.159 you can take this These injections of still but straw 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:10.160 it's a female sex hormone, and it gave him boobs 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:13.560 and made him impotent, and he he laced an apple 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.840 with cyanide and died by his own hand by eating 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.000 the apple a couple of years later. Yeah, And I 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.400 don't think they called it chemical castration at the time. 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.800 They just were like, this is will limit your libido, right, 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.919 So I think that came up in the mid nineteen 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:30.400 sixties in the United States. So basically we went from 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:35.119 people's parents having them castrated as boys to the state 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:41.320 taking over. So that's that's how castration is typically carried 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:43.720 out at the hands of the state these days as 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:49.720 punishment um for crime. And in six um, a guy 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:55.720 named John Money uh, an American physician uh he um, 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:58.040 he came up with this procedure, which is just a 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:04.119 simple round of injections of something called medoxy progesterone acetate, 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.240 which is a birth control used by women. And basically 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.639 you just take the same round of birth control that 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:12.280 you would give a woman and give it to a 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.480 guy who was having sexual urges that he was scared 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.480 of or um sexual feelings for children or whatever, and 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:22.399 it would reduce his libido and he would be cured. 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:27.879 The thing is this, this first chemical castration in America 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:33.000 was voluntary. It was a treatment basically for a pedophile 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.840 who hadn't committed a crime yet. And the state said, hey, 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:38.600 that's a pretty good idea. We're gonna start making that compulsory. 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:41.440 In California was the first. I think that is a 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:44.120 good time to break for a message that will learn 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:52.919 about modern castration after that. Okay, so you said California, 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.520 which is kind of surprising, as liberal as it is, 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.240 to get on board first and allowing chemical castrat shan 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:04.120 as uh Well was it was? It still like an 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:08.119 option or no. Before that, it was like if you 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.879 were a caught if you were a pedophile who was 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:15.000 caught doing something, or a rapist or something it's sex criminal. Um, 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.879 you could say, hey, I heard about this this chemicals 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.359 castration thing. How about instead of going to prison, you 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:23.080 just give that to me. It was a bargaining chip. 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:25.080 So if you if you use your penis to commit 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:28.600 a crime, they would give you this option, or you 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:30.480 your lawyer could bring it up. They may not give 0:22:30.480 --> 0:22:32.240 you the option, but it was something that was out 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:34.480 there that you could use to bargain your way out 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:38.520 of prison with potentially In the mid nineties, California said, 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:41.960 it's not a bargaining chip anymore, Like you're this is 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:43.960 gonna happen to you, Like this is something that can 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:47.119 happen to you. This is a sentence we can we 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:51.199 can exact on you. Well, the Czech Republic surgically castrated 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:56.720 sex offenders until so did Germany. Germany did. I don't 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.160 think nearly as long, but for a long time, like 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:04.240 in your up. That's how um pedophilia was was cured, 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.400 was through castration or sex offenses. Yeah, and since there's 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:14.000 a surgical they had success rate of uh no recid recidivism. 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:17.520 So the word reciitativism, recidativism, it's a bone head word. 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:23.320 It's uh but that ain't me no more. Um So, Yeah, 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:27.240 the chemical one, uh, the chemical variety can be reversed 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:30.879 if you stop taking the drugs. It's generally thought that 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:34.480 you you can go back to achieving erections and doing 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:36.960 things with your penis. Well, there's a study right of 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.920 um of German sex offenders. Well, let me tell you 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:45.560 about Joseph Frank Smith first. So when you are chemically castrated, 0:23:45.600 --> 0:23:49.880 the recidativism rate drops from eight percent for non treated 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:52.680 like just basically, you send the person to prison, there's 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:54.920 an eighty percent chance they're going to commit another sex 0:23:54.960 --> 0:24:00.000 crime later to just five percent among chemically castrated people. Yeah, 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:03.720