Fri 31 Mar 2006
I’m from the mountains, so I am well-accustomed to the sort of things that happen deep in shadowed hollows where the same genes have mixed and mixed again for generations. But when MAC alerted me to this story, even I was surprised. From Haywood County News:
WAYNESVILLE – At least six men traveled from across the nation and South America to have their genitals mutilated in what Haywood County authorities described as a sadomasochistic dungeon.
Three Haywood County men are now in jail on felony charges of castration without malice and practicing medicine without a license.
OK, um, wow. I didn’t even know “castration without malice” was a crime. I mean, wow. Some legislator, somewhere, must have had a fun time hearing about it in the cafeteria after they proposed that one.
Also, you really must visit the link for the mug shots. Damnation. No one, and I mean no one, in their right minds would walk into that house, drop their pants and hope someone produces a knife. Additionally, you have to respect a media outlet that captions the photo with “CASTRATION HOUSE,” then helpfully provides a map to the place in the same story.
They asked a neighbor about the guys, and got this:
Kurtz said the men kept to themselves, rarely waved and never spoke.
I hate to say this, but in the mountains that is every bit as good as putting a sign at the end of the drive that reads WE ARE DOING SOMETHING FREAKY HERE. It shouldn’t be that way – people should have a right to ignore each other all they damn well want, and I remember well when a neighbor accused a gay couple in my neighborhood, back in the ’80s (no, really), of being “drug dealers, or something,” because they didn’t talk to others in the neighborhood and occasionally had out-of-town guests. Still, if the allegations are true, maybe it turns out that even a stopped social clock like that one can be right once in a while. And I find it somewhat heartening that her suspicions were not raised by more than one unmarried man living together, but about their lack of neighborly ways.
My favorite part of the whole article, though?
The victims met the men through a locally produced Web site that published photographs of men engaging in sadomasochistic behavior.
Of course there was a website.
Yahoo! shut down the site in December 2004. The castrations took place last year beginning in March and continued through November, according to police documents.
The case is the first involving willing castration in the county and could be the first in North Carolina.
“This right here beats everything I have ever seen,” the sheriff said.
That’s the mountains, for you.
Tarheels in the news….
Apparently, my reputation precedes me. You can stop mailing me links to this story now, folks. At least six men traveled from across the nation and South America to have their genitals mutilated in what Haywood County authorities described as……
I can’t believe Appelbaum says voluntary castration is rare, and is generally practiced by psychopaths – it’s not as rare as the article makes out, and I don’t know that I’d say it’s only practiced by psychopaths. It’s nothing something I really understand, but I went through a phase where I read everything I could find on bmezine.com about body mods, and I even bought their book Modcon, which is a really interesting read. I don’t really know how to feel about this arrest. Not all people who get extreme body mods are psychopaths, and it’s not like they can get a doctor to do it for them – they’d probably get institutionalized. So, I kinda understand the practicing medicine w/o a license, but at the same time, not many licensed people are into the body mod community. (Although apparently there are a few that do body mods on the downlow.) Interesting article, though.
That should be “not something,” of course, instead of “nothing something.” I get so uptight about typos in comments. Augh.
I agree that people should be able to do basically whatever they want to their bodies as long as they are sufficiently mentally fit to make that decision (and that’s not an encrypted excuse to blanket abolish, I’d be pretty generous with that caveat). That said, unlicensed amateurs should not be cutting on people’s bits. I see their arrest as entirely justified and, in fact, a good thing, if they are guilty, for one of the reasons I want abortion to remain entirely legal: if someone wants this procedure done, I want a licensed, experienced and knowledgeable agent to perform it for them rather than get it done wherever they can. I agree that it’s probably hard to find a sympathetic ear in the medical profession, but if they’re willing to travel to Asheville from as far away as South America then it is not a question of availability, or at least not a question of having the resources needed to go where it’s available. They could find someone who is at least some sort of medical professional to do this for them.
I don’t know of anybody licensed to do voluntary castrations.
Oh, please. If surgeons can do gender-corrective surgery, they can do castrations. They could find real doctors who can invent fake diagnoses to justify castrations. They can do all sorts of things to get around the law and still have a real doctor who really knows what s/he is doing. And even if they can’t, they could at least find a real doctor who is willing to do it illegally.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on the ease of getting “licensed” doctors to do something like this. For one thing, doing completely unnecessary (at least physically) procedures such as thse are a sure way for any physician to lose their license, even if it is on the d/l. I should think that the fact that somebody was willing to travel from South America the mountains of North Carolina to get this done would speak to how difficult it is to find somebody to do this, not “a question of having the resources needed to go where it’s available.” Don’t you think that people with enough money to for tickets to and from South America could have found somebody, especially in South America, to do this if it was at all common or accepted?
You also spoke of sex reassignment surgery as an apt comparison for voluntary castration vis-a-vis the relative difficulty in getting a medical professional to perform to procedure. SRS requires a lengthy psychological review process that takes up to three years to complete, along with hormone therapy and living day-to-day as the patient’s desired gender, not to mention finding a plastic surgeon willing to do a vaginoplasty on you. You could go to Thailand or Italy to get it done too, but there are still plenty of hoops to jump through there as well. But my point is that there’s a recognized process for getting it done, which simply doesn’t exist for other sorts of extreme body modification such as castration, voluntary amputation, having plastic surgury to make you look like a leopard, etc.
I see their arrest as entirely justified and, in fact, a good thing, if they are guilty, for one of the reasons I want abortion to remain entirely legal: if someone wants this procedure done, I want a licensed, experienced and knowledgeable agent to perform it for them rather than get it done wherever they can.
Unlike abortion, having “castration agents” (which phrase brings to mind all sorts of funny images) isn’t legal. So people do have to get it done wherever they can.
More bloviating! Anyways, I forgot to add that the cutman’s arrest is perfectly justified. In the end, he broke the law and he deserves to be punished for breaking the law. It doesn’t mean that I agree that what he did was morally incorrect (I don’t), or that the law of the land is correct (again, I don’t). But as far as his arrest being “justified,” of course it is.
OK, gender reassignment surgery isn’t a very good comparison, that’s true. And I suppose that really in trying to make my point I made the counterpoint instead, that if they can travel from SA then they could go wherever there were a willing medical professional, were one available. So, those are all inarguably true. Still, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for random peeps to be doing surgery, no matter the circumstances. For me it’s more than just that if they broke the law they should be punished, but it’s hard for me to put a finger on why other than “just because it’s not a good idea” in terms of the practicing medicine w/o a license charges.
which phrase brings to mind all sorts of funny images
Also, totally. I’d love to see the yellow page ads for that one.
Yeah, I’ve got to say that I just don’t have any problem with people doing whatever they want to their bodies, whether it’s a retarded idea or not. Wanna jump off cliffs? Terrific. Wanna climb to the top of Mt. Everest with no oxygen? Fantastic. Wanna have your Cousin Rufus drive railroad spikes into your nasal cavity? Why the hell not. That also applies to bicyclists wearing helmets, drivers wearing seatbelts and, indeed, guys getting their junk drastically edited for space.
Also, does the not-getting-surgery-if-somebody-doesn’t-have-a-license thing apply if somebody needs an abortion and it isn’t legal where they are, say in South Dakota? Discuss!
Well, South Dakota has taken care of that problem thanks to a Native American tribe.
To answer your question directly, were I the Sheriff, no, I would not arrest someone for performing abortions in a place where it were illegal because I agree – a woman should have control of her own body, and a consenting woman who chooses that course of action is not, in my opinion, doing something wrong. And yeah, the poe-lease are supposed to enforce all laws equally, but every department makes decisions every day on what takes priority, and I would simply not make that a priority. Now, if I found out that someone were a total whack-job who was running a butcher shop but they were the only show in town? I’d have a very hard decision. These guys were running a butcher shop. If the media coverage is to be trusted (the Citizen-Times is usually the best of the corporate sources in Asheville), their tools consisted of a few bloody scalpels in an old coffee can, a desk reference to share between them and a few CD-ROMs. (In related news, Castration for Dummies now ships with a multi-media component.) I would have busted these guys in a heartbeat because that’s a recipe for total disaster. On the other hand, when my paternal grandmother was growing up there was a local mid-wife who could provide abortion services when needed/wanted. She apparently knew how to brew a tea that would induce miscarriages. They were safe and reliable and came from someone who was as close to an OB/GYN as that town was ever going to get. That? I’d have left that alone. I realize it’s a wholly subjective judgement, but in my judgement those situations are qualitatively different.
Mountain Weirdness…
Click through for the story about three Hayward County men in jail on charges of castration without malice…….