Citation Needed - Castration

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

Castration (also known as orchiectomy) is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchidectomy (excision of both testes), and chemical castration uses pharmaceutical drugs to deactivate the testes. Castration causes sterilization (preventing the castrated person or animal from reproducing); it also greatly reduces the production of certain hormones, such as testosterone. Surgical castration in animals is often called neutering. --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

Where are we? Hey, sleepy heads. All right. New rule, Eli is not allowed to pour any more beverages around the house. Probably built really weird. What is this? And why is there, what's the medical setup around here? Is this stuff?

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. Why is my lower body, there's a lot of stuff. Why is my lower body, uh, there's a lot of bad things to do. What's happening? Okay, so guys don't freak out. Oh my god, no. Wait, what? This week's episode is about castration. I will kill you.

I'll be fucking killed. Come on. Wait a second. Just wait. I know, I know. I know this seems bad, but think about it. Think about it. What do you all wanna do right now? You mean something else other than kill you?

Because I want to kill you. Yes, kill me. I want to kill you. I'm gonna kill you. I don't know. I don't know. Read a book. Maybe.

Yeah, I know a book. A book sounds really good. Honestly, now that you mention it, I could do some watercolors. What am I saying? Why would I do water? That's what I'm saying. Now that we have our, shall we say, distractions out of the way? We can be our best selves.

I mean, look at all this poetry arrow, just while I was waiting for you guys to wake up. You know what I got to admit? I do feel, I don't know, clearer. And, I mean, this is gonna, I don't know, clearer. And I mean, this is gonna free up a bunch of extra times. So much extra time. I mean, so much extra time, yeah.

What about you, Heath? Honestly, not that much of a change, same. Really? Yeah, wasn't super, you know, distracted before or now, if you get my meaning, just wasn't really distracted. I'm like, weird. It's gotta be some benefit though, right?

I mean, yeah, because you know, like, jerking off and, yeah, I mean, maybe. I didn't spend like that much time on that so I Don't know really so no benefits. Well Okay, here we go. There's something yeah, I got something I guess I Guess I haven't excused to sit down while I pee now. I mean that was always kind of a thing The whole thing. Yeah, cool. Yeah, that sounds Kind of a thing, a whole thing. Yeah, cool.

Yeah, that sounds... Restful. Restful, yeah, it is. Thank you. It is. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed podcast where we choose a subject to read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts. Because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Heath and welcome to 45 minutes of wincing.

Yep, it's gonna be fun. I can't see us right now, but trust me, we look like we're all reluctantly forming a five-man wall to defend a free kick and soccer with the hands on it. Like, you know what I'm saying? I'm sure we're all doing that, and joining me in the Winsing Wall are a Greek Orthodox priest,

Chingatch cook of the Mohicans and a rabbi. We look like they're about to walk into a bar in a joke premise. Please welcome Cecil, Noah and Eli. Geek Orthodox, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Right. I mean, look, I'm cool with it if the Mohicans are,

and I don't hear them protesting. So, see, and I was actually gonna be a rabbi, but I ended up going for a less atheist profession. So, you know, all of the people. And also joining me is the Irish bartender who makes them all leave for bringing a Jewish guy. Please welcome Tom. Okay, all right, to be fair, the Jew was Eli,

so that's fair. That's right, right, no, he has been. Stan Mato just, he has. Might have just been anti-Eli not Semitic, right? So let's get right into it. Not my last. Pantis Semitic too. That's okay, right?

Okay, you're not mutually exclusive. Yeah, you're like, one helps the other, and that works both ways. Starifying information. Great. I was making the okay sign. That's just, that was, oh my God, you see that at the Army Navy game? I took those people.

So terrible. Gross. All right. Well, let's do it. Tell us, Cecil, what person-place thing concept phenomenon or event are we going gonna be talking about today? They were gonna be talking about castration And Noah What the fuck is happening?

Apparently left to your own devices you go off script for two seconds and you're talking about white supremacy your own devices, you go off script for two seconds and you're talking about white supremacy. I'm not sure why you're surprised at all, but I'm not. I wrote a whole essay to distract you guys from that subject. I was just, yes, ending it now. It feels weird that I did. Okay. No, no, okay.

So because as anybody who follows me on Facebook knows, I have recently welcomed a couple of new kittens into my home, and then have them modified to meet my specifications. Oh, we have kittens. Fuck them. Yeah, no, we're exactly. So I've had several balls on the brain a bit. Yeah, no is the only person I can imagine leaving the vet's office with an actual doggy bed. Only person.

Really? All right. So, and I have to say this because it's my job, technically, tell us about castration, Noah. We'll do. Okay. So I've been waiting so long for someone to say that. Thank you, Heath.

First, a quick point on, the term no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, essay, though, because this is sort of the limitation of the Wikipedia article, we're gonna go with the more common testicle specific understanding of the term. Deactivated, like what? They stop like ascending and descending with the temperature? What if the act of it? I mean, yes, they do.

That's not the main thing. But in my head, it makes like a boom. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Wow. So now, that's not to say though, there's not gonna be any ambiguity in my head, it makes like a boom. Yeah, exactly. Wow. So now that's not to say that there's not gonna be any ambiguity about the terminology here, because according to the article, castration can also be used

to refer to emasculation. Like when someone woman splains on Twitter, right? Oh. And you're the president of the United States and you lose a Twitter fight to Twitter fight. Now once but twice. She's such a good troll. She's amazing. Hey guys, be best.

Yeah. No, nobody. All right, so the key here though is the, the, uh, a masculine thing that, that, of course, is when both the nuts and bolts are removed in and some cultures, there's no distinction made between those two procedures. I am linguistically, I'm sure regardless of your culture, you notice the difference. Yeah.

That's right. In the cases, a lot of the historical castrations we're gonna be talking about, we don't actually know if the sources are referring to sand's balls or sand's balls and cock. I just wanna throw this out there. Only Noah could start an essay about cutting off Dixon Balls with a five minute digression about Nomenclature.

Okay. I mean, after they take your balls, isn't like whether they leave you with your dick sort of, it's kind of academic, right? Like, we've removed your balls. So your dick is pretty much a useless piss too, but we left it there so you can look at it and feel shame.

That's good. No, I want the piss tube. No, it's actually a piss tube. It's precisely a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss.

It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss.

It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just a piss. It's just. I think it's worth emphasizing that we don't just castrate our animals to keep them from reproducing. Sometimes it's just about showin' them whose boss. Tony Danza? No, Judith Light, you sexist. She's so clear to us. She's just a sexist fucking title.

She was clearly the fucking boss. Anyway, we also whack off animals balls for all kind of different reasons. Sometimes it's to reduce aggression towards humans or other males of their species, as is the case with mules, for example, which are regularly castrated despite being born infernal. Sometimes, though, it's to reduce the damage that they do to all the shit that they tear down, trying to get to the females. And sometimes it's just because castration leads to increased weight. Sometimes in fact, it's just so that they'll taste better.

Okay, honestly, based on how the human male behaves, I feel like those first two benefits are worth considering. Like it's not a... And that is the future liberals want. According to my brother-in-law, yes. Yes, of course it is. Of course, it is. That's Liz Warren's wealth tax right there. According to my brother-in-law, yes. Of course, yes. Yes, yes. Of course, news. That's Liz Warren's wealth tax right there.

All right, so that last one about the taste deserves a quick aside. Apparently domestic pigs are castrated, at least in part, to avoid an unpleasant chemical concentration that stored the fatty tissues of some sexually mature males. And I know right now Tom's doubting whether that deserved any aside, regardless of how big, but the term for that problem is Bortaint. And there is no fucking way. I'm gonna read an article with a phrase like Bortaint

and not share it with you guys. Thank you for that. And in order to reduce Bortaint, you have to expand the Bortaint. That makes sense now. Okay, fun fact, I actually bought and see what kind of test to this, a work shoulder, from a pig that had Bortaint and the meat literally smells exactly like actual shit.

Yep. So it is possibly the most accurate name for anything ever. Sorry, it smelled like actual poop. So apparently, and obviously your anecdote changes this a little bit, but the board taint problem might be a little bit overblown in pig agriculture or whatever that's called. From what I've read, thank you. The part of, and what I've read, I should say is the part of the paragraph on Wikipedia

that addressed this. So I don't fucking know. Quote, recent research in Brazil has shown that castration of pigs is unnecessary because most pigs do not have the boar taint. This is due to many breeds of pigs simply not having the hereditary for the boar taint and the fact that pigs are normally slaughtered at a young market weight. End quote. Just a Brazilian pig is like, what do you mean you don't need to do that anymore?

What is that? Steve? Okay. Sorry, this is off topic, but I just want to dwell on this for a second. In Eli's head, Brazilian is a very large number based on the list of spelling and much. It is very clearly a large number. And like apparently, you know, spell check is good with that, right? I thought Brazilians, when you shave the whole tank,

that's just like clean, smooth, now, I'm not wrong. I'm not wrong. You know what, it didn't specify what type of Brazilians it was talking about in the article, so yeah, no, it could be. All right, so when it comes to our pets, we have a special term, all of a sudden, castration becomes neutering, right? The balls.

The Narrow. No, it's just, look, neutering is a way easier word to say when you're looking at a couple of rambunctious little kittens and contemplating which parts of their anatomy have to go. In fact, there's damn near a cottage industry and not using the term castration or castrated when we talk about animals, which is why so many animals have like the standard name for the detestical varieties, including,

I brought a list, Barrow, castrated pig, Capeon or I think Capeon, that's castrated chicken, Gelding, castrated horse, Gib, castrated cat or ferret, that they'd make theirs to share a word. That's great.

Confused a lot. A lot of people in some weird conversations, I'm just saying. Absolutely, yeah, right? And weather, which is a castrated sheep or goat, also useful for scrabble. Indeed. Now, you may have noticed that your favorite word for a castrated domestic animal was missing from that list. Actually, I was hoping you might notice that you're

the only person with a favorite word for a castrated domestic animal. You have weird lists. Mine was on the list though. Mine was given. All right. Anyway, but the reason though it might not have been there is that there are too damn many terms for castrated cattle. Check this out. Bullock castrated bull. Stagged castrated bull or sheep or horse. Ox castrated bull if it was castrated after it was sexually mature. Steer castrated bull if it was castrated before it was sexually mature. Rig in completely castrated cattle or horse. Incompletely, do people just lose interest halfway through the castration?

Like, the dinner bell rang. It's like, what? I just didn't finish the job. It is left him with one move all apparently. Yeah, and one block. Yeah. So often that they had to come up with a term for it. Okay, so that wraps up that section.

Now my choice from this point is to move on to either methods of animal castration or human castration, which do you guys want to talk about? Fatty, our buckle. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. All right, so human castration it is.

Now to be clear, I was kidding earlier when I applied that I had my kittens castrated to show them whose boss, but historically speaking, it has been used to send that message a lot. So I'm just gonna offer up the opening of the history subheading from Wikipedia, quote, castration was frequently used for religious or social reasons in certain cultures in Europe, South Asia, Africa Africa and East Asia.

After battles in some cases, winners castrated their captives or the corpses of the defeated to symbolize their victory and seize their power." They'd throw a huge party for the castrated prisoners, a celebration. Celebrate the costume ball. That's just rude. That's rubbing it in. I'm gonna put all this in my new management book. First break all the balls. There you go. All right. So of course, assuming that the defeated enemy you just castrated was alive, the ancient world could find plenty of uses for them. Unix, which is the human form of Gib, we're often admitted to a special social class

that allowed them to staff bureaucracies and palace households, most notably Harams, because ultimately you need somebody working Haram logistics at a certain point apparently. I also, it eliminates the whole, you know, getting high on your own supply issue. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it just to be really clear, someone answered the question, who can we trust with this job, with the answer, that guy we vanquished enslaved and sexually mutilated? Yes.

There's more than one way to fuck someone. These guys know exactly, and the answer did that way so many times. I don't get it. All right. So according to Wikipedia to quote, castration also figured into a number of religious castration cults and quote, pretty sure they're not around anymore. One generation of religious movement. I do believe. Okay. So, okay, so the Wiki authors then go on to point out that some

religions strongly oppose castration, specifically Judaism. Okay. Yeah, it seemed like a weird flex to me, but it was on the point out that according to Mosaic law, Unix aren't allowed to even be full priests, which is true. I read that book and I remember thinking it was weird that God was specifying the testicular specifications for priesthood, but he did. He totally did.

Well, I don't know, just, you know, well, one way or the other, it depends on how you make the rule. God, if you're listening, maybe you look ahead on the timeline of priests, next time you make a rule about that. I'm not sure they're feeling all that smug. The Jews don't really have a foreskin to stand on here. I'm joking. Now, I should be clear that there are voluntary castrations,

of course, there are also medical procedures that require it. Not all castrations are bad. Necessary is not mutually exclusive to bad. No, right. You're right. You're just bad news. Please not as bad as the alternative. Exactly right.

But but still, not all castrations are bad. Historically speaking though, most of them are. Take for example, one of the earliest known references to castration, which comes to us through Greek mythology, I know I wanted it to be a Truskin too, folks. I really did, but I gotta go where the facts lead. Oh, that would be the best. So this is the God Uranus,, after a lifetime of indignities

that having the butt name, he was castrated by his son, Kronus, just for imprisoning the Cyclops, who for the record really needed imprisoning, okay. Probably something about Uranus taint in there, I don't know. And, yeah. So, by the way, Cyclops is the OG Casey Anthony.

So, absolutely. Exactly, exactly, thank you. Now the frequency and brutality of castration varies from place to place in century to century. The Wiki article gives you a sort of a region by region breakdown, which includes a list of nine famous castrated Europeans. But I'm gonna skip through the subheadings

of Europe, China, Korea, Iran, and the Americas for just a second and zero in on the Vietnamese. Who, if you have nothing to go by but this wiki article alone Apparently made castration into something of a national pastime. So they have a ballgame is there national pastime too, huh? That's crazy They do see so a lot less clamoring to catch a fall I'm I

I don't know though if you're the kind of guy that paid for the ticket, I think, I don't know. All right. So now they open this section, this enormous section on Vietnamese castration by blaming the Chinese. The Vietnamese adopted the unique system and the castration techniques they had from China under those techniques included lopping off the dick along with the testicles by the way in case you hadn't winced for a minute, cutting off weenies and hack.

He sacks. I don't care if it ever grows back. I'm sorry. I love this too. This is definitely my favorite sentence in the Wikipedia. My favorite part were the pictures, but my favorite sentence was this one right here. It explains that. And then it helpfully adds quote,

the procedure was agonizing since the entire penis was cut off. And quote, that's not why. That's, but if you're having trouble believing it, I shit you not, that sentence comes with not one, but seven citations. More needed. I'm not even sure where to begin with the sentence

that since the entire penis was caught off, it would have been less agonizing if they just cut off some of the penis. Yes, thank you. Like some are saying, oh, that's fine. That's just the tip. What? Well, actually, no, again, if you follow the citations, yes, it is significantly more painful. You're also like way more likely to bleed out and die if they take the dick along with you

So trigger warning here. Oh here just now Worst title worst trigger warning now the article offers some details here quote The young man's thighs and abdomen would be tied and others would pin him down to a table The genitals would be sterilized would be tied and others would pin him down to a table. The genitals would be sterilized with pepper water and then cut off. What just mean? What? That's being mean now.

Yeah, oh yeah. A tube would then be inserted into the urethra to allow urination during healing. End quote. So after they were castrated, the newly minted unix were generally enslaved and sent to work in the palace where only the emperor was allowed to have a penis. And you thought take off your shoes houses were bad, right? Still do. Still, that's fucking rude. Yeah, but these houses also had to have plastic over everything.

Just leave your dicks and balls on the landing. Come on. Okay, we're putting them, we're putting all our balls on the bed in the guest room. All right, so Unix were also a pretty profitable export for Vietnam, apparently in the 14th century. Whenever the emperor was running low on money, he had a habit of just enslaving a few men whacking off their genitals and selling them to China because basically everyone, everywhere throughout history felt better about the whole Unix thing if you only did it to outsiders. Yeah. But then China starts to sell cheap knockoff unix.

Package looks the same, doesn't perform right. You know who's the political outsider? Who's this procedure? All right, just speaking of which, the Vietnamese also castrated a lot of Chinese guys back then. The Wikipedia article lists several instances of Chinese ships being blown off course into Vietnamese waters,

then all the dudes would get kidnapped and castrated. In fact, copy waters. Yeah. Ah. Ah. Oh no, but apparently this was so common that the article implies it played a large role in the Chinese Emperor's decision to cut off Chinese exploration in the early 15th century.

Yeah, I'm not going back on that boat. I'm not your county. We do it. Yes, exactly. Look, there are a ton of super interesting historical wadifs that surround that particular decision. Imagine how differently the story plays out. If China has the superior maritime technology, whether Europeans find the Americas, like just interesting to think of what an outsized influence,

the Vietnamese penchant for whacking off Chinese dicks might have played in the formation of the modern rebels. Yeah, or if Native Americans had just cut off Christopher Columbus's stick, we might be in a trouble. Yeah. You imagine though, like, castration was a maritime tradition in general, everyone's figure had just as a huge set of balls. I would think they'd hang them off the back, like in the South, but yeah. Right?

Just truck nuts everywhere. Just ship nuts, yeah. All right. So Vietnam and China were in a testicle-based naval battle. The original spheres of influence issue right there. I guess it's time for a quick break. Or some opera pove, nothing. And of course, here is where you'll be prepared for your job as a palace servant.

Oh, cool. Is this, is this like a not tying class? Oh, no, no, no. Those are too tight down our applicants during the procedure. Oh, because they're so psyched. Kind of. Now first, this pepper water, we're going to apply this to your genitals. Wait. So, sight. Kind of. Now, first is pepper water.

We're gonna apply this to your genitals. Wait, pepper water isn't back on a hurt. Most of our applicants inform us that it is not the part of the procedure they remember the most. So, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ohy snip? Yeah, we, um, we caught off your penis and balls, but, uh, don't worry, you'll still be able to pee. So, that wasn't the issue I was worried about. Sorry. Is the recruiter I spoke to around? He didn't mention anything about the, um,

you know, Snippy snip. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can see that. We try to avoid that in the initial meeting. You should have gotten a packet. You got a packet, you know, You know, it's a big packet. Must've skimmed through that, I guess. Yeah, I see. I mean, you did sign it. That was a packet you signed it. Oh, that is my signature.

No, there's no way to back out now. Right not, no, you signed it. Oh, well, I've got you. Any interest in signing up for the National Guard? Well, you're here. Not get the fuck out of here. What kind of idiot do I look like? Jesus.

Yeah, that's fair. I have to ask. I'm gonna go and get those scissors. Oh, you do that. National Guard. Oh, bring the fucking paperwork. Whatever. That was my bad.

You're not castrated yet. And we're back. When we left off, no, it was telling us the classic you-tied story of general removal. Merry Christmas, everybody. What's next? We'll be right back. All Christmas, everybody. What's next? We'll be moving. All right, so up until this point, we've been talking strictly about surgical castration,

which seems like a weird name to use. When I'm talking about Vietnamese pirates, lopping the dicks off of imprisoned sailors, that doesn't exactly scream surgical at that point. But, but, but, so now we can talk about non-invasive castration. Yeah, right, so the division that- Holistic castration.

Call me a pathologist. Well, so the division that shows up in the article is just a binary choice between surgical, meaning that something's actually getting lopped off, and chemical, meaning that some pharmacological substances being introduced for the purposes of sterilization. All right, so that brings us to one of the most controversial uses for castration in the modern day anyway, and that's punitive castration. So the idea is that you take a sex criminal, right?

Like a child molester that, like the psychologist tell you is ultimately incurable. As punishment, you order them to be castrated so that they're sterile and their sex drive is greatly diminished. Or more often, you give them the choice between that in a very long prison sentence so that you can say later that this was a voluntary thing. Jesus. Okay, well, all that being said, I'm still going to volunteer to vote for Joe Biden if it comes down to that. Everybody's going to fucking lines.

Vote for Joe Biden, have my balls chemically sterilized. Vote for Joe Biden. We all with it. Motherfucker. Deal with it. All right, so there are plenty of problems with that idea. But even if you set aside the human rights issues around it, done and done. Yep.

Yep. There's also a lot of evidence to suggest that it doesn't actually work. Still funny, bro. So again, no, no, it is. It is the funniest of all the punishments. So the criticism section here in the Wiki article is a little lean on citation. So I can't vouch for the authenticity of any of this,

but it's worth putting this out there. So first of all, yes, there is plenty of data on this. In the Czech Republic, this is actually a pretty standard punishment for sex offenders. And the numbers they cite on Wikipedia say that they physically castrated at least 94 convicts between 1998 and 2008 and if you ask check authorities about it, they'll tell you there's been zero recidivism among the people who have chosen

Castration they don't follow up with these guys periodically and scream ball check. They are doing it wrong they are doing it wrong. Now, to a lot of people, this seems like a no-brainer, which is the problem. Okay? Consider that the point of castration is sterilization. And if all you wanted was sterile sex offenders, yeah, this would be pretty much effective. But castration does not eliminate the sexual urge, or at least the degree to which it does varies from individual to individual. My cat Loki still does varies from individual to individual my cat Loki still mounts shit from time to time and tries to fuck it He hasn't seen his ball since the Bush administration and a quarter is new Yeah, though, so yeah

And according to the wiki some criminologists argue that the castration option Just creates a by a sample by allowing people super motivated not to go to jail An opportunity to self select Right like think about it the people who opt not to undergo castration are Obviously way cooler with the idea of winding up in prison than the people willing to have their balls chopped off to get out of it Right, so it might be that the numbers look good because your subset here are people really motivated to hide their crimes. Okay, I feel like that's true of just most criminals, though.

That's just the fact that function. First of all, you'd be surprised. My dad was a cop, he's got a lot of stories that tell. I said, motivated, not a fat man. I mean, again, not competent, too. But yeah, but even for criminals, and it also might just be that investigators treat castrated men as like, you know,

it would be impossible for them to reoffend anyway, and thus ignore evidence that they have. All right, so now also, of course, this is just a really fucked up ass thing to do to somebody as punishment, especially in a world where, you know, we don't always know for sure that you've got a guilty guy. And of course, while we're on the subject, it would be remiss of me not to mention the most famous victim of court-ordered

castration in the modern world, Alan Turing. Right? He was, of course, the inventor of the Turing machine and the father of computer technology. He was also gay and that was more than just frowned upon in the UK of the 1950s. So when he was caught gaying, he was given the option to undergo chemical castration in lieu of a lengthy prison sentence and then killed himself two years later. But that was cheating. That wasn't even one of the two options. That's bullshuck. No, I don't. Oh, I think we don't think of this as a success nowadays, but uptight,

1950s culture probably totally dead. They probably did. Yes, actually, though, the UK apologized. It's fine. In 2009, they apologized in 2009. Like a fucking, like a third grader was stole a lunchbox. It was all like a rum fee there. Yeah, thanks for, yeah, pretty much single-handedly defeating Hitler. Sorry for, you know.

Yes. You knew. All right. We're gonna go ahead and spiral into a tragic alt-right health staple in the next 10 years. To be fair, they had to say it right in front of Prince Andrew, so that had to be awkward. So as fucked up as the idea of using castration

to control people's sexuality is, there might be one European use of the practice that's even more despicable. And that's the idea of lopping off a child's balls so they can sing better. Okay, wait, how much better though? We're not a lot better. A lot better. Can't put it over the mind is what I'm doing you guys. Yeah, whatever. Thank you, Tom. So full disclosure, I actually violated the spirit of the show

and read a whole other article about this practice called the Castrado. And I've got to say that article totally fucking bearies the lead. Here's its opening quote. A Castrado plural, Castrati is a type of classical male singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo soprano or Contrerto. So far, pretty dry music theory article. And then, quote,

the voice is produced by castration of the singer before puberty. Oh, you know, you just get out of the way when you do the circumcision. It's like a barber's visit, let it off the front, a little off the back, you know what I'm doing, one place. Just gonna try to even it out, you know, still not. Get still not. I like the number two on the back, and then number one on the front. Maybe look like a mullet.

I want, like, a downstairs mullet. All right, so yeah, like this was a thing for a surprisingly long time. Castrating a boy before puberty obviously prevents the typical changes to the layering and as a result, they'd more or less retain the vocal range that both sexes share during prepubescence. And because the Catholic Church was too misogynistic to allow women to sing for a really long time, Kastrati were the only real choice for hitting the high notes.

Nobody wants to hear Mozart's Requiem three octaves down Allen. Just let us cut off your dick. Right, we could always get a girl to sing it. No, Allen. No, no, that's stupid. Okay, here's my dick. Thank you. Man, who thinks Kestratty sounds like a pasta

no one orders? In the past. One noodle. What do we do with one noodle? If only no one ordered it. Yeah There's no accepted start date for Kastrati You know men have been castrating each other as far back as written records go. I mean if I was gonna write down anything Steered tiring

Yeah, it's a dear diary. And of course, I'm sure just naturally along the way, people noticed that the men who were castrated, you know, young had different singing voices. Some guy was like, all right, all right guys, I know we're just doing this all for fun, but what if we made our product opera-facing? I know right? There's a business here. All right, so the first use of the term Kastrati comes from Italian church records from the 1550s,

but no doubt the practice went way further back to that. Catholic church, fucking kids, multiple ways for a really, really, really long time. And keeping records about it, right? Yeah. So this lasted, like I said, oh really, really long time. The papal states,

the last place in the universe to finally outlaw the practice of chopping off a kid's balls from musical aesthetics, didn't get around to it until 1870. See, fuck. Right, and now think about that time scale though. Pre-1550 to 1870, that means that basically every great opera ever written

originally had a part for Kastrati. And I only mention that because if time gets red faced over a trust contributor, just imagine how apoplectic I can make him if we start tossing in random opera facts on the regular legs. Okay, I will want to clarification, no, I'm not actually all that red face.

It's just a lot of gin blossoms and liver damage. It's gin blossoms. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Now, I should be clear that the voice of the castrada wasn't just a feminine voice. It was unique. According to Wikipedia, the lack of testosterone led to bone joints that didn't harden in

the normal manner. It's not safe. The only thing that didn't harden in the normal manner. It's not the only thing that didn't harden. That too. Also, in addition to the penis that Tom was referring to, the ribs grew more than most. And that gave him unrivaled breath capacity, apparently. Let me see, super long limbs, the seemingly impossibility to squeak in high tones. He's something you want to tell us.

All right. All right. No. Okay, I was just going to pause for a really long time if you didn't say that. Also, by the way, they had women singing in operas for a bunch of this time. So they were just like, yeah, I don't know, I like the long legs too. So we're keeping the whole thing. Yeah, like I said,

it actually is a different singing voice. And you might be thinking to yourself, well, hold on Noah, how the fuck would you know what a castrado sounds like? And that's a great question. And no, it's not because I've been to Eli's basement has nothing to do with that. But I actually have heard a castrado voice and so can you. Like I said, the people states only outlawed the

ball chopping in 1870, but that's one of those things we kind of have to grandfather some people in, right? So the last true Kostrado, a guy by the name of Alessandro Moreschi, who interesting note had a name that wasn't pronounced like that, was born in 1858 and died in 1922. We've had the ability to capture sound since the 1870s. Now, as near as I can tell, there is only one recording that still exists of Moreshi, or ashi whatever his name is,

and it's the only existing audio of a castrado voice, of a true castrado voice. And lucky for us, it's very much public domain. So here's a quick clip. I'm on every... I'm on every... So, a guy would admit kind of a haunting and beautiful sound. What do you guys think? Is that worth... Wacken Kids Balls Off Pondos? I'm just saying, maybe we could combine the whole punishment and aesthetic choices thing. I mean, most pedophiles are already in the Catholic church,

tubers, two stones. No, I feel like you sort of painted us into a corner there. Like, what are we gonna do? Listen and then be like, yeah, man, I know you got your balls chopped off for that little ditty, but like, do you know any Billy Joel? Okay. Hello, town girl.

All right, so one final note on the Kastrati, there actually are a few guys who can basically sing all of these parts today. Yes, there's an opera singer. There's an opera singer named Javier Medina, who suffered a chemical castration as the result of a cancer treatment. He is not public domain though, so you have to look him up on your own. Yeah, just not on Tinder. Why not?

Why not? All right. Noah, if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, and I'd like you to sing it as a castrado, what would it be? All right, what I learned, honestly, is that I do have the willpower to not only quit smoking, but also to learn that the Vietnamese originally,

their method of castration was to rub feces on your testicles and have dogs chew them off. Shut the fuck up! I had the luck hour to leave that out of the essay and not burden you guys with that knowledge. That was a lot of fun. Of course that is a... I have so many questions.

I have so many questions. They actually, they stop doing that because they realized that they could sell it when they could sell the Unix way easier if they did the knife. Does that work? I think the dogs want the feast. I thought it was like peanut butter. Ever more important, George Washington, carver.

I know, because apparently it doesn't take, like have you met dogs? It doesn't take much. This begets more questions than it answers. Oh, we need a whole new essay. All right. Well, are you ready for a quiz about this topic? No, yes, I am apparently. No, what's the best romantic comedy about castration? Oh, good question. Hey, 10 things I castrate about you. You've cut mail, see, phenomenal. Someone like you, Nick, or D, spay anything.

All right, I will say that this episode has not been gender inclusive enough, so I'm gonna go D, spay any. Yeah, there we go. You are correct, absolutely. All right, Noah, building on Cecil's theme, what movie would have been way better if it were cut? I'd love to, by the way, that you phrased

that as something other than, I accidentally wrote the same question as Cecil, well done. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha's B, the Scroot book. See? That's a good movie. The Nutty Professor. It's not a good movie. Or D, twins. All right, because it seems to me like we might have a nice little battle in the offing here, I'm going to have to go with B, the Scroot book, because it was a great movie. That is correct, worst.

I've never seen it, my wife. Indeed, two votes. Thank you. Love, f**king. Literally the worst movie I've ever seen. That is an excellent way to never seen it my wife. Indeed. Too vote. Thank you. Love. To flocked in. Literally the worst movie I've ever seen. That is an excellent way to have sex.

That movie. That's true. Team Scrope Book. Team Scrope Book. How are we defining good? Are we defining good movie by you will get to have sex if you watch it? Because that's not the final. If you watch it by yourself, it's a guarantee, man. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha No, D penis envy. I feel like it would exacerbate D.

So I'm gonna go with C. No. Pines envy. I guess because you have to be right. The only real answer. I'm a lot of it right there. All right. Other people's penis envy. Okay, now I get it.

I'll get it. Yeah, cool. All right, Tom, congratulations. You're the winner. All right. Well, then people's penis have, okay, now I get it. I'll get it, yeah, cool. All right, Tom, congratulations, you're the winner. All right, well then you should write an essay. Fantastic. And yours comes out on actual Christmas heath, so don't use castration. Do years on female genital mutilation. All right, well now you stole my Christmas Eve

and that I was gonna do, I don't know what the fuck Christmas thing I'm gonna come up with. Chopping off. Just reindeer recipes. Something more Christmasy than that. I don't know what the fuck Christmas thing I'm gonna come up with. Chopin off. Just reindeer recipes? Something more Christmasy than that. I don't know that it exists. Salka, I'm gonna try. Alright.

Well, for Tom. Noah, Cecil and Eli, I'm Heath. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week. And by then, Apparently I will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can hear Tom and Cecil on cognitive dissonance. And you can hear Eli knowing myself myself on God awful movies, the skating

atheist and the skeptic rat. And if you'd like to encourage us by adding, I don't know, one single patron since we launched, you can make a purpose of the nation at patreon.com slash citation pod. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, listen to past episodes, connect with us on social media, or take a look at the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com. So, wait, what do you do all day? I don't know. Just like, hang out. Right, but like what?

What activity does that denote? I hang out. Oh. Like you just sit there? I mean, I do sit there sometimes, yes. All day, the whole day. Not all day, Tom. Just like, like some.

Okay, okay. It is okay. No, it is, yeah, sure. It's all the... Okay. It is okay. No, it is, yeah, sure.