RedHanded - Episode 393 - The Eunuch Maker

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

In one of our most horrifying episodes yet, we look at a man who clamped and amputated the genitals of potentially hundreds of men, and carried out unimaginable sexual torture – all from his basement flat in North London.But what makes this story truly unbelievable is that every one of those victims wanted for it to happen. They belonged to a secretive community of 'nullos' – people who fantasise about the removal of sexual organs. And each procedure was filmed and streamed for a waiting online community of tens of thousands of members. There, disembodied penises and testicles were auctioned off… and even eaten. It’s time to discover the savage online empire of the Eunuch Maker.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad free. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. But before we kick off, something to remind you of or maybe something to tell you about for the first time. Wondry's Exhibit C, a true crime cruise, is happening from January 26th to the 30th, 2026, next year, sailing from Miami, which is in Florida, if you need reminding, all the way to NASA in the Bahamas. And you might already know,

you may have heard on the whispers, on the grapevine, that both Ceruti and I will be there on that cruise, and we can't wait to meet you on board. There will be absolutely loads of stuff to do there on that cruise and we can't wait to meet you on board. There will be absolutely loads of stuff to do on that big ship. Loads of cool activities, self-defence classes, true crime trivia nights, workshops led by true crime experts, loads of stuff that you can't even imagine. The final pre-sale deadline is the 26th of February so make sure you sign up soon to

secure your spot on the best choice of cabin. And those cabins, my guys, pretty good. Go to exhibitseacruise.com for even more details. Everything you need to know. It's all at exhibitseacruise.com. See you in the Bahamas. Now you know everything you need to know. Let's get back to the show.

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slash wonder ECA. When Luigi Mangione was arrested for allegedly shooting the CEO of United Healthcare, he didn't just spark outrage. He ignited a cultural firestorm. Is the system working or is it time for a reckoning? I'm Jesse Weber. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery+. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red-Handed. Hold on to your knackers because...

They're gonna get knackered. For horning. Especially for the menfolk who may be listening. I don't even have knackers but I was... It reminded me of how I felt when we did that Halloween episode many a year ago on the boobs getting cut off with cheese wire, piano wire, some sort of wire, and I was like, just check they're still there, they're still there, no balls there, but if they were, it's like having phantom pain, phantom cringe. So be warned everybody. Yes. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

I'm going to set the scene for you. In a basement flat in North London, a naked man is tied to a table and plied with drugs. Over the next hour he's subjected to unimaginable sexual torture. He's branded with a hot iron, his scrotum is sliced open and then sewn back up again. Eventually the man, doling out this horrific torture, reaches for a set of clamps, an agricultural tool designed for castrating bulls. He holds them to the victim's testicles and crushes down. Screams are agonising. The man on the table begs his persecutor to stop, sobbing that he doesn't want to die. Sounds like a scene straight out of Criminal Minds, doesn't it? But sadly, while our nightmare scenario is horrifyingly all too real, thousands of people

were watching this torture. And that's because the man with the castrating tool was the infamous online content creator who went by the rather on-the-nose name, the Unic Maker. He uploaded this video of what he had just done to this man, tied to the table, in full to an online community of tens of thousands of like-minded users across the world. These people call themselves Nullos, and they're a subculture of people who fantasise about the removal of sexual organs. And with the eunuch maker up their helm, this community shared videos of their own genital mutilations, castrations, panectomies and amputations. And as if that

wasn't bad enough, in this community genitals were also bought and sold and even eaten. genitals were also bought and sold and even eaten. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the victim at the center of that unimaginable scene that Hannah just painted for you was there tied to that table of his own free will. And it just gets worse because a few months after this horrific situation where he'd had his balls crushed on that table, the same man contacted the Unic Maker again and asked to come back. This time at the end of another brutal session, the Unic Maker fetched a kitchen knife and as agreed between the two of them, in one swift motion he sliced off the victim's penis. All once again filmed

for a waiting crowd of thousands of online nullos. So if you've got the balls for it, sorry I'm actually not. Had to be done. Let's take a deep, dark dive into the murky online world of the Unic Maker and the fetishistic subculture of mutilation. On the way, we'll find out how the law treats people who consent to acts of violence and barbarity and those who carry it out. We'll ask whether it's even possible to give consent to serious permanent harm,

and examine the blurry outer limits of that consent, which is a concept we've looked at before but years ago, about if one can consent to one's own murder. And of course, we're not going to leave you hanging, we wouldn't dare. We're going to try and find out what makes a man desire more than anything else in the whole world to have his junk sliced off with a kitchen knife. So let's start at the beginning, shall we? Or shall we not? Are you still there? I don't know. Because the ringleader of this sinister operation wasn't always known as the Unic Maker.

He was born Marius Gustavsson on the 7th of December 1977 in Dramund, Norway. Now Dramund is a peaceful port city, just a touch southwest from Oslo. Marius was an only child, typical, and grew up in a big isolated house in the countryside with his parents, his grandparents, his uncle and cousin. And look, I'm not here to shit on only kids. I would know plenty of people with fucking siblings that are all sorts of bonkers. But this bit about being an only child, being very lonely, as we'll find out, growing up in a big isolated house out in the middle of nowhere, it's very, very similar to Armin Mivus.

So, Marius Gustafsson's school was small and rural, as you'd expect, and its hundred or so students came from all over the surrounding countryside. But the young Marius kept to himself. He was not great academically and was definitely the kind of kid who was always picked last for the football team. He lacked social skills and found it hard to interact with the other children. But while he had no friends, he was never violent or confrontational. He was just troubled, confused and, like I said, lonely. His family always knew that Marius was gay. But no one knew how to talk to him about it. Still, this closeted misfit didn't stay that way for long.

Gustavsson came out as a teenager and in his final year at high school became the president of Rus. And if you've never heard of Rus, you're about to get to know it is a huge deal to Norwegian children. If you're American, picture your high school prom. British kids, you can picture whatever leaver's trip you got to go on and get chattered up by your teachers like Srisibala. So it's's that kind of deal but it goes on for weeks. Norwegian high schoolers celebrate Rus for pretty much their entire last semester. So that

means colorful overalls, a Rus boost, a bus which is kitted out with a sound system and there's parties after parties after parties after parties. And the day after the big last blowout knees up, the Norwegian teenagers sit their exams. Fucking hell. Why isn't it the other way round? I do not know. And all this booze-soaked socializing might sound like hell on earth for the young Marius Gustafsson, the awkward, uncomfortable in his body social outcast. But an extravaganza like Roos needs a hell of a lot of organising. And as its president, Gustavsson actually thrived. In case you are confused, it is confusing. Roos president is not like Super Jock or Homecoming King type of a vibe. It's more like head boy, future politician kind of situation. God. And it is also a position that commands a lot of respect. Gustavsson met with other regional ruse presidents from the area

to organize the parades all together. And, weird he may have been, but he did organize one hell of a party. After graduating, Gustavsson went to business school in Drammen in 1996. He had a few stints in the UK over the next few years, studying in an English language school in Hastings, and even serving as a hotel receptionist in Torquay in 2000. But back in Drammen, Gustavsson's desire to be the centre of a community kicked in once again. Now out and proud, he became a respected figure on the local gay scene. From 2003, he served as the regional chairman of Norway's National Association for Lesbian and Gay Liberation. Gustafsson hosted gay weekends and campaigned for more inclusive sex education to be taught in schools. He counseled young gay people and coached them on how to come out.

Colleagues remember him as a big teddy bear, a fun supportive mentor who loved Eurovision and lived for the cause. This activism in fact continued throughout everything we're about to tell you. So yes, all those um, orchestration tool table tie down sessions. And long after his move to London, Gustafsson took an active role in pride celebrations and acted as a senior steward at pride marches in London until 2019. I am always very suspicious of people who love Eurovision. No, I wondered what we were going to say there, but yes, I don't get Eurovision. I've watched it one year and I was like, it was fine.

We're getting ahead of ourselves. At the very same time, as all of this squeaky clean community stewardship, a more defiant side of Marius Gustafsson was bubbling away beneath the surface. So this is very Dennis Nilsson, isn't it? Yeah, he's a real, like, collage of many a crazy we've come across. After business school, and his many trips out to the UK South Coast, he moved up to Trondheim in northern Norway. And it was there that he committed his first crimes. We're not quite at the basement mutilation torture dungeon stage just

yet. We're just talking about some light embezzlement and fraud. And here's how it went down. Whilst in Trondheim Gustafsson was the leader of a housing association, and he set up a system of fake invoices while ordering decorating supplies. And he kept going until he'd scammed the association of goods worth thousands. And he got caught. Very caught, actually, although his first prison sentence was suspended. However, a few days after his sentencing, Gustavsson did it all again on a much larger

scale. And by the time he was caught for this second scheme in 2001, he'd embezzled merchandise worth more than £30,000, for which he spent eight months in prison. Now, like we said, all this might seem a bit trivial in comparison to what you know is coming, but it does speak to a very early lack of accountability. When Gustavsson was first caught, he flatly refused to take any blame. In his statements, he actually implied that it was entirely the housing association's fault

for not having the right controls in place that would have stopped him from being able to steal all that money. It's like those hackers who show banks the holes in their system. Yeah, but he's like, but I'll tell you now you caught me. So yes, he's clearly a very capable community leader who can be supportive and generous with his time. But even here, there's a sort of desperation

for a place in the world that you see. And with these early crimes Gustavsson displays a total disregard for the consequences and a willingness to absolutely take what he wants without a second thought. Now we can't know for sure whether or not he was spooked by his prison time, although he clearly felt like he shouldn't be held accountable for the crimes. But it was followed by a period of relative calm once he got out. After his conviction, Marius Gustafsson got a job with the Norwegian Postal Service and he worked there for the next 10 years. Then he met a guy and in 2005 they got married.

In late 2011, they moved to Bournemouth, here in the UK, where Marius worked for Xerox as a customer service manager. I'd rather enter Eurovision. Anyway, during these years, as far as we know, Marius Gustafsson enjoyed a decade of happy domestic stability. His then husband has since said, I want people to understand his background and who he is. He's far from a monster.

He has done a lot of admirable work. Okay, I don't know if being the president of a housing association where you steal loads and loads of money and then just like organizing pride marches absolves you of cutting off penises. Don't know, but sure. Well I think he would argue that he was providing a service. Still his ex-husband may defend him but they still didn't make it, their marriage broke down, and that event triggered a severe downward spiral. And shortly after Gustafsson arrived in London post-divorce, the mutilations began. In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant pulls out a weapon and starts firing at him.

We're talking about the CEO of the biggest private health insurance corporation in the world. And the suspect... He has been identified as Luigi Nicolass Mangione. ...became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was targeted, premeditated, and meant to sow terror. I'm Jesse Weber, of Luigi produced by lawn crime and twist this is more than a true crime investigation we explore a uniquely American moment that could change the

country forever. He's awoken the people to a true issue. I mean maybe this would be rich and powerful people to acknowledge the barbaric nature of our healthcare system. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple podcasts. In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant pulls out a weapon and starts firing at him.

We're talking about the CEO of the biggest private health insurance corporation in the world. And the suspect... He has been identified as Luigi Nicolass Mangione. ...became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was targeted, premeditated, and meant to sow terror. I'm Jesse Weber, of Luigi produced by law and crime and twist this is more than a true crime investigation we explore a uniquely American moment that could change the

country forever. He's awoken the people to a true issue. Finally maybe this would lead rich and powerful people to acknowledge the barbaric nature of our healthcare system. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple podcasts. According to Gustafson, the desire had always been there.

He says that at the age of just 14, he'd seen a picture in a book of an Indian eunuch. This figure was part of the Hijra community, who are officially recognised as a third gender in some parts of South Asia. And immediately on seeing this photo, Gustafsson said that he thought, that's who I am. According to him, the trauma of his marriage breaking down awoke these feelings in him again. Feelings that had lain dormant since childhood. But let's stick a big old rusty agricultural clamp on that for now and take a quick look back at castration's past

with a little rundown on the history of the eunuch. Yeah get ready to learn some stuff that you didn't know you needed to know and then you just tell everyone tell everyone as they're going about their days. Eunuch, the word means bedguard in ancient Greek and back in ancient Greece royal women wanted their rooms guarded by fighters that they didn't themselves find threatening. So, to solve that problem, they would just chop the guards' balls off. It was common knowledge that castrating livestock made them healthier and much, much less aggressive.

Testosterone, as we can all see with our eyes, is a major factor in aggression, anger and sexual desire. So, these ancient Greek ladies wanted the same from their most trusted soldiers. They wanted them to be strong enough to fight off intruders, but less volatile and unpredictable. Or at least that was the idea. Also, if you're chopping off a man's balls, they're not going to be able to start a family, especially in ancient Greece when they didn't have IVF or whatever. So a man who's not going to do that is more likely to stay with you for quite a long time. And also, the male royals could be safe in the knowledge that the guards wouldn't fuck

their wives and secretly impregnate them while they weren't looking. It's kind of a triple win if you are an ancient royal Greek. What are they called in Game of Thrones? Oh, they're like part of the Unsullied family. Yeah, that's it. The only thing I quibble with with the Unsullied is here with the bed guards, they take grown men who have been through male puberty

and then they chop their balls off when they're adult men. At that point, it's not gonna make a difference like, I mean, it probably will make some sort of a difference on like how physically strong they can be, because obviously testosterone is still there, but they will have fully formed as men. Whereas in Game of Thrones with the Unsullied, they cut their balls off like as babies.

And then they also convince you that they're like big strong men. Right. And I find that a bit confusing because I'm like, but they wouldn't have had male puberty. So would they be that big and that strong? Like I can get it if they chop them off later, but maybe I'm misunderstood on my Game of Thrones law and someone will correct me. And also there's like dragons. True, true, true, true, true.

But it's the eunuchs that I have the real logical problem with. Oh my god. Anyway, because of this practice, the word eunuch came to mean any man who had had their balls or their penis or both intentionally chopped off. It's a practice that goes back at least 5000 years. It was practiced in ancient Egypt, the Middle East, China, Europe and India. And at one stage the Chinese emperor had more than 2000 unit guards. So we've been chopping them off.

Yeah, not always willingly though. And if we fast forward into the 17th and 18th century, you also have the very famous castrati, who were male singers castrated before puberty to preserve their boyish high-pitched singing voice. Is it worth it? But girls weren't allowed in choirs then, so they didn't have... But I'm just like, just get the next set of boys. Like, everything ages out, you age out. I mean, sure, but I'm not, I'm not, obviously not advocating for the practice of chopping off small boys balls.

But you know, training a singer takes a really long fucking time. Get the fucking castration. Yeah, hold on to him. Put hours into this kid. Would you like to hear what one sounds like? Yeah, sure. So what is he like 40? I'll show you. Yes, that's enough.

I'll be Maria from you. No. Yes. He looks like he's in his 50s. Yep. Wow. Anyway, that's what eunuchs are. And for the most part, through the last 5,000 year history of them being

recorded to exist was not typically something people actually volunteered to happen to them, unless they had no other choice. In more modern times though people have kept doing it and by doing it I mean castrating themselves. In March 2012 Japanese artist Mao Sugiyama advertised his latest art piece called The Banquet. I remember this fucker. Yeah and if you don't let me tell you. Because Mao came in dressed as a chef and explained that he'd removed his genitals for the sake of his art.

He then took out, said genitals, unwrapped the cling film that he'd kept them in and placed them on a wooden board. Then he lit a little gas stove that he'd set up and proceeded to cook the bits in a frying pan with mushrooms in a red wine sauce. The dish was then offered to diners, most of whom tucked right in. Ugh, no, why? Oh, I feel sick. Get a real job. Anyway, this act shone a light on the movement who call themselves nullos. A subculture, as we told you at the start, of people who fantasize about the removal of sexual organs. Maybe theirs, maybe other people's, maybe both. Exactly why this desire exists, we don't know. Many nullos report profound feelings

of self-hatred which are focused on specific parts of their body. Some, for example, who experience sexual trauma in their youth or were forced into sex slavery carry the feeling that their sex organs have only brought them misery. But then there's body integrity identity dysphoria. BIID is a rare mental disorder in which people feel that a part of their body doesn't belong to them. Usually this body part is a leg and this is a dysphoria that mostly shows up in men. Possible causes include early childhood trauma, as we said, but also obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Neurological tests suggest that it's a

brain disorder which produces a disruption of the body image, similar to that experienced by stroke patients. It's like the opposite of phantom limb syndrome, I suppose. There's a documentary called Hole, which is horrible, by Melody Gilbert, and it's a sympathetic look at a series of BIID sufferers. They're thoughtful, intelligent guys. And though most of us could never fully understand their deep desire to be amputees, it's very obvious that it is a desire that runs very deep indeed. One of the men who's featured in this documentary binds his leg whenever he's in public and that led to a breakdown of his marriage. There's another guy, actually a lecturer

at a British University, who successfully managed to get a doctor to amputate his leg for him. Wow. And he's very pleased with it. He actually reports feeling like a full person for the first time in his life once his leg was finally gone. Now obviously BIID is a nightmare for medical ethicists and we'll get onto the ethics of body modification to this extent later in the episode. But it is a very little known condition, probably also perhaps under-reported due to the secrecy of the people that suffer with it who usually don't seek medical help. I mean, I can empathize.

I can't understand because I am not them, but like, you are just going to get laughed out the door, aren't you? Nine times out of ten. So there are those, like the men in the documentary whole, who sincerely want their body parts gone and who would do anything to have it done safely by doctors in hospitals. Then there are those who derive sexual gratification from the idea of self-harm and mutilation. And then there are also a thousand shades in between.

So there is no one reason why, for example, a person might want their penis amputated. And despite how little is known about the condition, one thing most of the experts agree on is that the best course of treatment is not to remove the limb that this person doesn't feel belongs to them, but rather to engage in therapy. As one paper put it, the aim is to quote, integrate the alien limb into the body image. But the main point here is BIID is what Marius Gustavsson and his future defense team would later argue was his motivation for all those streamed surgeries.

After his divorce, heartbroken and miserable, Gustafsson found himself once more in London, and he joined a very active kink scene. Soon enough, through some online digging, he managed to find his people. The Nullos were a secretive, nascent community of people who found themselves fantasizing about life-changing body modifications. Today there are countries where, after you'd hope some pretty hefty safeguarding processes, you can legally get surgery to remove sexual organs. And ladies, if you thought this was all gonna be man bits, sorry, cross your legs, because this also includes

something called a vaginectomy. Which, I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you what it is. I'm upset. It's a procedure in which the clitoris is buried under the skin and the labia are sealed, just leaving a wee hole. Oh, there's just going to be so many health problems. I literally cannot believe that a doctor is willing to bury a clitoris and so close the labia. Having said all of that, the vast majority of people that desire surgeries like the ones we just told you about can't have it.

And for a lot of them that leads to desperation and turning to other people like them. Yeah, and look, some people might argue with me in saying, oh, why would I say the doctor shouldn't do it? Because look, they'll just do it to themselves. I'm like, I would just advocate for better mental health care support for people that are feeling that way.

This is all just about to get so bad. If you thought the start was bad. Mmm. And Gusustin quite quickly found himself at the heart of this online community. And he liked what he saw. The feeling of control, of empowerment, of being what he later called the architect of his own body. In his own words, he wanted to look like a Ken doll with nothing down there. And in 2017 Gustafsson got sick of waiting. He contacted a sex worker called Damien Burns. Burns had grown up poor and Catholic in Ireland in the 90s and had severe psychological trauma from his childhood. And this trauma manifested in his adult brain as desperation and also a mounting drug addiction that eventually led him

to sex work. And in February 2017, Damien Burns received a text from Marius Gustafsson asking Burns to cut off his penis for 500 quid. Burns replied to this text saying, I have no issue with it, but won't you lose a lot of blood, like nearly die? Gustafsson said that he'd be under local anesthetic and Berns would get detailed instructions on how to do it. So convinced, on the 18th of February 2017, Berns came round to Marius Gustafsson's flat and sliced the Norwegian's penis off with a vegetable knife. The pair of them filmed the whole thing, and in the recording, Berns can be heard saying,

Well, that's one off the bucket list. I never expected that one. But his cavalier attitude didn't last long. Berns said he threw up on the way home. And he never did receive that £500. This is so horrible and dramatic. Oh god. And while Burns was throwing up in a bin, Marius Gustavsson called 999. He told the operator, I tried to do some surgery on my cock. He was treated in hospital and discharged after a few days and he was also, as you would hope, referred to a psychiatric unit for assessment, but it didn't really come to

much. He was offered therapy and he said no and that was the end of it. Damien Burns, on the other hand, was angry because he hadn't been paid, so he He was offered therapy and he said no and that was the end of it. Damien Burns on the other hand was angry because he hadn't been paid so he threatened to go to the police but Marius wasn't too worried about these threats because he said to Damien go ahead but you're the one who cut it off. Yeah he has kind of got you there. Like it or not, Damien Burns was in the fold. And soon, the circle widened. In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant starts firing at him.

And the suspect, He has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione, became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was meant to sow terror. He's awoking the people to a true issue. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi, exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple podcasts. Okay, this episode is all pretty grim, so let's take a little break to tell you about

something else that was quite grim. If you guys don't know, and you should know by now really that Hannah and I have quite the bubbling Patreon situation going on. If you don't know what that is, I don't know what to say. Patreon.com slash red-handed. It's essentially like a very unsexy OnlyFan. Unless you find us talking about things like the brand new Meghan Markle debacle with love from Meghan Sussex, whoever the fuck she is, whatever's going on, reviewing that entire series and you would like to listen to that. That's exactly what we did on our post-show party which is called Under the Duvet this week. So if you are interested in that kind of content from us, head on over to patreon.com slash

red-handed right now. You can buy individual episodes if that's what you want to do. We release bonus episodes every single month. We also release weekly episodes of Under the Duvet or you can sign up for a full-on subscription and just get it direct to your ear holes every single week when we release things. So go check that out, it's quite the experience. Watching with love that is. Watching us is always a delight. People saw the video that Gustavsson made and shared it, and so he started making more, with other like-minded souls. Gustavsson occasionally would even go abroad for cutter gatherings, where people would all travel to Germany and rent a room and presumably lock bits off each other.

Through this subculture, Marius Gustavsson met an NHS nurse called Nathaniel Arnold. Marius removed his nipple, and Nathaniel started providing the group with stolen lidocaine as an anesthetic. Former surgical assistant David Carruthers also helped with procedures, despite his zero-appropriate training, though arguably he had more experience than Gustavsson, or retired chemist Peter Weitz, who also got in on the action. Then Marius Gustavsson came into contact with the 17-year-old Jacob Crimmie Appleby. Crimmie Appleby had, in his own words, fallen down an internet rabbit hole while looking up dysphoria online.

And when Gustavsson, an older, much more experienced man, told Jacob that his feelings were normal, the teenager stuck around. He also quickly joined Gustavsson's inner circle. And soon after, Jacob turned 18, Gustavsson asked him for help, amputating his leg. The grainy video footage shows Gustavsson with his left leg in a bucket. a help amputating his leg. The grainy video footage shows Gustavsson with his left leg in a bucket and Jacob filling

up that bucket with dry ice. Fuck me. Gustavsson kept his leg in that bucket for eight hours before calling an Uber to the Royal Free Hospital in London to have his leg amputated. In my experience, Ubers will never pick you up if you say you're going to a hospital. You have to say you're going around the corner. And you turn up with a fucking leg that's been in dry ice for eight hours. Oh my god. Gustafsson was once again referred to the psychiatry team at the Royal Free,

and they had just never seen anything like it. They even anonymised the file and discussed this incident with experts across the world. The consensus was BIID, but again, all that they could do was offer Gustafsson therapy, which he again declined. And he's been in a wheelchair ever since. And we would be remiss not to make this rather salient point. Marius Gustavsson has received more than £18,000 in benefits since having his leg amputated. So by now he was on a roll and soon his penis, testicles, nipple, left leg and

part of his ear were all gone. He also had a growing community around him, even a sort of hierarchy of close confidants. But Gustavuson was undoubtedly the center of this world. He'd found a role and a purpose at last. In 2017, he founded a website called unicmaker.com, which, yeah, you can look it up. It's like, it's out there. There's nothing too graphic if you don't like log in but it's basically like a ripped man, not ripped up, like he's a hedge with his arms out

looking up at the sky while there are chains wrapped around his body. This is the thing right, and we are going to talk about this more, is that it's not just the body bits lopping off, which is obviously what leads the hospital to make the diagnosis of BIID. For Marcus Gustafsson and the people in his circle, this is deeply sexual. And that image tells you that as well as everything else we're about to tell you. So Unicmaker.com was a place to share, watch and comment on videos of castration, extreme body modification and pure sexual torture.

There were videos of nipples, testicles, penises and even the occasional breast being cut off. Some of the videos showed the clamping of testicles using berdizo clips, which are usually used by vets in the castration of cattle. Some showed needles being inserted into genitalia and injecting fluids. There were videos of penile subincision. And we really really really mean this guys. Do not google this. There is a surprisingly graphic photo on the Wikipedia entry there is a surprisingly graphic photo on the Wikipedia entry of what is known as a penile sub incision. It's basically the slicing open of the urethra with a knife. So this is what they're up to. So all of this was filmed and streamed on

the website for paying subscribers. The subjects faces faces were often blurred out, but everything else was shown in gruesome, gruesome detail. All that aside, one of the very strangest things about this website is just how much it looks like a normal social media site. Users could make their own profiles and ad videos or even stories. There were all sorts of message boards used to discuss a variety of topics. Those who had genitals cut off even got a little certified Unix badge next to their profile picture. On the site, messaging was free and on the videos you could pay per view or get a yearly VIP subscription for a hundred quid.

And the site even offered discounted annual memberships for 35 pounds as a part of a New Year and Thanksgiving promotion. Oh my god. Stuck to buy a gift for that special someone? How about a yearly subscription to lotmycockoff.com? Oh my god. It's just your opportunity to, you know, get the person maybe you're in a relationship with to get on board with your ultra kink. I'm sad. I actually am really sad. This is horrible. Because I can't stress enough. It's like, yes, if you have B-I-I-D, that's horrible and I really hope that you get like all of the therapy that you need to like get through that. That's not what's going on here. This is like a fucking horrible torture site for people that are jacking off to this shit. Like it's just so mind-boggling. Members of Unic.com who chose to take part in filmed sessions could set their own personal

limits including a checkbox for whether or not you were open to lasting damage. As if that like absolves the creator's office of any responsibility. The community grew and grew until the site had almost 23,000 subscribers. At its most popular, Unicmaker.com had more than 10,000 active users every day. Now the majority of these users, of course, were passive spectators. But to keep the community alive, Gustavsson needed active subjects. He can't just have a bunch of people like watching along. He needs creators. Writer Marcel Theroux in his documentary

on this case called Unic Maker, which I believe is on Amazon Prime if you really want to watch it. No offence to Marcel Theroux, it's just by the end of this episode you may well have had enough. But in that documentary he talks to three people who underwent procedures at the hands of Marius Gustafsson. So if you want to hear their motivations firsthand, the documentary is certainly worth a watch. But essentially people with severe body dysmorphia or histories of trauma and self-hatred, or as members of the extreme kink scene, would be passed on directly to Marius Gustafsson.

He'd meet them, chat to them for hours, and make the most extreme procedure sound like the most normal thing in the world. He would tell these people how pleased he was with his own self-surgery, and he'd reassure them that these procedures would make them feel much better, and also make them finally feel comfortable in their own skin. Marius Gustavsson was hailed as the figurehead of this underground movement and he reigned over this industry of mutilation for four years. And look, I feel like there are people who still

defend Gustavsson saying you know he was helping these people, he was helping them deal with this feeling that they had when other people couldn't help them, even healthcare professionals. But really to me, it screams groomer, like cult leader, predator, whatever you want to call it. Some people may well have come to him with their minds fully made up already about what they wanted to do to themselves. But Marius Gustafsson clearly also, from what it looks like, love bombed and manipulated vulnerable people who wanted desperately to belong somewhere into going through with absolutely horrific, permanently damaging amateur surgeries. I don't even want to call them surgeries, mutilations. Yeah. And I have no doubt that several times he did encounter people who have BID. And I think we should, if a disorder is so powerful, it convinces completely able-bodied,

healthy people to chop bits off themselves. That's an incredibly powerful force and he knows that. But let's get back to the procedures themselves for a moment because you haven't had enough. Sometimes these pretend surgeries were carried out in hotel rooms that were rented specifically for the purpose. So never feel bad about leaving a hotel room in a pretend surgeries, were carried out in hotel rooms that were rented specifically for the purpose. So never feel bad about leaving a hotel room in a mess ever again. My god. However, for the most part, Marius Gustavsson's mutilation marathons were carried out and filmed in a two-bedroom basement flat on Pemberton Road, on the Haringey

Ladder, two minutes from where I was living at this exact time. No, no, thank you. I've probably walked past him. Oh my god. I lived there for a long time It's just round the corner But there's nothing I can do about that now What oh my god?

Anyway, I've walked past the house when somebody was having this time to them almost certainly Unique maker comm was Gustafson's only source of income. His mum actually still helped him out with the rent. Haringey is not cheap, even if you are the Unicmaker and getting 18 grand for a leg that you got rid of yourself. Oh my god. And in this flat that his mum helped to pay for, Gustafsson kept in a frame above his bed his very own amputated testicles. There was a sign above the door which read Theo's Playroom, open 24 hours, 7 days. And the entire flat was rigged with cameras. And under the stairs wasn't Harry Potter.

It was a makeshift dungeon. Yeah, just to be clear, Gustafsson randomly calls himself Theo because that's why he has that sign that says, like, Theo's playroom. Like, whatever. Now, some of those who went to the Unic Maker's dungeon report some efforts towards sterilization, even being sent home with antibiotics. But make no mistake, this was a horror show.

Gustavsson's flat was absolutely nowhere near sanitary or sterilized enough for any form of medical procedure. I wouldn't let this man put a plaster on me, let alone should he be carrying out fucking amputations in his basement. And just to, you know, really hammer that point home. If a penis, for example, was to be surgically removed in a hospital, it would take several hours. Blood vessels would be individually tied off, so as to prevent massive blood loss. And the urethra would be individually tied off so as to prevent massive blood loss, and the urethra would be carefully sewn to the edge of the skin to make sure that the patient

can still urinate afterwards. And even then, it is not an easy or foolproof surgery. In our homemade hack jobs, the penises were sliced clean off in one go with unsterilized kitchen knives. Blood loss was common and could be extreme. And most of the panectomies were taken straight to A&E, with many resulting in catastrophic hemorrhaging and emergency surgery. The videos show victims in severe excruciating and debilitating pain.

I can say this confidently as someone who lived around the corner for many years. I don't doubt that the victims were very, very loud. Not a cell of me's surprise that no one called the police. And just in case you need us to tell you again, the procedures that Gustavsson was carrying out were completely and totally sexually motivated. You can often see Gustavsson masturbating himself or the subject before he starts the mutilation. He plays a really big part in the fantasy, dominating his submissive patient. So sure, all of these men technically consented, at least at first, consent can be withdrawn at any time, and

they all are, at least technically, a part of the same subculture. However, it is crystal clear from Gustafsson's messages, videos and his entire operation that he is grooming and pressuring men to take part in his own dark fantasies. And there is one last, very important detail. Among all the content and endless victims, one video shows Gustavsson electrocuting the anus and penis of a 16 year old boy. The boy is clearly in pain and he is begging for it to stop. The video was uploaded to Unicmaker.com and it was sold to thousands of users.

So the question is, is that really consent? No. I'm gonna say. Ugh, fucking, I feel so... I haven't felt this unwell in a long time during an episode. Hmm I was starving when we recorded this now I'm never gonna eat again. Me too. I was thinking oh Hannah before that meeting we've got later we should really try get some lunch. What? Let's just push on with the thought experiment for a bit. Obviously like non-consent consent is a thing it's a thing that have, so it's difficult to, it's a really

tricky line to tread. But it's like consensual non-consent. My understanding is like rape fantasies. I mean, it's anything. Also, I went and saw my friends the other day who've just had a baby and my friend was like, love him, named after my granddad, middle name after her granddad, but his initials are CNC, consensual non-consent. Better than mine.

Hannah Mary Maguire. Not sure were you? Anyway, the men in the videos may have gone along with what was being done to them but did they have full knowledge of everything that was going to happen to them? And if they did know, how did they know that? And consent is continuous. It can be revoked at any point but when you're in this consensual non-consent environment, how do you know? And I don't think that Marius Gustafsson would care too much about you withdrawing your consent.

Because it's, you know, he is very obviously doing this for his own gratification. A hundred fucking percent. And there is video evidence of people asking him to stop. And I'm sure Marius Gustavsson and his defense team will just say, well, it's just part of the thing. But then it's a weird argument to me if you say, well, it's part of the thing, like consensual, non-consensual. But then you're saying it's not a sexual thing

because I'm just here to help these people because they've got this mental disorder where I need to remove this limb or extremity or body part from them. So I'm like, which is it? Which is it? It can't be both because when people are begging you to stop and you're saying it's not a sexual thing, well then why aren't you stopping? That's a really good point. And it wasn't just the videos that Marius Gustavsson was selling. Yes, if any of you were wondering just what they did with all those freshly sliced off genitalia, well, wonder no more.

Penises and testicles were hoarded in freezers at Gustavsson's and his accomplice's houses and auctioned off on the website. He really doesn't miss a trick. He doesn't leave a penny on the fucking table, this guy. Then there was also a series of photographs taken on the 22nd of June 2018. In these Gustavsson is shown taking out a Tupperware box containing a pair of human testicles. He removes them from this box, seasons them with salt and pepper, how Norwegian, and grills them in a frying pan. He adds nuts and I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about actual nuts, cashews, pistachios,

etc. as probably some sort of sick joke, and then he plates it all up with some sliced cucumber, potatoes, chillies and other vegetables in what prosecutors would later call an artfully arranged salad. And in case there's any doubt about whether this was just some sort of faked, playful photo shoot, there are also texts between him and an associate in which they plan to cut off a man's penis, ask a friend to cook it, and then feed it to him. So yes, they also occasionally ate amputated genitals too. Just in case you were wondering. In 2019, a man later referred to in court as RP turned up

at the Unic Makers Pemberton Road flat, as I was quietly living my life around the corner. RP had a spiralling drug addiction and an overwhelming depression that had only been exacerbated by the death of two close friends. And he found release in the world of extreme BDSM and sexual torture. Soon enough, his interest in this world of kink led him to Theo and his website. And he ended up at the Unic Makers HQ. And before he knew it, RP took some

drugs and allowed himself to be tied down in the Unic Makers basement. He had made his preferences clear. No permanent damage. RP's session was filmed and put on the website, and near the end, a needle is stuck into his shoulder, which contained a testosterone blocker. Later, Gustafsson messaged RP letting him know how much he stood to earn, if he changed his preferences. Gustafsson would give him £5,000 to £7,000 if he would have a testicle removed and if RP decided to have his penis removed Gustafsson would pay him between fifteen and twenty five thousand pounds. Okay and once again this is where we're getting out of the realm of Marius Gustafsson's claims that he is helping these people

because now it is showing not only is he exploiting people for his own benefit financially and also to serve a very sexual need for himself and the other people watching, if you're having to offer people 5,000 to 7,000 to have a testicle removed, they're not coming to you organically and saying, that's what I want done. You're now paying for them to undergo permanent damage while you exploit it. Gustafson followed up his financial offer, saying that he would help RP control his hormones and his sex drive, and that when it was all over, he would feel really empowered. Yeah.

It's basically like, if you cut your dick and balls off, it's going to solve all these problems for you. It's going to control your sex drive. It's going to make you feel so much better, so much stronger. So yeah, it's a double whammy. This is why I'm saying it's grooming. He's like, I'll give you the money. But he knows that's not enough. He's also like, it's gonna solve all your problems as well. And soon, RP unchecked the no permanent damage box.

The next week, plans for his castration began. In his first session on the 17th of July 2017, Arpi's scrotum was sliced open. Then on the 20th of September, he returned to the basement flat to be castrated. Arpi was strapped down and given drugs. Then Gustavsson went to the wardrobe and pulled out a huge set of clamps. Gustavsson then masturbated, then used the clamps to crush Arpi's testicles. That night, Arpi's balls swelled up and turned purple.

Gustavsson assured him this was perfectly normal, but the pain got worse. On the 2nd of December 2019, RP returned to have his dead testicles removed. My god, that's so long. What followed was a brutal session of sexual mutilation, culminating in Gustavsson branding Arpi with an iron. On his thigh, Gustavsson burned in the letters EM for eunuch maker. David Carruthers, the former surgical assistant that assisted these procedures, cut out Arpi's testicle before sewing it back in. cut out RP's testicle, before sewing it back in.

It was at that moment that RP realized that it had all been a lie. Carothers was nowhere near qualified. He wasn't even trying. And Gustavuson wasn't a friendly, like-minded soul who wanted to help. He was a butcher. RP was never paid. In a rage, RP called his chemsex counselor who gave him a choice.

Go to the police or I will. RP knew that if he didn't speak up, any further mutilation would be on his conscience. So he went to the police station and told them everything. He handed over a USB drive containing 5,000 WhatsApp messages between him, Gustafsson and others, as well as an audio recording of an interview. He told the police that this man was a lunatic and he had to be stopped. An investigation began immediately and in March 2021, police raided Gustavsson's flat and arrested him. There they found a freezer full of severed body parts. In a drawer four years after it'd

been cut off they also found Gustavsson's own penis. Not to be grotesque. Why stop now with this episode? Is he making any effort to preserve these appendages? Or are they just rotting in his house? I don't know. Maybe like if you keep them in plastic bags, keep them in Tupperware, they're probably just going to mummify to an extent. But it is foul. It's foul. It's real bad. Like my stomach is churning because also like obviously we moved out the house a while ago while the renovation was going on. I didn't realize they

were going to turn the electricity off and remember me telling you that I had left a bunch of food in the freezer. Went back last weekend. Finally have access to the freezer. It was so bad. Oh no! And everything in there was vegetarian and it was so bad. Imagine when meat liquefies. I'm struggling. Let's just keep going. Let's keep going. So yeah, they find his penis. They also found a gigantic stash of extreme pornography, including images of humans having intercourse with raping animals. And also what courts would call indecent pseudo-photographs of a child. Basically, if you're wondering what that means, it's probably like hyper-realistic AI-generated images, rather than like actual images of child sex abuse.

And then investigators found hours and hours of brutal footage of castrations, clamping, amputations and genital mutilation, dating back seven years. And if you think just listening to all this has been bad, just remember that all that footage they found, someone had to watch it all. 67-year-old Peter Waits, a close conspirator, also had his home raided. A home that he shared with his dad. Sorry. And there police officers uncovered a clover butter container.

It's clover's margarine for a start. But it's always like in those boxes that look harmless that you're going to find something weird. We've told people not to look in barrels before, but it's like what weird like things do families save? Like what weird boxes do families save to then keep other things in? Because if you are Asian like me you will find in every Asian home a Danish butter biscuit box and when you open it inside will be a sewing kit. I guarantee you. Not what's going on here but just don't look. And don't use margarine, it's disgusting. The Nazis loved it.

They used to dye it green because it's so bad for you. Oh, I thought they loved it. I thought Hitler loved margarine. No, I'm sure he did, but as in we as a society when it was invented, I mean, probably big butter had something to do with it. But yeah, they used to dye it really horrible colours to remind you that it's bad. Weird marketing. It was propaganda. It was anti-Marge propaganda.

And also, if you've ever tried to bake a cake with margarine, fucking don't bother, my god. Anyway! This Clover container was sealed with brown tape. And written on this container were the words, And written on this container were the words, Peter's unknown boletti mushrooms, safe, needs identification, do not defrost. Forensic pathologists analyzed the mushrooms they found and rather quickly confirmed

that they were no mushrooms at all. Actually, what was being hidden in the clover container was a human scrotum and two severed penises. That's a lot to fit in a clover box. Over the following year, police identified and charged nine more accomplices across the country, most of whom had no previous convictions for anything at all, not even a cheeky fraud. In 2023, preliminary hearings began. Over four years, Gustavsson had been involved with at least 30 procedures that the courts could identify, though it was impossible to know the full scale of his actual offending.

That included, as we said, one attack on a 16-year-old boy. It was also revealed that Gustavsson had made over £300,000 from his website, Unicmaker.com. He was presented in court as the ringleader of an enterprise that involved performing surgery in non-sterile conditions and without medical training, leaving victims with irreversible and life-changing injuries. Overseeing these proceedings was Mark Clark-Craft, KC. And if that name sounds familiar, well, we have met him before. He's the recorder of London at the Old Bailey and the most senior criminal judge in the country.

And he also tried Constance Martin. And in our opinion, he did a great job there. So he's definitely a very safe pair of hands. In preliminary hearings, Gustafsson claimed that all of his victims had consented, which as previously discussed, tricky, tricky line to tread. So let's have a quick look about what the law says. Firstly, and most relevantly, under the Domestic Abuse Act of 2021, a person cannot legally consent to being seriously harmed for sexual gratification. And then there's the infamous Dr Evil case.

Dr Evil is the pseudonym of Brendan McCarthy, a body modification expert from Wolverhampton who specialises in splitting people's tongues, scarification, piercings wherever you want them, all that sort of stuff. And I know we're talking about him in the context of the Unic Maker episode, but we should say he is not cut from the same cloth. Brendan McCarthy is a step up from a regular piercer. I do not think you can call him a butcher. One day someone walked into his shop and asked him to remove their nipple. And after a series of safeguarding procedures, multiple forms and several lengthy conversations, McCarthy was assured that both of them were comfortable with what was going to happen, and then they did it.

But then, a TV production company contacted the police. And soon, McCarthy found himself charged with three counts of Section 18, malicious wounding, with intent, with a blade. And he was charged on account of the nipple removal, tongue splitting, and also removing parts of an ear. The people who underwent these procedures hadn't changed their minds since, so this is all about interpretation of the law. Specifically, an ancient consent law says a person cannot consent to harm. McCarthy was sentenced to 60 months in prison. He did 40. So there's a massive gulf here. Firstly what McCarthy does is safe, sterile and

has all the right aftercare systems in place. And secondly he's not masturbating along filming it and then selling the videos online. But what it does illustrate is a precedent of severe punishments for body modification procedures, even fully consensual and safe ones, and also the blurred line when it comes to consent and harm. Because of all this legal precedent, it was clear a guilty plea was the only option when we're talking about Marius Gustavsson, even to him. So Gustavsson skipped the trial and he pleaded guilty to the following. Conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, five counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent,

possessing criminal property, namely money, possessing extreme pornographic images, and making and distributing two indecent videos of a child. And having very little to work with Gustavsson's defense barrister, who's got a very long name that I'm gonna butcher, Rashvinderjeet Panesar, was very focused on consent because let's face it he doesn't really have anywhere else to go. And his main point was that many of the surgeries had been performed solely for the psychological benefit of the victims. And he actually said that Gustavsson's aim was to put a smile on other

people's faces. Palliser described the breakup of Gustavsson's marriage and its effect on his mental state saying this. His modification led him to feelings of empowerment. It appears, at face value, to be something that's become an addiction for him. He described Gustafsson as being stuck in a body he wanted to harm and change, and he knew that other people felt the same way. The prosecution, Caroline Carvery Casey, said that it was remarkable that the Unic Maker website, quote, operated in plain sight, not on the dark web, accessible to anyone who stumbled upon it and had the inclination and means to pay to view the gruesome footage.

She called Gustavsson an arch-manipulator of victims, saying that although those people had consented, they had all been vulnerable to Gustafsson's exploitation. RP, the victim who turned Gustafsson in to the police, read his victim impact statement to the court. He described being tied to the table and realizing what was happening. He'd been apopleptic with rage and he'd wanted to kill Gustafsson. He said this, after the barbaric encounters, if I think about them too long I can still feel the physical pain. And RP described the unit-makers cult-like atmosphere. And he said that Gustafsson had the ability

to mesmerize his followers. And indeed many of those followers, mesmerized or otherwise, joined Gustafsson in the dock. Ten people were charged in all, including Romanian national Ion Sicu, who was 30, and German Stefan Schaff, 61, former surgical assistant David Carruthers, and his boyfriend Ashley Williams, and also a 39-year-old man, Janis Atkin. Peter Weitz, owner of the Clover butter dish Marjorie! that he had kept in his dad's freezer that was filled with fucking penises and whatever, pleaded guilty to being involved in nine mutilations. Carruthers was described by the court as Gustavsson's right-hand man and took

part in the buying and selling of body parts. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Nathaniel Arnold, the nurse who cut off Gustavsson's nipple, also pleaded guilty to stealing, referring to the hospital supplies, illegal surgery, and possessing extreme pornography, described by the court as graphic and appalling. Arnold told the court that he had been in the grip of hypermania brought on by bipolar disorder and his defence team described him as a compassionate, gentle, mild-mannered and respectful nurse,

who was most unlikely ever again to engage in fantasies and the behaviour that he was prone to four years ago. Arnold was given a two-year suspended sentence, a hundred hours of unpaid work, and a 60-day rehab requirement for addiction issues. And, well, the rest of them all pleaded guilty to various GBH offenses and most did get prison time. Gustafson attended his own sentencing via video link from HMP Wandsworth who are certainly familiar with the old sexy video. And as he did the court was shown photographic and audio evidence of dozens of procedures, images of Marius posing

with a severed penis, putting it in his mouth even, images of him rustling up his nutty salad and recordings of him encouraging people to remove their penises, or rather to let him do it for them. In his sentencing remarks, Judge Mark Leucraft reminded the court that the procedures almost led to the deaths of three men. And they amounted to little short of human butchery. Don't know what the short bit is. Just sounds nice, doesn't it? Judge Leucraft also acknowledged that those involved consented, but,

and this is a quote as the law in this country makes clear consent is not a defense to what took place whilst it might provide some mitigation to sentence the performing of complex medical procedures on such people by the unqualified is extremely dangerous many may well face lifelong issues and I think that's the thing that's important. And obviously, law is specific to the land in which you are. It doesn't matter whether they consented or not. In the end. I like, I don't want to sound like flippant, but I don't care. Consent requires you to have

full knowledge of what you're consenting to and also the faculties under which to make that consent valid. And the exploitation of these people, how vulnerable they were, the damage that was done, how permanent it is, the risks that were taken. No. Prison. And Judge Ludcroft agrees with us. He concluded his closing remarks by saying that Gustavsson's motivations were his own sexual gratification and financial gain. Gustavsson was sentenced to life in prison and ordered to serve a minimum term of 22 years. And that, my friends, is longer than most murderers get. But, as Kate Mulholland from the Crown Prosecution Service put it, the severity of today's sentence should act as a warning to others

that performing extreme body modifications is against the law and the CPS won't hesitate to prosecute these horrendous cases. And though Gustafsson had pleaded guilty, he insisted, and still insists to this day, that he did nothing wrong. In a pattern that goes all the way back to his role in the Roost celebrations at his high school, and his leading role in gay advocacy groups, Gustavsson always derived his self-worth from leading a community.

And when the focus shifted to something darker, something closer to his own deep desires, he couldn't get enough. Those early feelings of loneliness and inadequacy fueled a relentless desire to control and manipulate others. And by undergoing the procedure himself, he acted as his own proof to others that it was a safe, normal, self-affirming thing to do. He preyed on those with deep psychological vulnerabilities, those with nowhere else to go, and he showed them a way out. All while he wanked off and laughed all the way to the bank.

The investigation into the wider Unic Maker network is ongoing still. Some reports say that the site featured videos of more than 500 different people undergoing a nullification procedure of some sort. The web of connections spreads all across the world, but it's just one step forward and two steps back. At the end of last year, barristers for all six sentence men asked the courts for a permission to appeal and three senior judges approved that request. All admitting that the case was highly unusual and that it may be the wrong decision to use sentencing guidelines for GBH with intent in a case like this. Because GBH, by definition under the law, is a non-contentual offense.

And the barristers for the sentenced men also argued that the judge, quote, did not give sufficient weight to the fact that almost all the victims appeared to have been content with the outcome of the body modifications that they underwent. And as uncomfortable as it is to admit, that's true. Most, not all, most of Gustavsson's victims wanted the procedure that they had carried out and they are still glad that they had it done. But it's irrelevant, isn't it? Because the issues are grooming, encouragement, clear sexual and financial gain and that makes Gustafsson absolutely guilty. Yep. Well, fuck me. But before we go and be quiet, I never think... I am so glad I am not recording this in South Africa with a lone sound engineer listening.

Oh my god. I don't think we should put this episode out. I don't think anyone should hear what we've just said. But we have to ask one more question before we let you go. No. If we cast our minds back to Dr. Evil. Where is the line? If someone in their right mind wants a procedure carried out on them, and it happens, and they're happy with the result, where does that become an assault?

When does that happen? I feel like an hour and a half ago, I could have eloquently argued the difference. Now my brain has turned into a puddle of margarine mush. Do you know what I think it is? Specifically Dr. Evil. Maybe I'm being naive and missing the point. Having your nipple taken off as a bloke, right, or having a bit of your ear taken off or your tongue split, the chances of long lasting negative impact of those things

are slim to none. Yes. Okay. And I'll follow on from that point. It's functionality. It's a disruption of functionality, right? You splitting your tongue might give you a bit of a list. Don't know what it might do to the way in which you speak. It's not disruption of functionality, right? You splitting your tongue might give you a bit of a lisp. Don't know what it might do to the way in which you speak. It's not going to permanently change anything in a way that affects your life to a massive degree if that's the decision you took. Things like sexual organ removal, cutting off your leg, functional impact to your body and therefore the quality of your life in a way that you may be at that point unable to comprehend into the future, especially if you are particularly

vulnerable, as many of these people clearly were. And then throw on top of that the sexual element and the financial gain. Yeah I think it's the functionality that is the key difference for me and also he should have fucking gone in a basement. Yeah. I feel sick. Right well our padtie is nearly here should we go eat that? Oh my god. That was awful I think think, I've got to say, I think that is the episode that has made me feel the most sick in the last eight years of doing this show. I think I'm with you on that. And you're not a squeamish person. No I'm not. So I don't know if anyone's listening now. So whatever. That was awful, truly awful. Right, That's it guys. That is the fucking Unic Maker piece

of shit Marius Gustafsson. If you want to go watch the documentary, it is on Amazon Prime and we'll see you next week where we'll talk about anything other than Penectomies. And I'm going to go back to 2018 and tell myself to move the fuck out of that house. Please do. Goodbye. Bye. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories

are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices? Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr.ollin's Medical Mysteries, and each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries on the Wondry app or wherever you get your

podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Spotify or Apple podcasts.