Nullo
Nullo: Castration fantasies and the removal of genitals, explained from a psychological perspective
Nullo: Castration fantasies and the removal of genitals, explained from a psychological perspective
DESCRIPTION: Nullo, castration and the desire to have the penis and testicles removed: what lies behind the Nullo scene, research figures on castration desires, the distinction from gender dysphoria and body integrity dysphoria, and the question of why the disappearance of sexual characteristics appears to be a solution.
Nullo: the smooth patch where the genitals used to be
In forums with several thousand members, discussions revolve around the removal of external genitals. Research has identified at least three different, overlapping motives there, but no single, uniform diagnosis.
What this is about:
· the figures,
· the distinction from gender dysphoria and body integrity dysphoria, and
· why, of all things, the disappearance of a body part can be interpreted as a promise.
What is meant by ‘Nullo’ and ‘genital nullification’
‘Nullo Culture’ is an umbrella term for desires, fantasies, self-descriptions and digital practices centred on the removal of external genitalia. The term originates from the scene itself and has no equivalent in specialist literature; research refers to ‘castration interest’ or ‘genital ablation’, each of which denotes more narrowly defined phenomena. The ideal is a smooth, featureless lower abdomen.
On Reddit, a forum with around 2,300 members focuses on glansectomy – that is, the surgical removal of the nerve-rich glans. A second forum with around 3,500 members centres on penectomy – that is, the amputation of the penis. Some posts include the testicles, whilst others refer to the complete removal of the external genitalia, known in the English-speaking world as ‘genital nullification’. For most people scrolling past, the reaction ends with horror. For researchers, that is where the questioning begins.
An analysis can only be justified if it first maintains a certain distance: distance from the voyeuristic material, from the drastic case histories, and from the temptation to derive the clinical significance of a bodily desire from its drastic nature. The subject matter is the cultural form in which a radical desire for bodily transformation becomes articulable, shareable, visualisable and, at times, marketable.
The figures from the research
A study published in the journal *Archives of Sexual Behaviour* asked men with an interest in castration about their reasons. Around 40 per cent cited what the research describes as ‘eunuch calm’: a hoped-for sense of tranquillity, a liberation from sexual urges experienced as oppressive. Around 30 per cent found the fantasy itself arousing. A similarly large proportion cited cosmetic reasons, specifically the desire for a smooth appearance.
These three motives are not mutually exclusive. Their overlap is a defining feature of the scene, not a marginal phenomenon. Those who seek the operation and those who are aroused by the mere thought of it are often the same people.
Equally important is the scale of the behaviour. A study published in *Sexual Medicine* in 2024 found that no more than 4% actually seek genital ablation. For the vast majority, the fantasy remains just that: a fantasy.
One term for three different situations
Older literature on men with a pronounced interest in being castrated carefully distinguishes between mere interest, sexual fantasy, a desire for surgery that drives their actions, and men who have already been castrated. It identifies different biographical, sexual and psychological profiles. It does not identify a common cause.
This heterogeneity precludes any hasty judgement. The same physical objective can fulfil very different psychological functions: for one person, the suppression of a drive perceived as intrusive; for another, a sexual fantasy that thrives precisely on its unattainability; and for a third, an aesthetic conception of one’s own body. A classification that lumps all three under the same diagnosis reassures the observer but explains nothing.
The clinically useful question is therefore always: what function does the desire serve in the individual’s life? Is it episodic or persistent, tormenting or pleasurable, symbolic in nature or driving the person to act? Is it embedded in a sense of self, or is it intended to bring an intractable conflict within the body to an abrupt end? Is there self-harm, pressure from others, financial exploitation or an uncontrollable impulse towards irreversible action?
Why it is important to distinguish this from gender dysphoria
Gender dysphoria describes clinically significant distress associated with a mismatch between one’s experienced gender and the gender assigned at birth. The German S3 guideline treats gender incongruence, gender dysphoria and trans health as a distinct context for counselling, diagnosis and treatment.
A desire for genital removal cannot be inferred from this. Conversely, a rejection of one’s genitals does not prove the presence of gender dysphoria. Those who seek complete gender neutralisation are not thereby expressing a transition to another binary gender. These men do not want female anatomy either. They want nothing in this regard.
However, it follows just as little from this that non-binary or transgender ways of life should be categorised under the term ‘nullo’. Such an equation would reduce gender self-determination to a language of deficiency and mutilation.
Body integrity dysphoria and its limitations
It would be similarly misleading to interpret these experiences broadly as body integrity dysphoria. This rare condition, listed in the ICD-11, is characterised by a persistent desire for a significant disability – such as the amputation of a limb, blindness or paralysis – combined with intense discomfort regarding one’s current physical integrity.
The classic descriptions relate to limbs and paralysis. They do not constitute a general theory covering every body part perceived as alien. Research into its aetiology and prevalence remains limited.
There are isolated cases in which a genital-related incongruence in the body schema is relevant for differential diagnosis; researchers have coined the term ‘male-to-eunuch gender dysphoria’ for this. This does not justify transforming a subculture into a clinical category. There are significant differences between experiencing a body part as not belonging, a sexually charged fantasy of loss, a gender self-description, and the desire for actual surgery.
Castration and the fear of castration in psychoanalysis
Only after these distinctions have been made does the psychoanalytic question arise. It does not aim at the hidden truth of individual people. It aims at the cultural fantasy that becomes visible where castration appears as a promise rather than as an image of fear.
In the psychoanalytic tradition, castration does not refer to the actual damage to an organ. It stands for the limit of undivided enjoyment, for the realisation that no one has complete control over the body, desire or the other. As a symbolic figure, it marks loss, limitation and entry into an order in which something is always missing.
Freud described castration anxiety in the context of the Oedipal conflict as a threat that prompts the child to relinquish their claims. Lacan detached the concept from anatomy. For him, the phallus is a signifier that organises lack and desire, and not an organ. Castration then means that no one possesses it.
Against this backdrop, the fantasy becomes comprehensible. It takes a threat and turns it into an offer.
A cultural reading of the scene can build on this, provided it distinguishes between the symbolic and the real. It is precisely at this juncture that the scene becomes interesting: it takes a character at their word, a character who was intended to be just that.
The promise of zero
The extreme fantasy goes like this: if the sexual sign disappears, there will finally be peace. Once the drive has been localised and eliminated, the other’s demand falls silent. When the body becomes smooth, its enigma also vanishes.
In this logic, zero promises more than mere absence. It promises purity, control, liberation from ambivalence and a definitive resolution of the conflict. The desire for the hoped-for tranquillity, cited by around 40 per cent of respondents, is the clearest expression of this.
This aligns the scene with trends this blog has already covered: looksmaxxing and even bone smashing promise to solve a social problem through intervention in the body. Bigorexia promises security through muscle mass. The ‘zero’ fantasy follows the same trend, but dispenses with the pretence of beauty. It promises to deactivate the body at a specific point.
When loss itself becomes a source of pleasure
Herein lies the contradiction that reveals the nature of the fantasy. The erasure of the sexual marker can itself become the object of intense pleasure. The loss is imagined, repeated, recounted, displayed, commented on and desired. The fact that around 30 per cent of respondents find the fantasy arousing is part and parcel of the matter and is not a marginal finding.
Such a fantasy can therefore be a condensation of desire: it is directed towards the place where its own condition is to be made literal—that is, the ‘absence ’, the boundary, the unavailability. Anyone familiar with the contribution to the concept of jouissance will recognise this dynamic. People cling to what harms them because repetition yields a gain that cannot be expressed in the language of well-being.
It is therefore a matter of interpreting discourses and structures of fantasy, beyond the diagnoses of those who espouse them.
The platform turns disappearance into a sign.
The digital form transforms the imagination. What used to circulate in private fantasies, correspondence or obscure erotic collections can now be organised as search terms, profiles, images, videos, comments and communities. The internet does not create the desire. It provides it with categories, an audience and mutual reinforcement.
Consequently, the gaze of the other takes centre stage. The purported elimination of the gender marker does not escape the social stage. On the contrary, it can become a source of particular visibility: the body that wishes to be gender-neutral is identified, depicted and recognised as an exception. Anyone who describes themselves as a ‘Nullo’ in these forums thus belongs to the ‘Nullos’ – that is, to a group with its own name. Disappearance creates a new sign. The ‘zero’ becomes an emblem.
The case of Marius Gustavson: where fantasy turns to violence
A London court case in 2024 demonstrated what happens when medical safeguards are removed. Marius Gustavson, who was born in Norway and called himself a ‘eunuch maker’, was sentenced to a minimum of 22 years’ imprisonment. He had run a pay-to-view website where subscribers could watch live castrations and penectomies for up to 100 pounds a year, many of which were carried out under non-sterile conditions in his London flat. The site attracted over 22,000 subscribers and generated around 300,000 pounds before the authorities shut it down.
Documentary filmmaker Marcel Theroux, who interviewed voluntary eunuchs for a film about the case, described clear signs of genuine emotional distress among those he spoke to. They had been searching for a way out of their conflicts, and that was precisely what made them vulnerable to Gustavson, who presented himself as the solution.
The medical scope is narrow. No reputable surgeon would perform an elective penectomy or glansectomy without medical necessity, such as in the case of penile cancer, of which there are around 820 new cases in the UK each year. Anyone who undergoes surgery to have a part of their body removed outside a sterile operating theatre risks sepsis, severe blood loss and death. If an organ is amputated under non-sterile conditions, infection is the norm.
Assault: What criminal law says about consent
The Gustavson case raises the question of why consent does not protect in this instance. After all, anyone who wanted the procedure and expressly requested it has given their consent.
German criminal law addresses this in Section 228 of the German Criminal Code (StGB). Bodily harm committed with consent remains unlawful if the act, despite the consent, contravenes public morality. Case law focuses on the nature and severity of the injury, as well as the specific danger to life and limb. An irreversible procedure performed without medical justification, under non-sterile conditions, and by a layperson generally falls into this category. Consent does not make it exempt from criminal liability.
Then there is the medical aspect. The amputation of healthy organs without medical justification is not permitted under professional regulations. It is precisely this gap between the patient’s wishes and what a doctor is permitted to do that informal providers fill. The market arises when people suffering genuine distress cannot find a legitimate point of contact and therefore turn to someone who asks no questions.
What the problem actually is
At this point, the ethical question shifts. A non-normative desire in itself is not a problem. What becomes critical is anything that jeopardises capacity to make judgements, free will or physical integrity: irreversible procedures without medical safeguards, self-harm, the exploitation of dependency, peer pressure, and the paid production and distribution of violent imagery.
Moral criticism is therefore directed at actions and relationships: coercion, deception, dependency, a lack of medical safeguards, endangerment and economic exploitation. The problem is not a deviation from gender norms. Rather, it is the possibility that bodily suffering becomes a commodity and a vulnerable body becomes the material for the pleasure of others.
The duty not to put anyone on display
A text about this scene can analyse it, or it can put it on display, as soon as the graphic detail drives the language, as soon as people are reduced to genitals and surgical procedures, or clinical uncertainty is replaced by an elegant-sounding theory.
A twofold restraint is called for. It rejects the shameful pathologisation of trans identity, non-binary ways of life, asexuality and unconventional fantasies. It equally rejects the glorification of self-harm, irreversible procedures and the economy of violence on digital platforms.
‘Nullo Culture’ is therefore not a term for a phenomenon on the fringes of society. The expression denotes a contemporary phenomenon in which body image, gender, desire, digital visibility and the market are intertwined. Her analysis begins with the question of which social and media conditions make radical loss available as a solution, an image, and a source of pleasure.
Key points in brief
‘Nullo’ is an umbrella term for a wide variety of desires relating to the removal of external genitalia and is not a diagnosis. The forums in question have several thousand members.
The research identifies at least three overlapping motives: the hope of peace of mind and liberation from the sex drive (around 40 per cent), sexual arousal derived from the fantasy itself (around 30 per cent) and cosmetic reasons.
According to a 2024 study, no more than four per cent seek actual genital ablation. For most, it remains a fantasy.
Gender dysphoria is something else. The desire for gender neutralisation is not a desire to transition to another gender.
Body integrity dysphoria is listed in the ICD-11, but traditionally refers to limbs and paralysis. It is not suitable as an umbrella diagnosis for a subculture.
From a psychoanalytical perspective, the removal of sexual characteristics promises peace of mind, control and an end to ambivalence. The imagined loss can itself become a source of pleasure.
The platform transforms the desired disappearance into a form of heightened visibility. Nothingness becomes an emblem.
The documented London case illustrates where the scene descends into violence and exploitation: over 22,000 paying subscribers, around 300,000 pounds in turnover, a minimum sentence of 22 years.
Consent offers no protection under criminal law: under Section 228 of the German Criminal Code (StGB), bodily harm remains unlawful if, despite consent, it contravenes public decency. A non-medical intervention without medical indication generally falls under this category.
What is open to criticism are coercion, deception, dependency, a lack of medical safeguards and the commercialisation of violent imagery. Not the deviation from a norm.
Sources
Castration Interests: Motivations and Characteristics – Archives of Sexual Behaviour (PMC)
Voluntary Castration: Prevalence and Correlates – Archives of Sexual Behaviour
Body Integrity Dysphoria: Overview and ICD-11 Classification (PMC)
Body Integrity Identity Disorder: Current State of Research (PMC)
S3 Guideline on Gender Dysphoria: Diagnosis, Counselling, Treatment – AWMF
London: Members of alleged castration group in court – stern
Related
DESCRIPTION: Nullo, castration and the desire to have the penis and testicles removed: what lies behind the Nullo scene, research figures on castration desires, the distinction from gender dysphoria and body integrity dysphoria, and the question of why the disappearance of sexual characteristics appears to be a solution.
Nullo: the smooth patch where the genitals used to be
In forums with several thousand members, discussions revolve around the removal of external genitals. Research has identified at least three different, overlapping motives there, but no single, uniform diagnosis.
What this is about:
· the figures,
· the distinction from gender dysphoria and body integrity dysphoria, and
· why, of all things, the disappearance of a body part can be interpreted as a promise.
What is meant by ‘Nullo’ and ‘genital nullification’
‘Nullo Culture’ is an umbrella term for desires, fantasies, self-descriptions and digital practices centred on the removal of external genitalia. The term originates from the scene itself and has no equivalent in specialist literature; research refers to ‘castration interest’ or ‘genital ablation’, each of which denotes more narrowly defined phenomena. The ideal is a smooth, featureless lower abdomen.
On Reddit, a forum with around 2,300 members focuses on glansectomy – that is, the surgical removal of the nerve-rich glans. A second forum with around 3,500 members centres on penectomy – that is, the amputation of the penis. Some posts include the testicles, whilst others refer to the complete removal of the external genitalia, known in the English-speaking world as ‘genital nullification’. For most people scrolling past, the reaction ends with horror. For researchers, that is where the questioning begins.
An analysis can only be justified if it first maintains a certain distance: distance from the voyeuristic material, from the drastic case histories, and from the temptation to derive the clinical significance of a bodily desire from its drastic nature. The subject matter is the cultural form in which a radical desire for bodily transformation becomes articulable, shareable, visualisable and, at times, marketable.
The figures from the research
A study published in the journal *Archives of Sexual Behaviour* asked men with an interest in castration about their reasons. Around 40 per cent cited what the research describes as ‘eunuch calm’: a hoped-for sense of tranquillity, a liberation from sexual urges experienced as oppressive. Around 30 per cent found the fantasy itself arousing. A similarly large proportion cited cosmetic reasons, specifically the desire for a smooth appearance.
These three motives are not mutually exclusive. Their overlap is a defining feature of the scene, not a marginal phenomenon. Those who seek the operation and those who are aroused by the mere thought of it are often the same people.
Equally important is the scale of the behaviour. A study published in *Sexual Medicine* in 2024 found that no more than 4% actually seek genital ablation. For the vast majority, the fantasy remains just that: a fantasy.
One term for three different situations
Older literature on men with a pronounced interest in being castrated carefully distinguishes between mere interest, sexual fantasy, a desire for surgery that drives their actions, and men who have already been castrated. It identifies different biographical, sexual and psychological profiles. It does not identify a common cause.
This heterogeneity precludes any hasty judgement. The same physical objective can fulfil very different psychological functions: for one person, the suppression of a drive perceived as intrusive; for another, a sexual fantasy that thrives precisely on its unattainability; and for a third, an aesthetic conception of one’s own body. A classification that lumps all three under the same diagnosis reassures the observer but explains nothing.
The clinically useful question is therefore always: what function does the desire serve in the individual’s life? Is it episodic or persistent, tormenting or pleasurable, symbolic in nature or driving the person to act? Is it embedded in a sense of self, or is it intended to bring an intractable conflict within the body to an abrupt end? Is there self-harm, pressure from others, financial exploitation or an uncontrollable impulse towards irreversible action?
Why it is important to distinguish this from gender dysphoria
Gender dysphoria describes clinically significant distress associated with a mismatch between one’s experienced gender and the gender assigned at birth. The German S3 guideline treats gender incongruence, gender dysphoria and trans health as a distinct context for counselling, diagnosis and treatment.
A desire for genital removal cannot be inferred from this. Conversely, a rejection of one’s genitals does not prove the presence of gender dysphoria. Those who seek complete gender neutralisation are not thereby expressing a transition to another binary gender. These men do not want female anatomy either. They want nothing in this regard.
However, it follows just as little from this that non-binary or transgender ways of life should be categorised under the term ‘nullo’. Such an equation would reduce gender self-determination to a language of deficiency and mutilation.
Body integrity dysphoria and its limitations
It would be similarly misleading to interpret these experiences broadly as body integrity dysphoria. This rare condition, listed in the ICD-11, is characterised by a persistent desire for a significant disability – such as the amputation of a limb, blindness or paralysis – combined with intense discomfort regarding one’s current physical integrity.
The classic descriptions relate to limbs and paralysis. They do not constitute a general theory covering every body part perceived as alien. Research into its aetiology and prevalence remains limited.
There are isolated cases in which a genital-related incongruence in the body schema is relevant for differential diagnosis; researchers have coined the term ‘male-to-eunuch gender dysphoria’ for this. This does not justify transforming a subculture into a clinical category. There are significant differences between experiencing a body part as not belonging, a sexually charged fantasy of loss, a gender self-description, and the desire for actual surgery.
Castration and the fear of castration in psychoanalysis
Only after these distinctions have been made does the psychoanalytic question arise. It does not aim at the hidden truth of individual people. It aims at the cultural fantasy that becomes visible where castration appears as a promise rather than as an image of fear.
In the psychoanalytic tradition, castration does not refer to the actual damage to an organ. It stands for the limit of undivided enjoyment, for the realisation that no one has complete control over the body, desire or the other. As a symbolic figure, it marks loss, limitation and entry into an order in which something is always missing.
Freud described castration anxiety in the context of the Oedipal conflict as a threat that prompts the child to relinquish their claims. Lacan detached the concept from anatomy. For him, the phallus is a signifier that organises lack and desire, and not an organ. Castration then means that no one possesses it.
Against this backdrop, the fantasy becomes comprehensible. It takes a threat and turns it into an offer.
A cultural reading of the scene can build on this, provided it distinguishes between the symbolic and the real. It is precisely at this juncture that the scene becomes interesting: it takes a character at their word, a character who was intended to be just that.
The promise of zero
The extreme fantasy goes like this: if the sexual sign disappears, there will finally be peace. Once the drive has been localised and eliminated, the other’s demand falls silent. When the body becomes smooth, its enigma also vanishes.
In this logic, zero promises more than mere absence. It promises purity, control, liberation from ambivalence and a definitive resolution of the conflict. The desire for the hoped-for tranquillity, cited by around 40 per cent of respondents, is the clearest expression of this.
This aligns the scene with trends this blog has already covered: looksmaxxing and even bone smashing promise to solve a social problem through intervention in the body. Bigorexia promises security through muscle mass. The ‘zero’ fantasy follows the same trend, but dispenses with the pretence of beauty. It promises to deactivate the body at a specific point.
When loss itself becomes a source of pleasure
Herein lies the contradiction that reveals the nature of the fantasy. The erasure of the sexual marker can itself become the object of intense pleasure. The loss is imagined, repeated, recounted, displayed, commented on and desired. The fact that around 30 per cent of respondents find the fantasy arousing is part and parcel of the matter and is not a marginal finding.
Such a fantasy can therefore be a condensation of desire: it is directed towards the place where its own condition is to be made literal—that is, the ‘absence ’, the boundary, the unavailability. Anyone familiar with the contribution to the concept of jouissance will recognise this dynamic. People cling to what harms them because repetition yields a gain that cannot be expressed in the language of well-being.
It is therefore a matter of interpreting discourses and structures of fantasy, beyond the diagnoses of those who espouse them.
The platform turns disappearance into a sign.
The digital form transforms the imagination. What used to circulate in private fantasies, correspondence or obscure erotic collections can now be organised as search terms, profiles, images, videos, comments and communities. The internet does not create the desire. It provides it with categories, an audience and mutual reinforcement.
Consequently, the gaze of the other takes centre stage. The purported elimination of the gender marker does not escape the social stage. On the contrary, it can become a source of particular visibility: the body that wishes to be gender-neutral is identified, depicted and recognised as an exception. Anyone who describes themselves as a ‘Nullo’ in these forums thus belongs to the ‘Nullos’ – that is, to a group with its own name. Disappearance creates a new sign. The ‘zero’ becomes an emblem.
The case of Marius Gustavson: where fantasy turns to violence
A London court case in 2024 demonstrated what happens when medical safeguards are removed. Marius Gustavson, who was born in Norway and called himself a ‘eunuch maker’, was sentenced to a minimum of 22 years’ imprisonment. He had run a pay-to-view website where subscribers could watch live castrations and penectomies for up to 100 pounds a year, many of which were carried out under non-sterile conditions in his London flat. The site attracted over 22,000 subscribers and generated around 300,000 pounds before the authorities shut it down.
Documentary filmmaker Marcel Theroux, who interviewed voluntary eunuchs for a film about the case, described clear signs of genuine emotional distress among those he spoke to. They had been searching for a way out of their conflicts, and that was precisely what made them vulnerable to Gustavson, who presented himself as the solution.
The medical scope is narrow. No reputable surgeon would perform an elective penectomy or glansectomy without medical necessity, such as in the case of penile cancer, of which there are around 820 new cases in the UK each year. Anyone who undergoes surgery to have a part of their body removed outside a sterile operating theatre risks sepsis, severe blood loss and death. If an organ is amputated under non-sterile conditions, infection is the norm.
Assault: What criminal law says about consent
The Gustavson case raises the question of why consent does not protect in this instance. After all, anyone who wanted the procedure and expressly requested it has given their consent.
German criminal law addresses this in Section 228 of the German Criminal Code (StGB). Bodily harm committed with consent remains unlawful if the act, despite the consent, contravenes public morality. Case law focuses on the nature and severity of the injury, as well as the specific danger to life and limb. An irreversible procedure performed without medical justification, under non-sterile conditions, and by a layperson generally falls into this category. Consent does not make it exempt from criminal liability.
Then there is the medical aspect. The amputation of healthy organs without medical justification is not permitted under professional regulations. It is precisely this gap between the patient’s wishes and what a doctor is permitted to do that informal providers fill. The market arises when people suffering genuine distress cannot find a legitimate point of contact and therefore turn to someone who asks no questions.
What the problem actually is
At this point, the ethical question shifts. A non-normative desire in itself is not a problem. What becomes critical is anything that jeopardises capacity to make judgements, free will or physical integrity: irreversible procedures without medical safeguards, self-harm, the exploitation of dependency, peer pressure, and the paid production and distribution of violent imagery.
Moral criticism is therefore directed at actions and relationships: coercion, deception, dependency, a lack of medical safeguards, endangerment and economic exploitation. The problem is not a deviation from gender norms. Rather, it is the possibility that bodily suffering becomes a commodity and a vulnerable body becomes the material for the pleasure of others.
The duty not to put anyone on display
A text about this scene can analyse it, or it can put it on display, as soon as the graphic detail drives the language, as soon as people are reduced to genitals and surgical procedures, or clinical uncertainty is replaced by an elegant-sounding theory.
A twofold restraint is called for. It rejects the shameful pathologisation of trans identity, non-binary ways of life, asexuality and unconventional fantasies. It equally rejects the glorification of self-harm, irreversible procedures and the economy of violence on digital platforms.
‘Nullo Culture’ is therefore not a term for a phenomenon on the fringes of society. The expression denotes a contemporary phenomenon in which body image, gender, desire, digital visibility and the market are intertwined. Her analysis begins with the question of which social and media conditions make radical loss available as a solution, an image, and a source of pleasure.
Key points in brief
‘Nullo’ is an umbrella term for a wide variety of desires relating to the removal of external genitalia and is not a diagnosis. The forums in question have several thousand members.
The research identifies at least three overlapping motives: the hope of peace of mind and liberation from the sex drive (around 40 per cent), sexual arousal derived from the fantasy itself (around 30 per cent) and cosmetic reasons.
According to a 2024 study, no more than four per cent seek actual genital ablation. For most, it remains a fantasy.
Gender dysphoria is something else. The desire for gender neutralisation is not a desire to transition to another gender.
Body integrity dysphoria is listed in the ICD-11, but traditionally refers to limbs and paralysis. It is not suitable as an umbrella diagnosis for a subculture.
From a psychoanalytical perspective, the removal of sexual characteristics promises peace of mind, control and an end to ambivalence. The imagined loss can itself become a source of pleasure.
The platform transforms the desired disappearance into a form of heightened visibility. Nothingness becomes an emblem.
The documented London case illustrates where the scene descends into violence and exploitation: over 22,000 paying subscribers, around 300,000 pounds in turnover, a minimum sentence of 22 years.
Consent offers no protection under criminal law: under Section 228 of the German Criminal Code (StGB), bodily harm remains unlawful if, despite consent, it contravenes public decency. A non-medical intervention without medical indication generally falls under this category.
What is open to criticism are coercion, deception, dependency, a lack of medical safeguards and the commercialisation of violent imagery. Not the deviation from a norm.
Sources
Castration Interests: Motivations and Characteristics – Archives of Sexual Behaviour (PMC)
Voluntary Castration: Prevalence and Correlates – Archives of Sexual Behaviour
Body Integrity Dysphoria: Overview and ICD-11 Classification (PMC)
Body Integrity Identity Disorder: Current State of Research (PMC)
S3 Guideline on Gender Dysphoria: Diagnosis, Counselling, Treatment – AWMF
London: Members of alleged castration group in court – stern
Related