this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Most human males should be castrated.
Men commit almost all rape and murder, but no one seems to think this is a problem we need to do anything about. If any other group committed 90% of serious crimes – let's say immigrants – people would be calling for them to be rounded up and exiled. But when it's men, that's just the way things are, nothing to be done about it.
But we know exactly what to do about it when we're talking about other species. We castrate male cattle because bulls are dangerous and steer aren't. Violent criminals typically have elevated testosterone levels. It doesn't take a genius to realize that putting men on testosterone-blockers is going to make them less dangerous.
What will be the other effects?
I'm an anarchist, so I don't want to force this on anyone. But if I believed in prisons or police, I would also believe in mandatory castration.
I somehow don't believe that.
There's a feminist movement. One of the major theses of the feminist movement is the rape and murder overwhelmingly committed by men. I'd like it if a lot more people were feminists, but it's not correct to say that no one cares.
And that would still be an insane reaction to that fact even if it was true, which no self-identified anarchist should support. Rehabilitation must still be the goal of any justice system.
Okay, that's reasonable. However, that doesn't mean that we should accept absolutely any solution to eliminate misogyny no matter the cost. There are wildly more creative and practical ways to go about this.
Spicy hot take: we shouldn't be castrating bulls. Technically you would probably achieve your goal of taming a bull by castrating it, but at the disproportionate expense of the bull's personality, health, and bodily autonomy. Now we're not bulls or trained in bovine social cues so we don't miss the minds of castrated bulls, hence why there's no controversy; it's not obvious. However, men are
Correlation ≠ causation!
The other effect is that men will have their bodily autonomy violated. Women have been suffering a related torment from patriarchal governments banning their access to abortion. Generally, women's bodily autonomy has been systematically disregarded, and they have suffered through bizarre mutilations and "treatments" aimed at making them more palatable to men.
I gotta be blunt with you: I typically let stuff like this slide. I understand that a lot of women and other vagina-owners have been put through a tremendous amount of pain by men, so I'm usually willing to give you space to vent. And if it's worth anything to you, I'm sorry that this stuff still happens, and we need to take concrete action to prevent rape and femicide.
But you wrote a really detailed paragraph defending sex-based eugenics. The thing about eugenics is that it never really went away. Seriously, go scroll through Reddit and see how long it takes before some "bleeding heart liberal" goes on a tirade about how people they don't like need to be castrated. The world is absolutely flooded with eugenicists ready to torture and murder people, and there's no telling what suffering they'll impart on humanity if we don't challenge them wherever they pop up.
It is especially irritating to see someone who claims to be a comrade express views like this. It makes me less confident to call myself an anarchist when my views are associated with eugenics. We already have a tremendous amount of ill will generated by "anarcho"-capitalists and "anarcho"-primitivists; we really do not need more bad takes.
Now I would prefer it if you dropped the eugenics, but if you really can't drop the eugenics then at least stop dragging anarchists through the mud. I'm sorry if I've been harsh...but just know that I'll be equally as harsh in your defense when the eugenicists come to neuter you.
Well, men are also most of the victims of serious crime and do most of all dangerous jobs. These are all consequences of taking more risks.
Really? No one?
It doesn't take a genius to realize that, it takes a fool, because it's not necessarily true. It may make them less aggressive, but what else would happen? You're giving an easy answer to an extremely hard problem.
YES, there are many people thinking about this. What about we make society less toxic first, for example? But I commend you for posting an actual unpopular opinion.
That's true. I don't see what it has to do with my argument, though. I'm pretty sure that testosterone increases risk-tolerance, and that's part of why it correlates with aggression. Are you suggesting that men have elevated risk-tolerance for reasons other than testosterone, and that risk-tolerance is responsible for aggression instead of testosterone? Or are you saying that risk-taking is important so it's worth keeping men the way they are even if it causes most serious crime?
Most people see violent crime as a problem, but few see it as a problem with men. When people discuss crime, I never hear them frame the problem as "there's something causing men to commit 10 times as much rape and murder as women: what is it and how do we stop it?" Even feminists who talk about male violence generally don't frame it that way.
No empirical data can lead us to accept something as "necessarily true," but it stretches credulity to think that castration would reduce aggression in pretty much every kind of male mammal we try it on except humans and further that the most aggressive humans coincidentally have elevated testosterone levels. I don't think that you actually believe that, since you said:
I specifically listed the other effects I could think of. If you think something else bad might happen, just say what it is. If your objection is that we should be cautious because there might be unexpected effects... well sure, that's true, but it's also a general-purpose objection to any suggestion to change anything ever. You can't really have any interesting opinions if you accept that reasoning.
I'm in favor of that. But I think there's a limit to how much you can improve society via culture alone. You could probably design a culture where people would be a lot less selfish than they are today, for example. But I don't think you could get people to never be selfish at all, because some amount of selfishness is part of human nature. I think the same is true for aggression, and that the minimum amount of aggression you could get from people is in large part of function of testosterone levels.
Furthermore, "make society less toxic" is a goal, not a policy. A policy to reduce violence by making society less toxic could be something like teaching children to play cooperative games instead of competitive ones. That would probably have a small effect in a few decades. But I think chemically castrating men would have a bigger effect in a shorter amount of time than just about any other policy you could think of, and those effects would be in addition to anything else you did.
Props for having an unpopular opinion. I think its interesting a self proclaimed anarchist has such an incredibly totalitarian belief. Also one that sounds rooted in a deeply right wing/bigoted style of thinking. "Men are inherently violent so we need to castrate them against their will to fit our view" wouldnt the much more logical conclusion be to try and change culture to one that discourages toxic masculinity? Rather than believing in a massive violation of human rights
I don't think we should castrate men against their will, although I would if I weren't an anarchist. As it is, I think it would be a good social norm for men to take testosterone blockers.
I'm not sure what "men are inherently violent" means. I think that testosterone makes people more aggressive. Adult men with typical levels of testosterone are more likely to be violent than people with lower testosterone levels. Men with very low testosterone levels are not particularly likely to be aggressive. Aggression is not inherent to being a man, but it is caused by a chemical that's found in larger amounts in men than in women.
I do think we should discourage toxic masculinity, and I do think it's responsible for some of the difference in aggression in men and women. However, I think that testosterone also plays a major role.