How old were you when you learned the difference between vasectomy and castration?

[Atreyu69 (imported)]

I know that this will sound weird but until I was about 13 I thought that "vasectomy" was just another way of saying "castration". I knew men had it done so they wouldn't have any more babies and I thought that they were having their balls cut off.

I had a friend who said his older brother was going to have a vasectomy and that really sort of weirded me out.

[george2u2 (imported)]

I was eight when I learned about castration. I was 12 when my cousin and uncle had vasectomies and my kcousin explained it to me. I had never heard of a vasectomy before that. Back in the 1960's men had to go to states where it was legal. My cousin and uncle used a hunting trip to get it done.

[-Antino- (imported)]

I was about five or six when other kids and I witnessed some men castrating piglets. They did it by placing the poor little pigs on a large stone and cutting their testicles with a large sharp knife. The pigs squealed loudly in pain. After the men where done with a number of pigs, they, playfully, turned to us kids and threatened to do the same with us. They even took one of my friends, placed him on the stone, and went ahead with other motions while the kid screamed. The men where just having fun with it.

About vasectomy I learned when I was in my early 20s.

[paring (imported)]

I don't recall exactly when I've heard of vasectomy the first time, perhaps 18 y.o. but I was told this was to render men sterile and that had nothing to with castration. My mother has often threatened my brother and I to cut our penis but that never lead me to fantasize about penectomy.

Do you know if your friend developed a castration fantasy, like you, afterward?

I was about five or six when other kids and I witnessed some men castrating piglets. They did it by placing the poor little pigs on a large stone and cutting their testicles with a large sharp knife. The pigs squealed loudly in pain. After the men where done with a number of pigs, they, playfully, turned to us kids and threatened to do the same with us. They even took one of my friends, placed him on the stone, and went ahead with other motions while the kid screamed. The men where just having fun with it.

About vasectomy I learned when I was in my early 20s.

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

I don't think I was more than 10 or so when I first heard of a Vasectomy. I think it was a storyline on one or more Sitcoms of the 1970's. I always knew what it was and that it wasn't a castration. I don't know when I first even heard of castration or ever gave it any though. Personally I came to the EA as an offshoot of TG Usenet groups and TG websites. I'd imagine I first read of castration in relation to MTF surgery, not as something on its own.

[C van D (imported)]

I was about five or six when other kids and I witnessed some men castrating piglets. They did it by placing the poor little pigs on a large stone and cutting their testicles with a large sharp knife. The pigs squealed loudly in pain. After the men where done with a number of pigs, they, playfully, turned to us kids and threatened to do the same with us. They even took one of my friends, placed him on the stone, and went ahead with other motions while the kid screamed. The men where just having fun with it.

And it's not only vasectomy that gets confused. Some time ago "Country Life" magazine ran a story about a family holidaying on a farm. The daughter aged 9 or so went exploring and in one of the barns, watched two men turning boar-piglets into porkers - removing their testicles with two cuts of a razor.

Later she told her brother, aged six, all about it. The following conversation ensued:

Girl. I was watching them doing the pigs this afternoon. You should have heard them squealing!

Boy. What was being done to them?

Girl. Oh you know - that operationon their privates, that all boys have!

[Mac (imported)]

We, as children, never heard of any of those things when we were young. Things were much different then. I vagely remember hearing about George Jorgenson becomming Christine. However, the media coverage was not what it is today and the adults didn't talk about those things in front of the children. I was probably about 6 before I knew the difference between boys and girls genitals and in high school before knowing why.

[Riverwind (imported)]

I am with Mac on this one, it was never talked about, TV still had a problem with a man and woman holding each other or haven forbid kissing and even Ozzie and Harriet slept in twin beds and they were married.

So as an adult as for when ? who knows I don't remember or care.

River

[Uncle Flo (imported)]

Having not been provided with information from adults about sexual subjects I took matters into my own hands and went on to acquire as much information as I could from whatever sources I could find. --FLO--

[nvrgag44 (imported)]

My Dad grew up on a farm and spoke very matter-of-factly about farm life including castration of animals. He said they smeared lard on the site as a dressing. Animals like horses were castrated to make them more docile and manageable. Animals bred for food were castrated to make the meat more tender. I was probably about 8 or so if I remember right. As a matter of curiosity I remember asking him when I was about 18 how tough human meat would be if a guy like me wasn't castrated. I was in pretty good shape. He said the meat would be like an old bull, so tough you couldn't chew it. So I understood castration. I learned about vasectomy in the early 60s sometime when a family acquaintance got one. Just the thought of having one's scrotum cut open was just as scary for me at the time as castration. Then I had one myself in the mid 80s.