When I was about 14, I had an undescended testicle removed, after a several month round of weekly testosterone shots my doctor thought might encourage it to descend. It didn't. The operation was under general anesthesia, and a plastic prosthesis was inserted in my scrotum opposite my remaining testicle.
I don't remember too much about the operation, but this experience scarred me for a long time, because I felt different from all the other guys and less of a man. I never received any counseling, and my family, rather reserved, never discussed it with me.
Whenever I had to undress, as in a gym locker room, I always felt self-conscious, because the plastic prosthesis is fixed and doesn't move up and down like my remaining testicle. So I always thought I was being stared at. This also led to a lot of sexual reserve, and I haven't had that many sexual partners.
My acceptance of my self I attribute in large measure to my becoming a naturist (nudist) fifteen years ago. For the last two years, I've lived in a nudist community. And yes, that's me in the avatar photo. The photo isn't intended to afront anyone. It's a photo I've given to a number of friends. I just feel it's more an expression of me than any photo I have wearing clothing, which are often just a mask. It's also a photo of liberation, an overcoming of my fear of being laughed at because I only have one real testicle.
I've had an opportunity to see such a variety of genitalia: big penises, tiny penises, "inny" penises, huge testicles, tiny testicles, saggy testicles. One woman I know had a mastectomy, and she had a butterfly tattooed on her nipple-less breast. The term we use is "body acceptance", which means accept what your body looks like, accept what others' bodies look like, and get on to deeper issues.
So I seldom have concerns anymore that people are looking at me and evaluating whether my ass is too hairy, or one testicle is hanging lower than another. Since I work from home, I'm nude about 23 hours out of 24.
This may have relevance to this website, since the people seriously considering body modification - castration, penectomy, nullification - obviously see themselves as trapped in a body they dislike, and perhaps one they feel other people judge negatively.
I fantacize about nullification. I'll never do it. For me that fantasy revolves around a question of how I'd be accepted if I was totally asexual, if I had neither the penis and testicles identifying me as a man, nor the vagina and breast identifying me as a woman. I never fantacize about becoming a woman, but rather an asexual being.
In some sense becoming a nudist is becoming asexual, at least most of the time. I've never seen a guy with an erection in two years. That, of course, is in public, because we nudists obviously still enjoy sex in privacy.
There's also a question of aesthetics. As a naturist, I can look at nude photos of people and appreciate them absent any sexual context. Frankly, I can appreciate the photos of nullos from this same aethetic perspective.
My counsel to those considering radical surgery is that they visit a nudist resort first. Seriously. You can find a listing at
www.naturistsociety.com. (Click on the Naturist Network link and enter your state for resorts near you.) You just might find there are some people who will non-judgmentally accept you for who you are within, without regard to the physical body you're trapped in.
If you still feel the need to have the surgery, then more power to you.