believe me, I have no intention of trying it.

I have some experience on electric fences "non-deadly" and "deadly" types. Non-deadly fences are connected to a generator which produces a high voltage (typically 2,500 to 10,000 volts) of very short duration and very low intensity, every 2 to 5 seconds, average. These pulses are safe for animals and humans because of the very low energy involved. Since there is a possibility that heart failure occurs in some cases, I would recommend to stay away.

These fences are used to limit animals' wandering outside of their assigned area, it does not take long for cows to learn to stay away, even when the generator is switched off. I remember how scared was my dog after touching one of these fences !

Deadly fences are used by the military and are not subject to any limitation or restriction, the voltage is not necessarily higher, but the intensity is. I once saw the photo of an elephant killed by the electricity. Too bad he could not read the warning panels.

I heard the story of a boy who pissed from a bridge over the train track, the urine needed not touch the wire, an enormous arc caused the immediate destruction of his penis and extensive damage around. He survived but his genitals were blown up for life.

If, by accident, you short the two connections of a car battery, there is no high voltage (typically 12 volts) but the instant intensity is enormous, can exceed 1,000 amperes and cause the object to melt or, at least heat up to a high temperature, even cause the battery's vapor to explode (hydrogen). To prevent any accident, it is recommended always to disconnect the negative connection first, simply because a contact of the wrench with the car body cannot cause any short-circuit, as the negative pole of the battery IS connected to the chassis. On vintage british car, the positive ground required the positive connection to be disconnected first.

Note that inverting the polarity on such a car is very easy for a specialist, and necessary to connect a modern radio for example.

Note that some cars are filled up with electronics and cannot be restarted should the battery be disconnected for one second. They call that progress !

Patrickchemcast (imported) wrote: Sun Aug 22, 2010 2:32 pm I heard the story of a boy who pissed from a bridge over the train track, the urine needed not touch the wire, an enormous arc caused the immediate destruction of his penis and extensive damage around. He survived but his genitals were blown up for life.

Dave

Dave (imported) wrote: Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:43 am It might stop your heart too. Especially if you stand on damp ground.

Didn't Mythbusters put this to rest? The stream of urine is a set of drops, not quite a complete "stream," and as such no real shock can be delivered. It is possible that with enough voltage you can probably get an arc from drop to drop, but highly unlikely that the stream of urine could support high amperage.

Also in order to stop the heart you would need to send electricity through the heart (except for rare cases). So up the penis and down to the ground should not effect the heart. Electrosex play can send quite a bit of electricity through the genitals, but is rather safe.

Well, as a layperson I would think that exposing testicles to some electric currents could effectively result in quite a safe castration. If you use some tap changing transformer, the direct current and quite a small electrodes, you can focus quite specifically on warming up testicles one by one, without affecting e.g. your penis, prostate etc. You can easily regulate the currents and check regularly changes of temperature on the surface of your scrotum. I would doubt that the testicles could survive too long, if they are exposed for many minutes (or several hours) to a several C higher temperature than to that one they are normally used to. After killing your testicles you could visit your doctor or A&E to simply remove the dead tissue from your scrotum. I would also expect that such a procedure would be much less painful, and probably also less risky, than e.g. burdizzo or alcohol jabs into testicles.

I also read somewhere that some sort of radiation was used in Nazi concentration camps to castrate gay prisoners. After the procedure (and I doubt it was anything more than warming up the testicles) it took only several hours until the testicles completely lost their consistency and could be easily poured off the scrotum.

Has anyone any knowledge or opinion about feasibility or risks of the focused, electric or other, warming up of the testicles as a method of castration? Or could anyone specify the information about the use of radiation in Nazi concentration camps?

Thanks in advance for any responses!

OK, I guess I'll chime in here, being a practicing electronics engineer...

People are correct about the fact that it is not the voltage that kills, but the amperage. Voltage is like a hill--anything on top of that hill has the potential to do something harmful to someone down below. Amperage is like an item rolling down that hill. A human being hit by a BB rolling down a 1,000ft. tall hill won't really be hurt. Getting hit by a steamroller going down the same hill is deadly.

Electricity is used in many ways. It can be beneficial, or deadly.

Electric fences for animals are usually so low in current that they do nothing more than cause discomfort and mild pain. Deadly fences, third rails for trains, and power towers run both extreme voltage levels and currents. The voltage is necessary to be able to create the arc across possible insulating materials (shoe soles, etc.) for deadly fences, and to keep power lost to conductor resistance low for power lines.

It can be safe to say that low voltage is something that cannot be as harmful either--that same steamroller going down a 1 inch tall hill is not likely to hurt.

Urine is a wonderful conductor of electricity, being high in salts that break into ions and conduct electricity well. Believe it or not, pure, de-ionized water will *NOT* conduct electricity. There are no ions to transport electrons. So with urinating on high voltage lines, electricity flows well, and the distance between drops can easily be bridged by an arc through the air.

Urine conducts as well as any wire, and if you look at a typical stream size, tens to hundreds of amperes can flow in an instant. This is more than enough power to kill and destroy body parts.

So be careful playing with electricity. Don't take it from one hand to the other--that will get it flowing across your heart. I know there are plenty of safeguards such as kill switches and other safety systems for when we work on high voltage and current.

I do not think electricity would be able to conveniently castrate. The main thing the electricity would need to do is to heat them up and basically cook them. But to do that, you'd burn the scrotum and such, and it would be painful.

A long-term, lower current might not actually burn, but would still be painful. Just try putting a small 9-volt battery on your scrotum and it will start to feel like it is burning after a bit.

Regarding the electric fences, as mentioned above there are two types. The main type used around farms is just really a cattle prod -- it gives a quick shock that is jolting/painful but not dangerous. I used to put my balls and cock on an electric fence on our farm when I was a kid. I got to where I could stand it for quite a few jolts. The other type is a lethal fence, but that is only used in serious situations like jails and military barriers.

Regarding peeing on an electric fence, it depends on the distance. If you went up and were really close then it will conduct. But if you did it from any distance it won't because the stream is not really continuous (as proven in Mythbusters). So it is not really something you can do accidentally.

Anyway, like most do-it-yourself methods, it will be painful, potentially dangerous, and with no guarantee of castration.

OK, thanks for your opinions, folks.

But what about using some local anaesthetics before electrocuting the testicles? Couldn't anaesthetics increase the amperage tolerance of testicles and reduce the pain?

And what about gradually increasing the amperage? Won't the sensitivity of testicles gradually decrease, along with the gradual decrease of testosterone production? I mean if you warm up your testicles by the direct current for a longer period of time (say once or repeatedly for several hours), aren't the testicles bound both:

1) to increase their direct current tolerance both in terms of amperage and the resulting heat

and

2) gradually, but then permanently lose their ability to produce the testosterone?

Agricultural type electric wires are used to discourage - not kill - cattle from going through a fence line. Most use I have seen is as a single wire to keep cattle in a wheat field. It is also used to keep cattle from crowding a regular barbed wire fence too much and will keep dogs from climbing a fence too.

I would suspect that the wattage required to discourage some animals, such as bison, might be much than for domestic cattle.

I worked many years as a surveyor on a seismograph crew. I'd occasionally come across a very short legged stout surveyor. One time I met a kid who had worked for him as rodman. He took great delight in watching his boss try to hop over the fence - bossman got hit many times - sometimes not on his legs.

The Nazi use of Radiation for sterilization was truly evil. The victims were seriously burned and quite a few did not survive. Those that did survive were disfigured and suffered perpetual pain and often damage to other organs as well. Even the Nazis gave up on the idea after a while. --FLO--

bigender (imported) wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2010 9:21 am OK, thanks for your opinions, folks.

But what about using some local anaesthetics before electrocuting the testicles? Couldn't anaesthetics increase the amperage tolerance of testicles and reduce the pain?

All that electricity will do is burn the flesh. You might as well just boil the testicles.

Theoretically electrical could be slightly better because they might cook inside faster, but alternatively electricity won't necessary conduct through the middle but most likely would just go through the scrotal skin.

But basically it would be just as dangerous and painful as boiling them or microwaving them. In other words it is NOT a good idea.