http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

Will give you a more global look circa 1930

excepts

The first state to introduce a compulsory sterilization bill was Michigan, in 1897 but the proposed law failed to garner enough votes by legislators to be adopted. Eight years later Pennsylvania's state legislators passed a sterilization bill that was vetoed by the governor. Indiana became the first state to enact sterilization legislation in 1907,[27] followed closely by Washington and California in 1909. Sterilization rates across the country were relatively low (California being the sole exception) until the 1927 Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell which legitimized the forced sterilization of patients at a Virginia home for the mentally retarded. The number of sterilizations performed per year increased until another Supreme Court case, Skinner v. Oklahoma, 1942, complicated the legal situation by ruling against sterilization of criminals if the equal protection clause of the constitution was violated. That is, if sterilization was to be performed, then it could not exempt white-collar criminals.[28]

The United States was the first country to concertedly undertake compulsory sterilization programs for the purpose of eugenics.[24]

Eugenics programs including forced sterilization existed in most Northern European countries, as well as other more or less Protestant countries. Some programs, such as Canada's and Sweden's, lasted well into the 1970s. Other countries that had notably active sterilization programs include Denmark, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Switzerland, Iceland, and some countries in Latin America (including Panama).[35] In the United Kingdom, Home Secretary Winston Churchill introduced a bill that included forced sterilization.

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Additionally, Japan, India, Peru, USSR on Romanian females on their way to forced labor.

It was a "time". Seems like lobotomies were around the same time too. Connection?

Moi

When someone goes in for a vasectomy they call it just that, a vasectomy. They don't say, "I'm going to have myself sterlized." I had always thought that "sterilization" was a euphemism for more offensive words such as castration, gelding, nuetering, emasculation, and unmanning. But perhaps I was wrong.

The thing I find difficult to understand is how could this, forced castration and vasectomy of underage boys, have gone on-not so very long ago-without people becoming upset and trying to stop it?

Imagine if you lived in a society where the parents, or legal guardian, of a boy could have that boy castrated by a private practice physician with no questions asked an no intervention from the authorities. Imagine if it was being done in middle class and upper class communities, perhaps to the boy next door. Wouldn't that upset you?

Just imagine if you lived in a society where a judge could order your 13 year old castrated for breaking the windows of a neighbor's green house. How would you feel about that?

Suppose you lived in a society where foster care homes could, and did, have boys castrated for mastrabation, ADD, dyslexia, epilepsy or just low marks in school? Is that how you'd want your tax money spent?

In some ways vasectomy was just a brutal as castration. Since it left no marks parents were more likely to have it done to their kids. There was a case where a family with six boys had three of them vasectomized as a form of second generation birth control. Their parents wanted to limit the number of grandkids.

Believe it or not, all of this happened in California in the first half of the 20th centuery. Didn't anyone care?

Change takes time.

It was an accepted practice. Eugenics were considered compassionate. It was only after world war two that it began to fall out of favor. Problem is, that the people who thought it was acceptable didn't go away. It took an additional generation of people for it to disappear. (forced sterilization kept going well into the 1970's)

What is considered compassionate and correct, changes over time. It could very well change back as population pressures grow, and the economy continues to tumble. It only takes a generation or so for things to dramatically change.

There may well come a time in our not so distant future that our children or grandchildren complain that we didn't sterilize more people and control our numbers. They'll ask, "Why weren't people upset?", "Why wasn't there an outcry?"

I'm not suggesting that is the right thing to do, but human nature is fickle.

I remember a time when people complained that Drone attacks were immoral because they remove the participants from the true face of war. Now they are accepted as the best way to reduce casualties, and protect troops. Things change, but they take time.

Not so long ago people put their mentally infirm in places that were little better than cages, where they were mercilessly tortured. Escaping that torment at the price of a couple bits of gristle between the legs would have seemed a small price to pay. It was the humane thing to do... or so people thought.

Give it another generation, and take a look at how we live today. What we do, and think of as kind, will seem barbaric and wrong. We can only hope we become better with every passing year. We can only hope our actions are the right ones.

Just my two cents.

Cainanite (imported) wrote: Wed Nov 02, 2011 4:45 pm Give it another generation, and take a look at how we live today. What we do, and think of as kind, will seem barbaric and wrong. We can only hope we become better with every passing year. We can only hope our actions are the right ones.

Just my two cents.

Some of us are already there, but when we speak up against certain things, such as superficiality, we get a LOT of resistance and people everywhere, including some who're here only for a fetish and a cheap thrill in the EA, digging up all sorts of drawn out, flimsy "reasons" why espousing anti-superficiality is wrong.

And people wonder why I alternate between a strong desire to stop caring, and despair.

It seems like every generation figures it out just a little better than the one before. Unfortunately we still make tragic mistakes. If you are ahead of the curve, then this world can seem like a confusing, cruel existence. I've had my share of that.

At least here in North America, and Western Europe, for the most part, I take pride in the advancements we've made in understanding each other. It is far from perfect, and we have a LONG way to go. Still it seems like acceptance and kindness improve a little every year.

Who knows what the future will bring?

Mostly, it's seen as incredibly awful to do a castration. Books show murder, torture, other horrible things, but hardly ever do they show a castration. I presume it happens sometimes, but maybe it's just not reported.

Cainanite (imported) wrote: Wed Nov 02, 2011 6:57 pm If you are ahead of the curve, then this world can seem like a confusing, cruel existence. I've had my share of that.

Try pointing that out to the people in EA who've challenged things I've said or just put me down, simply because they're too selfish to do anything about what's bad about themselves!

punkypink (imported) wrote: Wed Nov 02, 2011 10:59 pm Try pointing that out to the people in EA who've challenged things I've said or just put me down, simply because they're too selfish to do anything about what's bad about themselves!

As far as the EA goes, I've found it to be one of the more accepting places for ideas and dialog.

True. I've been trolled, got in arguments, and more than once walked away from my computer crying. (Sometimes in frustration, sometimes sorrow, and occasionally joy too.) Of the places I've tried to fit in, the EA is the only place that keeps me coming back time and again. It is the only place where I can admit, that sex has no interest for me, and I wish my balls were just gone so I could get on with my life. No-one here has ever judged me for trying to figure myself out.

I'm sorry that you feel some of us are too selfish to understand you. There are plenty enough who don't understand me, so I know a bit of what that is like. I've learned to take the best that I've been offered here, and ignore the rest.

For the record, I think you have a lot to offer and I've always enjoyed your posts.

You are of course right. The EA suffers from what all of the internet suffers from. Over-confidence in anonymity. As long as no-one knows who you are, you feel free to say all the hurtful things you like without consequence. Compared to other sites though, the EA seems, to me, like a paradise. It is a place where we can talk about the horrors of the past, like forced sterilization, without resorting to cheap, hurtful jokes at the expense of those that suffered through it. Where we can discuss what our past means for our future, and what it means to our present. I find a lot of joy in that.

I despise that people have put you down for your ideas on this site. I've seen nothing in your posts to suggest that you deserve that. We are a tiny portion of the population with our shared interest. We are some of the few who might understand what those poor people who were submitted to institutional castration might have felt. We are a group that should stick together.

Thanks for your posts Punky! You rock!

(P.S. If you really want to avoid being attacked, take it from my experience, avoid the political threads. Nobody wins in those. I don't know if you frequent them, but I have. I have the bruises to prove it.)

Punky, when you talk of being anti-superficial, what exactly do you mean?

I think that to aspire to be anti-superficial is a good thing. You mean to look at people for what they bring to the table on the inside rather than the outside, correct?

I have spoken about being superficial myself in the past, in the sense that I believe a female has to have been of a certain level of attractiveness to potentially attract me, and then win my heart. Are you wanting to change this in humans (so that we can potentially attracted by anyone), or are you saying that humans are not as superficial as I am?

Or do you mean that too many people crave the most expensive cars, furniture, jewellery and houses? Personally, this side of things I care little about, so wouldn't consider myself superficial in that way.

Though I still desire my own roof over my head and car, I don't care to ever live in a mansion or drive a mercedes.

I have not read many of your posts, but what I have seen I have liked. I hope that you continue to share your mind on the EA.

I like the EA, even though I probably don't fit in with 80% of the conversation. Some of the stuff on here is very enlightening. It possibly helps that I am not someone to gets very offended often; I would consider that one of my strongest points. I don't think that I have felt offended yet on the EA...yet

"Over-confidence in anonymity." Fair point Cainanite. But I don't think that the suffering side of things from this is the only effect. Anonymity allows people the courage to express themselves (which often can be a positive) who otherwise wouldn't. Even for me, though I go under my real name (combined), I am as good as anonymous. It's not as if I am going to bump into anyone at work who reads my posts!

There are at least a couple of members on here who have really trusted me with private information about themselves in private messages; I am very grateful that they felt able to open up to me like that.

As for politics; I was blessed without the brain power required to understand most of those discussions, thus I avoid those threads by default, and my skin remains so perfect that I should be called Maybelline Boy

Ignorance is bliss

loveableleopardy (imported) wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2011 2:40 am "Over-confidence in anonymity." Fair point Cainanite. But I don't think that the suffering side of things from this is the only effect. Anonymity allows people the courage to express themselves (which often can be a positive) who otherwise wouldn't. Even for me, though I go under my real name (combined), I am as good as anonymous. It's not as if I am going to bump into anyone at work who reads my posts!

There are at least a couple of members on here who have really trusted me with private information about themselves in private messages; I am very grateful that they felt able to open up to me like that.

As for politics; I was blessed without the brain power required to understand most of those discussions, thus I avoid those threads by default, and my skin remains so perfect that I should be called Maybelline Boy

Ignorance is bliss

You are right, too. Anonymity attracted me to share myself here. It allows me to be who I really am. It is the gratefulness I feel to the people on this site that keep me honest in my posts.

As to not revealing my real name, my parents would be horrified and disappointed to learn of this side of me. I'm an adult, and I know they wouldn't be on this site, but my name is all I really have. I can't pass it on to another generation because of my sterility. All I can do is try to keep some semblance of decorum about my name. (For the record, my avatar is myself at age 13.)

Being an EA author, and writing another submission for the Archive when submissions return, I fear for my name legally. People have been prosecuted for owning the type of stories I write. That scares me.

That said, I too have shared my real name in private emails with some of the members I've come to trust and respect. Anonymity is a two edged sword. When used to protect it is a blessing, when used to cause hurt, it is a curse. Too many of us use it to lash out without regard for how someone else might feel.

We've probably wandered a little too far off topic now.

I believe we were talking about forced sterilizations, and the morality of it. We should get back to that.

If anyone would like to continue the discussion about anonymity and how we treat each other here, we should probably start a new thread. Or PM me. I always enjoy messaging privately with anyone who cares to.