Taken from WDIV Channel 4 Detroit (http://www.wdiv.com)

Orginal Story Plus some news video (http://www.clickondetroit.com/det/news/ ... 90633.html)

Castration Investigation May Include More Victims

Suspect Says He Learned Surgery From Grandparents

Posted: 10:42 a.m. EDT June 11, 2002

Updated: 8:39 p.m. EDT June 11, 2002

OAK PARK, Mich.-- A 48-year-old Birmingham man is recovering Tuesday after undergoing a castration procedure he arranged to have done by an amateur surgeon, Local 4 reported.

Police say the procedure was performed on a dining room table inside an Oak Park home early Saturday morning by a 29-year-old man.

Lt. Bruce Smith said that the victim was found in front of the home with heavy blood stains on the front of his pants. When asked what happened the man allegedly told officers that he had undergone a voluntary castration two hours earlier.

Investigators later searched the suspect's home and said that they found enough medical equipment and drugs to perform surgery. Authorities said that the suspect is not a licensed doctor.

The man told officers that he is from Taiwan and that he learned to perform surgery from his grandparents, who were doctors. He performed his first procedure on a dog in Australia several years ago, Local 4 reported.

The victim arranged to meet the suspect over the Internet, Local 4 reported.

Smith said that investigators found a pair of severed testicles in a Tupperware container in the suspect's refrigerator, which he reportedly says were from another man he castrated last week. That procedure was done inside a van, Local 4 reported.

Psychiatrist Gerald Shiener said that there are some men who are so uncomfortable with sexual issues that they would rather undergo castration.

"There are always a handful of people who are so uncomfortable with sexual issues or so afraid of sexual issues that their only solution or only way out is to have those things cut out of them or cut off," said Shiener.

The suspect told detectives that he has performed similar surgeries on at least 50 other men. He said that Saturday's incident was the first in Oak Park.

The Oakland County prosecutor is considering charges.

Well I hope some people realize that even an experianced cutter can make mistakes. Things CAN and DO go wrong ocassionally.

There is a lot of this community that wants to be castrated in other than a doctor’s office. Most of the time everything goes ok, but it only takes one bad one like the one above that can set our cause back. What we need is not more cutters but more doctors that are willing to do castrations. Remember no operation is 100% and doctors practice medicine. If you are going to get castrated do it safely. I am scheduled to see Dr's Spector and Kimmel this September.

Good luck to you all and remember to play safe.

Riverwind

And not only does this raise the level of public awareness, to some degree, it also puts a bad light on in-home cutters and throws the eunuch or wannabe into an unwelcome spotlight in today's narrow-minded world.

I don't know if this story is in the mainstream press or not, but coming so soon (yea, call it soon...) on the heels of the Ed Bodkin story, it's not really a good thing. Add to this the GQ magazine article with Gelding some time ago, and it's a pretty strange mix.

It also raises the suspiscion level, especially since this case involves the man saying that he met his cutter via the Internet.

I'm not saying that this is a total disaster or anything, but I don't really think it's a good thing for the Community as a whole.

Just be careful, people. That's all I want to say.

I would have to agree, this does not help the community out very well.

So far it has only appeared on 1 of 5 TV channels in the area, and isn't a major headline in the local papers. It took 3 days for it to be mentioned on the news. I plan on monitoring the local news to see what else develops from there.

This has definitely made me really reconsider the whole issue of castration. At the moment I would have to say that I'm leaning towards Dr. Spector and Kimmel (http://www.felixspector.com/).

FYI.

I have been in contact with the guy that was cut. He is out of the hospital and healing OK. Hopefully he will post some comments and his experiences shortly, as a learning experience for everyone.

As for the cutter, we will have to wait and see what happens to him. Some of the information disagrees what I was told by the cutter.

Perhaps the best approach to using an anonymus cutter is to learn about the proper procedure yourself and discuss the plans with the cutter prior the event. I would also suggest that you have a friend accompany you to the castration who also knows about the procedure. Of course this won't completely protect anyone from ending up in a bad way but it will always be a risky procedure largely due to the legal ramifications.

Here is a article taken from the local newspapers

The Detroit Free Press (http://www.freep.com/)

Orginal Article (http://www.freep.com/news/locoak/ncast12_20020612.htm)

Police shocked by a castration that went awry

Birmingham man sought out surgery

June 12, 2002

BY JOHN MASSON AND AMY KLEIN

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS

It wasin his low-slung Oak Park home, he told police, that he quietly performed a castration on a man who contacted him through the Internet.

The 29-year-old Taiwanese national told police he had performed about 50 castrations before his kitchen-table operation on a 48-year-old Birmingham man went wrong.

Now, police are trying to figure out whether a crime was committed.

The man, who said he performed castrations both here and in his previous home in Australia, told police Saturday he had finished the procedure and the two men were enjoying a postoperative piece of pie when the Birmingham man started laughing.

Then he started bleeding.

The men couldn't stanch the flow. At about 5 a.m. the newly castrated man stepped out to the street. Someone called police, who found him sitting on the curb in a pair of blood-soaked blue jeans.

He said he'd been voluntarily castrated a couple of hours earlier in the nearby ranch house.

Inside, police found two human testicles in a container in the refrigerator.

"I can't even imagine this," said Lt. Bruce Smith, head of the Oak Park Public Safety Department's detective bureau. "It's bewildering to me."

Investigators aren't releasing either man's name until they sort out whether a crime was committed. Likewise, investigators don't know why the Birmingham man went under the knife.

Criminal or not, home castration is not unheard of.

Several Web sites are devoted to the subject, which some men pursue for erotic reasons. The Birmingham man gave investigators the name of one such Web site.

Dr. Jonathan Metzl, a professor in psychiatry and women's studies at the University of Michigan, said the desire to be castrated could stem from a number of psychiatric disorders.

People who suffer from gender identity disorder feel they are living in the body of the wrong sex and are disgusted by their own genitals, Metzl said. Or, a man with an obsessive-compulsive disorder could feel that his genitals are dirty, he said.

"This is very rare," Metzl said. "The fear of castration is much more prevalent than actual castration."

Self-castrations tend to be more common than leaving the job to someone else, said Dr. Dana Ohl, a urologist at the U-M Medical Center who has operated on botched amateur castrations.

"Usually, when these people just chop their own testicle off, they don't pay attention to the blood supply," he said.

The Birmingham man is out of the hospital and recovering after several hours of emergency surgery Saturday morning. The would-be surgeon, who overstayed his visa, has been released as the investigation continues.

"We may not be able to prosecute this guy," Smith said.

Legally, according to Jim Halushka of the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office, you can't commit a criminal assault on a consenting person.

But other legal options are being explored, Halushka said. Police found a bottle labeled "zylocaine" in the Oak Park house, which is being tested in case a prescription-drug law was violated.

Another possibility is a charge of practicing medicine without a license.

Either way, the would-be surgeon has overstayed a student visa by about a year, Halushka said, and that information has been turned over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

"This makes no sense," Halushka said. "This is just too weird."

It will be interesting to find out what happens to the cutter after everthing is resolved.

Hi, all.

I am "the person involved", and yes I'm now resting comfortably at home. I thought I had taken the proper precautions beforehand in that I had checked out his references and discussed the operation with him.

The doctor who fixed the damage said he did a really good job on my right nut in terms of tying things up, suturing, etc. It was when bleeding started on the left side a couple of hours after the operation that he was in over his head. So even if a cutter is knowledgable enough to perform a simple castration, he can be caught out if something unexpected happens.

Luckily I got to the hospital in time so I'm fine now, but there is a lesson here about using a licensed practitioner in a medical setting for your castration. Yeah, I know a real doc won't be willing to put up with your favorite "scene", but it beats winding up dead, which I could have if I had gone without treatment much longer.

I'll be posting more thoughts later on.

And rest assured I left the EA out of my statements to the police, since the EA was not involved in any way with this affair.

Don (imported) wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2002 2:53 am I'll be posting more thoughts later on.

And rest assured I left the EA out of my statements to the police, since the EA was not involved in any way with this affair.

I am very very happy that you are now recovering and will sooner or later be healed. I assume from the newspaer stories that the bleeding occured AFTER both testicles were removed? If so, you are now a eunuch, and I hope the result is what you are looking for, and will make your ordeal worthwhile.

All of which points out again that we need more legal doctors willing to do this operation on consenting adults, since not everyone can afford a trip to Philadelphia.

Don,

Glad to hear that you're recovering. As the old saying goes, even the best laid plans can go astray. I'd send ya an online get-well-soon e-card, but those usually result in tons of spam coming in to you so I won't!

:redbounce

The story made it to Minneapolis talk radio this morning, so it is on the the ABC news wire.

talula