Effects of Castration, chapt. 6

[JesusA (imported)]

Effects of Castration, chapt. 6

Effects of Castration on Men and Women: Accidental, Voluntary and Involuntary Castration; Eunuchism and History - Medical Treatment and Aspects

[Remember to read this in the context of its 1947 publication date. It was certainly very enlightened for its time. Unfortunately, we probably all know people who still think like this nearly 60 years later. --- JA]

VI. THE CASTRATION COMPLEX: A Mental Disorder

The castration complex may be observed as frequently in persons of healthy physical sexuality as in persons endowed with defective physical sexuality. Dr. Sigmund Freud elaborated upon the idea of injury to the genitalia arising most often from a parental threat of injury as punishment. It was the Freudian theory that later fears in injury may reappear as symptoms of neurosis.

The world is indebted to Dr. Freud for having broken down barriers and debunked the priestcrafters by exposing man's innermost being, the deepest or greatest depth of the unconscious. Freud's indisputable disclosures revealed mind as mind in all its intricacies, shed light where there had been darkness and revealed not a shadow of an immortal soul.

To various subtleties Dr. Freud paid little heed. This is seen in the fact that Freud either did not specifically recognize or did not pay especial attention to the fact that the castration complex often grows with the growing child and often becomes fully as effective as actual physical castration. This becomes apparent more often in the male sex but occurs more often, perhaps, in the female sex.

That this is true is not difficult to understand. A powerful male castration complex causes impotency. The male is not capable of sexual intercourse - the act of reproduction. He is incapable of erecting the male organ and maintaining erectility to the end that he may procreate. The female, on the other hand, may take no interest whatsoever in the sexual act and yet be entirely capable of going through with it and becoming pregnant. Hence, the female with a fixed castration complex is not capable, as is the male, of avoiding reproduction - except, of course, through such inclinations as to refuse to permit the sexual act. There are exceptions, the most important of these being a condition in the female known as vaginismus. In vaginismus the vagina is in a state of spasm and penetration by the male organ is impossible.

The most damaging castration complex appears to be that which is gradually instilled into the child from day to day. Rarely have psychoanalysts been able to "break" these cases. The victims usually draw themselves into a shrewdly prepared protective shell - and there they remain. Outwardly they often, in adult life, show manifestations of lasciviousness. This is a psychological covering. It keeps people from suspecting the limitations and incapabilities of these victims and at the same time gives the victims a little ego expansion they could not readily experience otherwise.

Fathers are responsible to an extent for the development of the castration complex in both sons and daughters. Fathers make threats of what they will do if a son or daughter turns toward "unchastity." They make scary threats of "cutting off" the male organs of their sons. In so threatening, few fathers think anything more of the threats. To then it is often a huge joke. They feel that they are merely teasing their sons. The teasing all too often has far reaching effects and leads to a misfit life - of little value to humanity.

As a rule fathers have the responsibility of making the living for the family and accumulating the family fortune. In doing this they are quite busy outside the family and to mothers is left the task of "rearing" the children. Thus it is that the children are deeply under the maternal influence day by day through the formative years.

It is almost unthinkable that a high percentage of mothers who give birth to two or more children of either sex have a secret fixation and hope that at least one boy and one girl will never marry - never leave them. This fixation is more often than not rooted so deeply into the unconscious that the mothers so affected seldom realize that they have the fixation. Many who do come to realize it begin an immediate fight to give it up. Others feel that it is their inalienable right and fight to retain and expand the fixation.

An untold number of bachelors of both sexes are bachelors because they have a castration complex so severe that they feel far less capable of marriage than if they had actually been physically castrated. This, of course, is not a sweeping statement to the effect that all bachelors of both sexes are victims of a castration complex. Old General Gomez ruled Venezuela for years and fathered dozens of children - yet he remained a bachelor. A courageous woman in Norway, being unmarried, gave birth to a child. She was a teacher and was promptly fired. She put up a fight and was restored to her position. She wanted a child but did not want to marry. This, it appears, was satisfactory to the man who fathered the child. The woman's fight is commendable. It was one for personal freedom. On the other hand - she wanted to raise this child so that mother and child would always be able to remember the times THEY had had together. Pity the child! Pity it first because it will be mother-dominated. Pity it again because as it begins the process of growing up, it will, like other children, want a father.

The courage manifested by the mother was commendable. The fight she made was commendable. Cheating and dominating the child - cheating it out of a father - making it goodness knows what - but whatever may suit the mother's fancy - these are to be condemned in the most condemnatory thoughts of which anyone is capable. [I wonder what Dr. Cauldwell would have to say about the number of single parents today. Given his extremely liberal (for the time) statements in the rest of this pamphlet, I doubt that he would agree with the contemporary conservatives. —JA]

The mother - or as an eminent psychiatrist has lately said - the "mom" - of any child, has ways more subtle than the serpent, for bending her sprigs as she wants the tree to grow. Healthy influences often intervene - and the tree grows differently. Moms have a way from early in the life of certain of their children of "getting beneath the child's skin." First, they pet and pamper. They find it easy to five the child a chronic case of hypochondria. Just let the child have a slight spell of illness (and most children do) and the Mom begins at once by constantly reminding the child that it may become ill again - seriously. They child must remember its heart, its this or that. When it is advantageous to the Mom the child is certain to be a "delicate child." There are any number of labels. Other children must humor the Mom's fix. The child who is a fix has little chance to grow up normally.

When such a child reaches a certain maturity and feels the sexual - the procreative urge - and begins to cast about for a sweetheart, the Mom can always find something terrible about any favored girl or boy, to tell her fix. She doesn't always succeed in creating a mental castrate - but she succeeds all too often for the good of humanity. And Moms like this are all too common. In families of four or more children, Moms who establish fixes on at least one male child and one female child are so common as to be almost universal. The fixes do not always respond - not wholly - and the subtleties of the Moms fail. This is healthy for humanity. Unfortunately Moms succeed all too often.

When a fix resists with determination, one of the favorite weapons of the Mom is: "I never thought I'd live to raise a child who would talk to me like that. I never thought I'd live to raise a child that would disrespect and disobey me that way." It's insane psychology, but it works more often than those who have not made surveys and analyses ever dream. The same terms are rarely used on "other" children - regardless of what the conduct of the other children may be.

The principal cause of persons with a castration complex is, like the cause of all other real evils, ignorance. When ignorance is accompanied by selfishness - the evil gains in magnitude.

It has been explained previously that fathers have, by using the knife, or seeking its use, castrated their sons. Mental castration may be as severe and in many instances it is decidedly more severe.

The female mental castrate for reasons of economy marries more often than the male mental castrate. Because of her ability to respond by permitting her husband to satisfy himself sexually, she gets along in marriage - sometimes so well that no one suspects that there is anything amiss. Her husband regards her as merely a cold or frigid woman and is led to believe that he has done as well, perhaps, as the majority of other men - and better than men who have married wives so passionate as to keep their husbands forever jealous of them.

When the male mental castrate marries he may, if he is fortunate enough to marry a tactful woman, be quickly cured. If the reverse is true the marriage soon ends on the rocks - the mismated people separate or get divorced. Rarely does the marriage rehabilitate the female mental castrate. Sexual relations are forever anathema to her and she projects her insanity upon as many of her children as she possibly can.

One other form of figurative castrate merits mention. This is the "organ size" castrate. Far more than half the men who take their problems to the sexologist for counsel and advice believe themselves to have external sexual organs so small as to bar marriage or success in marriage. These men believe in all of the superstitions about "developers." No amount of sane professional advice turns the majority of these away from their superstitions.