I have recently read several articles about the effect of the subconscious on conscious behavior. As those of you who have studied psychology already know, most of what goes on in the human mind, goes on in the subconscious. And recent research into how people make decisions (much of this done for ad agencies and marketing departments) indicates that a large percentage of the decisions people make, are actually made in the subconscious, even though people go through a process of rationalizing the decisions in their conscious thought.

So my question would be, does the desire to have an orchiectomy develop from conscious consideration of the surgery, or is the decision actually made in the subconscious, and the individual finds ways to explain it in his conscious mind? Another way to look at this is, does a person first become consciously aware that he, for some reason, dislikes having his genitals, and then he considers options and finally decides to have the surgery? Or, at the time that he first feels discontent with his genitals, does he already want to have them excised?

I realize that this kind of analysis may not apply to those who want the organs removed because of an inability to control erotic impulses, and most people probably can't actually remember the first time they realized that they disliked their sex organs, or the first time they conceived the desire to have them removed. However, to the extent that this type of thing can be clarified, an understanding of the nature of the motivations involved should provide insights into what is going on to lead to the decision to seek orchiectomy. I wouldn't say it is necessarily a bad thing, if this sort of decision is actually made in the subconscious, for reasons that may be obscure. I don't have any idea whether there is any way to somehow control impulses of this type that arise from processes which are subconscious, and therefore somewhat inaccessible to conscious analysis or to the application of conscious will power.

Particularly for those of us who have never had urges like that, anything which sheds light on what produces the desire for castration, helps us to understand this phenomenon.

It seems to me that the psychoanalytical school has vastly overstated the importance of the subconsious. Modern, cognitive, psychological research shows that the mind doesn't really work with two separate entities, one known and one unknown. (And neither is the third entity postulated, the super-ego, inaccessible.) But old ideas die hard. I think that the article you read, from what you decribe, still adhere to the freudian theories of mind.

We may not know the exact source of all our ideas and impulses, but there is nothing that says we couldn't know them. Sometimes it may just be a matter of time - the reason lies so far back in our personal history that we have simply forgotten.

And there is for a fact thinking going on that we aren't consciously aware of all the time. But that is not the same as the Subconscious - it seems rather that we may choose to be aware or not. Sometimes we may steer away after a train of though has orginated, because we don't like where it is headed - but it continues and a while down the line (maybe years from now) there's a conclusion waiting for us. It's like when we leave a problem stewing in "the back of our mind" until we find the answer quite unexpectedly.

The subconscious is a methaphore, but a bad one. It seems to say that the human mind is divided. It creates a sense of mystery about subconscious processes. Things take place there that we may need years and years to understand, and usually only with a trained psychoanalyst (that we have to pay). I think a better way to describe it is that everything in our mind may be utilized in a conscious or a pre-conscious way. Sometimes we are in full control of exactly what takes place in our mind, sometimes - especialy when we are under stress - we are not aware of everything. But we could be.

I don't say that it won't be difficult sometimes to understand oneself, because it is. But I think most of that comes from conflicts that we have in our values and our personality. When something is creating a conflict it is uncomfortable. We often shy away from the uncomfortable. Most of what a psychoanalyst really does, is help us face the uncomfortable that we don't want to face on our own.

We are often lazy as well, and that is what the advertisers use. I wrote a paper about this when I read psychology - any suggestion placed in our mind that we don't consciously label as false, will be treated as true. Our "mental filing system" only has one tag - falsehood. When it's missing it must be true (even if it isn't). There is nothing mysterious about that either. (And actually this is the only explanation that takes consumer awareness into account. Otherwise we have to explain why some people who are more critical to adverts have a less active subconscious...) Again freudian theory comes close - but then misleads us.

So I don't think invoking the subconscious is a viable way to approach desires that we don't understand. It only camouflage the problem under a heading that we think is alright. "Oh, it was the subconscious at play! Then it's no biggie. How could I even think there was an explanation..."

So, what about the motives for desiring castration? Most of the time I think motives presented for example in the personal stories here can be accepted at face value. They may not be the whole picture all of the time, sometimes people don't want to give all their reasons, sometimes they may not be aware. But to me, most of the times there's no need for any further explanations when I read about the desires and motives of others here (even though I don't seek castration myself).

When it feels like there is something missing we can substitute what we know from ourselves. Perhaps that is why I feel recognition in what others say about themselves, I have a similar enough process behind me. But I don't think there's any one simple piece of evidence missing that can explain it all to anyone else. I think that then you would have to go very deep into the psychosexual history, to sort of repeat a lot of the steps taken by that individual.

For me, I think that there is a deep seated conflict between the ingrained picture of what I should "be" as a male, based on social and cultural conventions, that clashes with who I am in such a way that I seek a mental refuge. Removing myself, so to speak, from "being male" i.e. having a penis, provides that, in a way. This probably don't make very much sense from "the outside". But then again, "being male" according to the accepted pattern doesn't make much sense to me...

As far as I know, there is no credible way to explain dreams, perceived visions, the origin of novel ideas, or a number of other phenomena which occur in the mind, without attributing them to subconscious mental processes which are either not controlled by the conscious mind or only partially controlled by the conscious will. Most writers seem to treat the unconscious mind, where, of course, dreams originate, as simply one aspect of the subconscious.

Any research into thought processes must necessarily be only partial, because what is being studied can't be scientifically quantified or even, at this writing, scientifically explained. Thus, I doubt whether it could ever be established that everything in what is now considered to be the subconscious can be perceived by the conscious mind. It may be true that, through psychoanalysis and other methods, the subconscious mind can be accessed to some degree. However, functionally speaking, if someone was not consciously aware of his motives for doing something or for his reasons for forming certain concepts and conclusions, then, at the time, those motives or ideas were the product of an aspect of the mind which can be called the subconscious.

While there is no doubt that the importance of the subconscious has been overemphasized by some, most of the ideas developed by Freud, Jung, and others who developed the science (such as it is) of the mind, appear to be accepted today by most psychiatrists and psychologists, albit with many modifications. Freud, incidentally, acknowledged from the first that many or most of his ideas were speculative, and he did not claim to be an absolute authority. I doubt that any responsible researcher in the field has ever claimed absolute validity for his assertions about the workings of the mind.

Stephen Pinker's books are interesting explanations of what happens in the mind, and they deal to some extent with the modifications of Freudian theory.

Well, there are subconcious thoughts. But that is not the same thing as any Subconsious. That is something else. It is a postulated mental entity, with certain qualities which, as far as I understand it, is far from supported by research. One of those qualities is a kind of semi independence. The subconsious is supposed to have sort of an agenda of its own, being the source of impuls that the self needs to control and regulate.

Again, so far as I know there's not much evidence to support the existence of such a mental entity. But if there were, would it answer the fundamental question of how a desire to be castrated originate? Wouldn't it only move the location of the origin from "the mind" to "the unknown content of the subconsious"? In other words, give it another name?

If we are able to satisfy ourselves with saying some desires and notions have unknown roots in that we call the subconsious, shouldn't it be equally possible to satisfy our curiosity by saying that not every notion orginating in our mind have (a known) cause?

For all we know, there probably is a cause - or several causes. But it would seem unlikely that we could track them all down. I cannot explain why I prefer the color blue before other options in most cases. But I know I do. Would it help to say that the root of my preference for blue stems from something subconsious? I don't think so, to me that's just giving it a label. And lables can be misleading.

When I studied psychology the teachers seemed divided in two camps. One that still saw a practical value in the application of the theories of Freud and Jung. The others that said yes, they indeed germinated the science of psychology but some of the seeds were bad. The theories they put forth were not science in the sense that we use the word today - they were rather tools to create an understanding, they were metaphores to explain the mind.

As is obvious I came to side with the latter teachers. I see great value in some of those metaphores. Sometimes even if we know them to be wrong in the strict sense - but helpful nevertheless. But they shouldn't be interpreted as true in the litteral sense. Because that will have effects on our understanding that may lead us far astray from actual knowledge. On the whole, cognitive psychology has amassed a great deal of empirical support and the theories here are often a lot more successful in explaining the phenomenon of mind. But not all - at least not yet. The backside of being scientific is that progress comes slower.

To return to the subject of understanding the desire for castration, I would turn rather to the concept of Gestalt. E.g. a picture interpreted one way that, if you alter the perception ever so slightly will change into something completely different, a Gestalt-switch.

It may be that the motives presented by others doesn't seem to "add up" to an outside observer. They still may, from another perspective. Therefore it would be possible to give all the reasons but still not provide a usefull explanation to anyone not experiencing the same thing.

At least from my own experience, concerning penectomy, that would be the case, as I try to address in another thread: Answering the question "Why"? (http://www.eunuch.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=10389)

I feel that I have enough reasons for my desire, but even if I state them as clear as I possibly can, that doesn't always seem to be enough to others. The answer may lie in the fact that for me they aren't only reasons - there is a lot of feelings attached to some of my motives. Those feelings can be described in words, but words won't make anyone else feel them. And that may be the missing perspective that cause the Gestalt-switch.

Sapient--

I think any conflict between the questions in my original post, and your responses, may lie largely in the definitions of what is in the mind, and what goes on in it. Most subjects which are essentially matters involving ideas, rather than being grounded in tangibly definable elements--that is, subjects like philosophy, religion, ethics, metaphysics, and psychology--often turn out to be largely areas in which the process of defining things becomes paramount, because practically everything which is discussed exists only, or almost only, as thought patterns in the mind, and therefore can't be analyzed as an isolated and easily definable entity which can be analyzed in the tangible world. I suspect that practically everyone has a different, individual notion of what the "subconscious" might be. Because the articles I read recently take the existence of the subconscious for granted--mostly, they relate to research in marketing, not to general psychological research--I assumed that my idea of the subconscious was pretty much the same as most people who have studied psychology would have.

That is to say, we may be in substantial agreement on some of the issues involved, but it just doesn't look like we are. Anyway, because I don't understand how individuals come to desire removal of the sex organs, my intent in starting this thread was to find out whether people had gone through a conscious process in which they proceeded from dislike of their organs, or rejection of effects produced by them, to a decision to seek removal of the organs. If I understand your posts correctly, you did proceed from a rather abstract perception of a disconnect between your ideal concept of yourself as a male, and the nature of your physical organs; to a determination that you wished to have them excised. Your explanation given in you thread of 30 January still seems to me to be rather vague, and perhaps this subject should be pursued as a consideration of how emotions may give rise to the desire for orchiectomy or penectomy.

Thanks for offering your viewpoint on this and your description of how you came to develop the desire for penectomy.

You are quite right - so far most of our discussion has focused on the concept of mind and what part of it is subconscious. And that was probably a bit of an abstract side track... That's my fault of course, but being a philosphy major does that to you.

As a caveat I would like to say that probably the process differs from individual to individual, but to me I think most of it have been conscious. Not all of it, not all of the time - but at least the key moments, so to speak.

To elaborate on some of the motives I touched upon in the other thread I mentioned, I think in my case a random fantasy over the years merged with deeper desires and feelings to form this wish for penectomy.

The fantasy is straightforward enough. I had lots of sexual fantasies at an early age, and I have that kind of memory were such things stick around. (My earliest memory at all is from when I was about a year and a half old.) But this one wasn't so important then - as far as I can tell - it was more of an off shot from the general bdsm-theme.

Even in retrospect I don't see how that could be The Reason. It was probably (as far as I can remember) a one-time thing. That my sexual fantasies already at the age of six - seven years old was clearly bisexual, strongly influenced by bdsm and that I always had a submissive role DOES.

I have no history of sexual abuse. I have no history of family troubles. But there are some things which are probably important, as they are part of my general make up. I am bisexual and therefore experienced both the fear of being found out and the shame, which is really internalized homophobia, that goes with that in a hostile society. That shame probably still goes into the mix...

Also I have had some experience of depression. So far I have had depressions at least three times in my life. Depressive thought patterns change the way you think about and percieve yourself. I think this probably has affected my selfimage in such a way as to heighten the submissive part of my sexual persona. (I now have a lot of trouble seeing myself as the sexually active part of any relationship.) And probably my body image comes in here, as well.

And one can also reverse the causality - maybe living in two consecutive relationships that didn't offer an outlet for my bdsm-side was part of the cause of my first depression. (I certainly always felt a kind of void, even though I loved my partners very much.)

But whatever the cause, the effect is there anyway.

Even if I think about these factors, they are of course not in themselves consious experiences. Indeed - I don't even know for certain that they are the way I think. I just experience a bit of akwardness about myself and blame internalized shame and depressive thought patterns...

But to my mind, my bdsm-persona - and with it this fantasy of penectomy way back in the darkest recesses of my mind - shaped the different factors underlying my personality in this specific way on the conscious level. Without the darker side of my personalty it probably wouldn't have meant anything. But without the bdsm, my darker tendencies would probably have resulted in something else. (Eating disorder, substance abuse - who knows?)

I don't think a castration/penectomy fantasy at an early age is that rare. But if the memory of my childhood fantasy meant anything in itself, it was probably to make me accept the fantasies when they started to become real strong a few years back. At that time - sadly long before I found this place - I would masturbate to them and then feel shame for days afterwards.

I hope that this response is bit more illuminating, and not only a lot of unwanted autobiographic ramblings...