<< Gonadal Insufficiencies and Sexual Behavior >>

Although the importance of the gonadal hormones in respect to the physical growth and development of the young mammal is clearly established by castration experiments, it is more difficult to measure the effects of castration on the capacity of an animal to respond sexually. In any case, it is difficult to know how many of the observed modifications of behavior represent the direct consequences of hormonal action, and how many are a product of the fact that the gonads influence other endocrine organs such as the pituitary and the thyroid which may affect the general metabolic level of all physiologic functions, including the functions of the nervous system. Finally, in the case of the human species, it should be noted that there may be pronounced psychologic effects from a castration. This is particularly true of the male because of the great importance which our culture attaches to his genital integrity and sexual potency. Many of the reported effects of castrations on sexual behavior are undoubtedly the product of the social maladjustments in which castrates often become involved. In those cultures where castration is observed as a religious duty, and in religious cults where the priests are regularly castrated, no social opprobrium is attached to such an operation, and the effects of castration do not seem as apparent as they are in our culture.
For the social status of castrates in societies in which castration is socially approved, see: Möbius 1903:14, 16, 84.

Castration and Sexual Response in Young Females and Males
The behavioral effects of gonadal insufficiencies, whether they are the product of undeveloped or diseased ovaries or testes, or the product of complete castrations, are most evident in young animals. In many of the lower mammalian species, early castration more or less completely stops the development of all sexual responsiveness in both the female and male.

In the human male, pre-adolescent gonadal insufficiencies regularly delay the development of sexual responsiveness. The responses of a twenty-year-old male whose testes have degenerated because they have failed to descend into the scrotum, or of a male who has been castrated in pre-adolescence, may be on a level with those of the average pre-adolescent boy of eight or ten years of age. Erections and other signs of response occur less frequently in an adult who was an early castrate, arousal is not effected by as large a number of stimuli as in the normal male, and arousal by psychologic stimuli in particular may occur less frequently than in the normal male. Some degree of sexual responsiveness may develop in later years; but the levels of response in the few cases on which we have original data, and in the well known histories of eunuchs who were castrated at an early age, usually do not reach the levels which are typical of the average male.
The effect of pre-adolescent castrations or gonadal under-development in lowering the sexual responsiveness of the human male is also recorded in: Lipschütz 1924:12-13. Commins and Stone 1932:497-499. Pratt in Allen et al. 1939: 1268. Hoffman 1944:623, 625. Beach 1948:23-28. Selye 1949:646, 661. Ford and Beach 1951:231.

There is great need, however, for the accumulation of more data, for there appears to be considerable individual variation in such cases.

Early castrations of males of lower mammalian species similarly may prevent the development of any sexual responsiveness or reduce the levels of response.
That an early castration depresses the sex drive of a male animal, although it does not abolish all indications of sexual responsiveness, is noted in: Stone in Allen et al. 1939:1219. Beach 1947a:34-35. Beach 1948:20-23. Rice and Andrews 1951:115. Ford and Beach 1951:229.

But in some instances, castrations may have little effect on the development of sexual responsiveness. For instance, there are data on two male chimpanzees who were castrated at a very young age, and these castrations have not prevented the subsequent development of sexual responses comparable to those of normal preadolescent or adult chimpanzees.
      At the Yerkes Laboratories at Orange Park, Florida, the male chimpanzee named Don, who is now almost 19 years old, was castrated at approximately 2 years of age (acc. Nissen, verbal communic.). Physically he lies within the norms for adult males. His frequency of erection and sexual interest in females are equal to those of an intact male, but he does not usually reach orgasm and ejaculate. Owing to this inability, he can copulate more frequently than an intact male. Under androgen therapy Don is capable of orgasm and ejaculation, and his behavior and coital frequency then are identical with those of an intact male. The case is also noted in: Clark 1945. Ford and Beach 1951: 231. Beach in Blake and Ramsey 1951:78.
      Another male chimpanzee named Dag, now about 8 years old, was castrated at about 2 months of age. Physically Dag falls within the norms, and his frequency of erection and his incidental masturbation are the same as that of intact males of comparable age.

In lower mammalian females, early castrations have somewhat similar effects on the development of sexual responsiveness. There are, however, practically no data on the effects of such early castrations on the sexual behavior of the human female.
When the females of mammalian species below the primates are castrated at an early age, they never develop sexual receptiveness, according to Beach 1947a: 35.

The importance of the gonadal hormones in the development of sexual responses is further confirmed by the fact that when testosterone is administered to an early castrate, whether it is a human or a mammal of some lower species, and whether it is a female or male, the levels of sexual response may be raised to something approaching the normal. The administration of estrogens to a female who was castrated in preadolescence has a less marked effect on her behavior, and a still lesser effect (as far as the data are yet available) when administered to males who were castrated at an early age.
According to Wilson and Young 1941:781-783, estrogens administered to preadolescent guinea pig castrates can produce estrus. Estrogens administered to castrated pre-adolescent male rats show less specific effects; see Ball 1939: 282.

Nevertheless, these demonstrations of the importance of the gonadal hormones in the development of sexual responsiveness in the young female and male, do not seem to warrant the conclusion that androgens and estrogens have more specific effects upon the development and functioning of the nervous system than they have upon the development and functioning of various other physical structures in the animal body. Quite to the contrary, the retardation of sexual development in a castrate is exactly what might be expected if the gonadal hormones provide, as they appear to provide, simply one of the conditions necessary for the normal growth and development of the body as a whole. Similar damage done to the pituitary, to the thyroid, or to some of the other endocrine organs of a developing animal, may have similarly disastrous effects on the normal course of its development and on the development of its capacity to respond. 37 All of these endocrine organs, as well as many of the other organs in the body, seem necessary for the development of sexual responsiveness in the young animal.
Delayed sexual development consequent on insulin deficiencies, on thyroid over-and under-development, on pituitary disturbances, and on adrenal malfunction, are noted, for instance, in: Hoffman 1944:255, 268. Hartman and Brownell 1949:353. Selye 1949:124, 126-127, 524, 737. Williams 1950:42, 122, 173-175.

Castration and Sexual Response in Adult Females
There are some contradictions in the reported effects of the castration of a human adult. There appear to be differences in the effects on different individuals. Some of the recorded effects may depend upon the fact that the general level of all physiologic activities may be lowered by a gonadal insufficiency. Again, it is to be noted that the psychologic effects of a castration on an adult, and especially on an adult male, may be more severe than the psychologic effects on a pre-adolescent.

The effects of castration on the sexual behavior of a fully mature female have generally been reported to be minor, or none at all. We have the histories of 123 females who had had ovaries removed, and our examination of these cases confirms the general opinion that there is no modification of sexual responsiveness or capacity for orgasm, following an ovarian operation, which can be clearly identified as the result of such an operation. Some of the sexually most active females in our sample were women in their fifties and sixties who were well past the age of menopause. Some of them had had their ovaries removed ten to fifteen years before.
The lack of any consistent effect of castration of an adult female on her sex drive is also noted in: Hegar 1878:71-72, 74. Canu 1897:ch. 1. Möbius 1903: 87 (sex drive remains after late castration). Glävecke acc. Kisch 1907:187-188 (drive reported lessened in two-thirds of 27 castrated women). Commins and Stone 1932:499-501. Havelock Ellis 1936(1,2):11-14. Hoskins 1941:234 (desire often not lessened). Filler and Drezner 1944:123-124 (41 female castrates, 88 per cent reported no change in sex drive, majority under 35 years of age). Huffman 1950:915-917 (68 adult female castrations, ages 26-43, loss of responsiveness reported in 2 cases). Ford and Beach 1951:222-224. Masters in Cowdry 1952:668 (atrophy of uterus, breasts, and vagina; more rapid in younger females; usually decreased sex drive, although exceptions are noted).
 
Table 179f. Effect of Castration and of Menopause on Sexual Response and Outlet
Effect Castr. Menop.Castr. Menop.
Subject’s evaluation of effect Percent Cases
No effect 54 3922 12
Increase in response 19 138 4
Decrease in response 27 4811 15
Number of cases 41 3141 31
Effect on total outlet Percent Cases
No effect 42 4242 53
Increased frequency 15 515 7
Decreased frequency 43 5343 67
Number of cases 100 127100 127
Median freq. of total outlet Freq. per week Cases
1-2 years before 1.0 1.5100 127
During menopause  1.0  81
1-2 years after 0.7 0.7100 127
3-4 years after 0.7 0.676 90
10 years after 0.8 0.428 38
20 years after  0.4  12
Table based on all females available in sample,
whose marital status remained constant before and after castration or menopause
and who had experienced orgasm within 1 to 2 years
before and/or after castration or menopause.
The median age at castration was 38.6 years, the range was 17 to 53 years.
The median age at the onset of menopause was 46.3 years, the range was 33 to 56 years.

Of our total sample of 123 castrated (ovariectomized) females (Table 179f), twenty-three had not experienced orgasm for a year or two before the operation, and did not experience orgasm after the operation. Of the remaining one hundred cases, forty-one appraised their own record as follows: 54 per cent had not recognized that their loss of ovaries had had any effect on their sexual responses or overt behavior. Some 19 per cent believed that their sexual responses had been increased by their operations, and 27 per cent believed that their sexual responses had been decreased. The record of specific activities on the full hundred cases showed that 42 per cent had not changed in their overt behavior, 15 per cent had increased their activity, and 43 per cent had decreased their activity. However, the median frequencies of orgasm calculated for the whole sample both before and after operation, indicate that over a ten-year period the drop had paralleled the drop in frequencies of total outlet in approximately that same age period, among the females in our total sample. It is to be recalled that the declining frequencies of socio-sexual activities among females are not primarily dependent on an aging process in the female, but upon an aging process in the male which reduces his interest in having frequent coitus. Our cases, therefore, do not provide evidence that females deprived of their normal supplies of gonadal hormones have their levels of sexual responsiveness or their frequencies of overt activity lowered by ovarian operations.

The increases in sexual activity shown in some of our histories may have depended on the fact that some women who have gone through a natural or induced menopause feel more free to engage in sexual activity as soon as they are relieved of the possibility of becoming pregnant.

We have detailed data on 173 cases of females who had gone through natural menopause (Table 179f). It is ordinarily considered that there is a considerable reduction in the amount of estrogen secreted by the ovaries after menopause. However, in our sample it would be difficult to identify any reduction of sexual response or activities which could be considered the consequence of any change at menopause. Out of the 173 cases, forty-six had not experienced orgasm for a year or two before menopause, and there was no change in their status following menopause. In the other 127 cases, thirty-one appraised their own record as follows: 39 per cent believed that their sexual responses and activities had not been affected by the menopause, 13 per cent believed that their responses had increased, and 48 per cent believed that their responses had decreased. The detailed record of the activities of the full 127 women, confirmed this distribution of cases (Table 179f). Again, however, the decrease in median frequencies in this sample had merely paralleled the decrease in median frequencies in our total sample of females of approximately the same age. Note again that this decrease is primarily dependent upon the male’s declining interest in socio-sexual activities.

Some of the decreased frequencies also depended upon the fact that some of these women had seized upon menopause or their ovarian operations as an excuse for discontinuing sexual relationships in which they were never particularly interested. Some of the cases of increased activity were, again, a product of the fact that some of these women had been relieved of their fear of pregnancy after going through menopause.

Castration of Adult Females of Lower Mammalian Species
This lack of effect of castration on an adult human female is not in accord with the reported effects of castrations on adult females of rats, guinea pigs, and some other species of mammals. It is reported that castrations in those species eliminate all evidence of sexual response.
In the earlier work, distinctions were made between the receptivity of estrus and sexual responsiveness, as in: Young and Rundlett 1939:449. But more recent scientific publications have been inclined to consider sexual responsiveness and estrus synonymous, just as most farmers and animal breeders do. See: Williams 1943:125. Ford and Beach 1951:221. Beach in Blake and Ramsey 1951:75-76 (“Removal of the ovaries in lower mammals is followed by total and permanent loss of female sexual responses . . . the animal’s tendency to become sexually aroused and to execute coital reactions is heavily dependent upon hormones from the ovaries.” And again, “Removal of the ovaries promptly and permanently abolishes all sexual behavior”).

Examination of the literature, however, indicates that the chief bases for these reports, persistent as they are, is the fact that the castration of a lower mammalian female puts an end to her periods of estrus—the period during which she will accept coitus from the male. It has always been assumed that she accepts coitus during estrus because she becomes sexually more responsive at that time. But we question whether the submission to a male is, in itself, sufficient evidence of erotic arousal. Moreover, we find considerable evidence that lower mammalian females who are not in estrus are frequently aroused erotically.

We have noted that a bull ordinarily gives evidence of his sexual arousal before he ever mounts a cow by showing a development of neuromuscular tensions throughout his body; the muscles on the sides of his abdomen become tensed in a corrugated design, his tail is arched as a result of tensions in that part of his body, he may show a partial erection, and his Cowper’s secretions may start flowing before he has touched the cow. Usually a cow which is in estrus does not show similar evidences of sexual arousal until after she is mounted. Then the tensed muscles on the sides of her abdomen, her arched tail, her tumescent genital labia, and her vaginal mucous secretions provide evidence of her arousal and response. We have also noted that cows quite regularly and frequently mount other cows, and that when this occurs, the cow that does the mounting is the one that first shows evidence of erotic arousal, although the cow which is mounted may not give such evidence until after she has been mounted. But the cows that do the mounting are usually not in estrus, while the cows that are mounted are almost always in estrus.

There is, of course, no question that an animal that is in estrus is capable of being aroused erotically, and it is common knowledge that some animals, like female dogs, may become more responsive and actively search for males when they are in estrus; but the data indicate that sexual arousal among infra-human females that are not in estrus may also occur with some frequency (Figure 154f). There are also records of castrated adult female rats and dogs that will sometimes mount other females after castration, just as they did before castration; and this seems clear-cut evidence of sexual responsiveness after castration.
That castrated female rats and dogs will sometimes mount other females is reported by: Beach and Rasquin 1942. Ford and Beach 1951:142.

Since reports on the effects of castrations in lower mammalian species usually do not describe those physiologic phenomena which are the best measures of sexual response, and since there is so much evidence of sexual arousal outside of estrus, we doubt whether the presence or absence of estrus provides a sufficient measure of a lower mammalian female’s capacity to respond sexually.

It has been said that the gonadal hormones are more important in controlling the sexual responses of the lower mammalian female, while cerebral controls are more important in the human female. But this, again, seems to be based primarily on the fact that estrus stops after the castration of the lower mammalian female, while responsiveness after castration is retained in the adult human female. If reexamination of the experimental data or further experimental work shows that the lower mammalian female does not actually lose sexual responsiveness as a result of castration, it would mean that the role of the gonadal hormones in the lower mammalian female is, to this extent, about the same as in the human female.
The “phylogenetic interpretation” of hormonal control is suggested in: Beach 1947b :293-294. Beach 1948:9-10. Beach 1950:261-269.

Figure 154f. Relation of erotic response to estrus in infra-human females

Theoretic diagram.
Lighter line shows previous interpretation, darker line shows present interpretation.
In both instances, response is at a maximum during estrus;
the present data indicate that there is also
a considerable capacity for response in periods between estrus.


Castration and Sexual Response in Adult Males
Reports on the sexual behavior of human males who have been castrated as fully grown adults have usually been very brief, and the various reports are contradictory in spite of the fact that such operations have been performed with some frequency throughout history. Castrations of adult males were performed with religious objectives in various ancient groups, and have been performed for that purpose within the present century in certain groups. In various cultures, castrations of adults were performed for the sake of obtaining eunuchs who could be used as household servants, or servants in harems, without the danger of their fathering offspring. Castrations have been most frequently performed as indignities which were inflicted upon enemies captured or killed in battle, and as punishments for certain classes of criminals. Ancient Egyptian drawings, and the derived art of Northern Africa today, depict mounds of severed genitalia gathered from enemies destroyed in battle; and during warfare in probably every part of the world, such mutilation has been considered the supreme subjugation which the conqueror could bestow upon the conquered. There is no doubt that the recurring interest in castration as a legal punishment today is, at least in part, a product of the same sadistic eroticism which has inspired genital mutilation throughout human history.
For historical accounts of castrations, see such references as: Möbius 1903:12-25. Tandler and Grosz 1913:45-46. Hirschfeld 1948:65-66. For a description of such mutilations in battle see: Möbius 1903:12-13. We have seen the ancient Egyptian and modern Ethiopian drawings.

In more recent decades, both in Europe and in this country, castrations have been rationalized as attempts to modify some aspect of the individual’s sexual behavior: to stop masturbation, to transform homosexual into heterosexual patterns of behavior, to control exhibitionists and, in particular, to control adults who sexually “molest” children. Castrations have been used both in Europe and in this country to prevent feeble-minded, criminal, or irresponsible individuals from becoming parents; but simple sterilizations would satisfy that end if there were no other objective in a castration.
For an example of the use of castration to cure masturbation see: Flood [?1901] who reports the castration of 24 males, half of them under 14 years of age, for persistent masturbation and epilepsy, apparently in the Hospital for Epileptics at Palmer, Mass. (See Laughlin 1922:433). Flood concludes: “persistent masturbators . . . unpleasant for a refined woman to see . . . it seemed an absolute necessity to try something which we had not yet tried.” See also the account of Dr. Pilcher’s castrations of ‘‘confirmed masturbators” at the Kansas State Training School at Winfield, Kansas, in: Flood [?1901]:16. Cave 1911:123. Hawke 1950:1 (“Our castrations first started during the administration of Dr. Pilcher who conceived the idea that castration might help control excessive masturbation and pervert sexual acts”). Bowman 1952: 69-70.

Castrations have, of course, been necessarily performed when testes were diseased; and recently castrations of older males have become fairly frequent as a means of reducing their androgen levels, because these may influence cancerous growths or other hypertrophies of the prostate gland. In addition there are a fair number of males who have had to be castrated as a result of war injuries. There has, in consequence, been no shortage of cases for studying the effects of castration on adult males, but there have been very few detailed reports on the sexual behavior of such castrates.

A considerable proportion of the studies have reported, without specific data, that there was an improvement in health as a result of a castration, or an increase or decrease in sex drive, or a generally beneficial effect. Unfortunately some of the reports on which state legislators have recently relied have been in these same general terms, without specific data on the frequencies of response, the intensities of response, the number of items to which the castrated individual responded, the frequencies of erection, the frequencies of masturbatory and overt socio-sexual activities, or the frequencies of total activity to the point of orgasm.

Many of the reports have concerned castrations of older males past the age of fifty, and in many cases between sixty and eighty years of age. Males of such advanced ages normally have their rates so reduced that it would be difficult to determine how much of their inactivity should be credited to a castration. Even at fifty years of age there are 7 per cent of the males who are already impotent and unresponsive sexually, whether they are castrated or not.

The studies that do report frequencies of activity after castration, fail to allow for the fact that most males have their frequencies of sexual activity steadily reduced with advancing age. It means nothing to find that castrated males gradually, over some period of years, show diminished sexual interests and capacities, unless it is shown that the diminution of their activity occurs more rapidly than that which occurs in the population as a whole. It is to be recalled that in our total male sample we found (1948:226) that the average twenty-year-old, married male experienced orgasm with a median frequency of 3.2 per week, but that these frequencies dropped steadily through the years until they had reached 0.8 per week at sixty years of age among males who were not castrated.

Because of the general misunderstanding of the reliability of the evidence on the effects of adult castrations, and because some courts and state legislators have uncritically accepted the published records as justification for their consideration of castration as a means of controlling certain types of sex offenders, it seems appropriate to summarize briefly the data in the published studies. They are here arranged in chronologic order.

STUDIES ON CASTRATION OF ADULT HUMAN MALES

1. Barr 1920. A study of 6 male castrates, most of them with records of low intelligence. Ages from eleven to twenty. Results cannot be evaluated because they are reported in nothing but general terms. They note “an improvement in general behavior” in most instances.

2.    Commins and Stone 1932. An extensive review of the literature on the effects of castration on basal metabolism, on the nervous system, on reflex action, on voluntary activity, on sexual behavior in general, and on learning. Deals primarily with lower mammals.

3.    Lange 1934. The most extensive and most specific study of the effects of male castration, based on 310 cases which included 242 complete castrates and 68 partial castrates. The data are drawn from a longtime study of 247 cases originating in war injuries, and 63 cases in which there had been a surgical removal of testes following tuberculosis. The following summary applies only to those cases in which there had been complete castrations.

At the time of castration, 10 per cent of the men were under twenty, 50 per cent under twenty-five, and 15 per cent over thirty-five years of age. All but 6 of the cases were observed for fifteen years or longer following castration. The physical changes, which were reported in detail, included regressive effects which appeared chiefly in the earliest and the latest years; but wide individual differences were noted, probably because of the wide age range of the subjects. Data on potency following castration are given on 99 complete castrates: 52 per cent lost potency immediately, 22 per cent lost potency gradually, and 26 per cent still retained their potency at the end of the period of observation. This loss was related to their ages at the time of castration (and hence to their ages at the final report). Some 73 per cent of those retaining potency were under the age of twenty-five at the time of castration. The author points out that the reports of defects due to injury or operation tended to be exaggerated in order to support claims for government compensation.

The sexual desire of many of the subjects had exceeded their potency. The author discusses the fallacy of castration as a cure for sex criminals, since such criminal violence is often the result of the conflict of weakened potency and strong sexual impulses (pp. 44, 101), and he questions the favorable results reported in Switzerland and Denmark on the basis of the selectivity of the groups and the short period of observation of those cases.

4.    McCullagh and Renshaw 1934. A study of 12 subjects, 4 castrated between twenty-three and forty, 6 between forty and sixty, and 2 after sixty; observed from six months to twenty-seven years after castration. Partial responses remained in 3 cases, but were entirely lost in 9. There was a shrinking of the penis in 5 cases, a reduction of body and pubic hair in 11 cases, a decrease of energy and endurance in 10 cases, and changes in weight and general appearance. The specific data are, however, still insufficient for final analyses.

5.    Wolf 1934. A German study summarizing 162 castrations of human males, many on the basis of fragmentary records from the older literature. Many of the subjects were feeble-minded or mentally deficient. There were 50 cases from the author’s own data. The information on the sexual responses of the subjects after operation was quite incomplete. For 72 cases, the effects on responsiveness were minor in 35 per cent, the responses were much reduced in 28 per cent, the responses were completely gone in 37 per cent. However, the data are uninterpretable because there are no correlations with the ages at castration and no exact data on the subsequent frequencies of sexual activity.

6.    Kopp 1938. A survey of the status of castration and sterilization of criminals in the United States and Europe; but the material is in very general terms, and chiefly historical in interest.

7.    Feinier and Rothman 1939. A single male, castrated at twenty-three for tuberculosis of the testes, reported a normal married life and potency which had increased after castration and after recovery from the tuberculosis. At fifty-three (thirty years after the castration) he was having weekly coitus with his wife. The wife corroborated the story. The authors conclude that the only indispensable function of the testes in a fully grown adult is that of procreation, and that sexual responses and potency “are functions of and controlled by the pre-pituitary and psychic centers.”

8.    Tauber 1940. A good review of the literature, without original data. Reports studies on religious castrations; on castrations of criminals in Germany and Switzerland (where the author feels the data are not reliable); on castrations due to injuries; and on medical castrations. Feels the psychologic aspect of a castration is very important. Concludes that the sexual behavior of male castrates is highly variable, and that the range includes behavior which would be considered normal in non-castrates.

9.    Huggins, Stevens, and Hodges 1941. A report on 21 patients castrated to control cancer of the prostate; 3 were between fifty-four and sixty years of age; the others ranged between sixty and eighty-four. Reports sexual drive and potency absent in all cases after operation; but all of the patients were so old that it is impossible to make any critical analysis of the reports on sexual behavior.

10. Engle in Cowdry 1942:489-491. Cites Rössle’s study on 125 men castrated under German law for criminal sex offenses, in half of whom sexual responses were “weakened.” Ages not given and no records of the specific frequencies of sexual activity. Cites a British report by Hammond of 7 males castrated at ages ranging from thirty to fifty-one, in whom coitus continued after castration, in one case for seventeen years. Concludes that “The evidence suggests then that in men in whom the psychic and neuromotor behavior patterns of sexual activity have been established, complete loss of the testes does not necessarily prevent participation in sexual activity.”

11.    Hamilton 1943. One male castrated because of cancer at twenty-five years demonstrated normal erections at age forty-three. One male castrated at twenty-six reported marital coitus two to three times a week, at age thirty-nine. Wife confirmed report. Androgen and estrogen levels low, so writer concludes that capacity for erection does not depend upon a supply of androgens from extra-gonadal sources.

12.    Stürup 1946a. A psychiatrist’s report on 123 males voluntarily castrated in the Danish asylum for psychopathic criminals at Herstedvester. Only general statements on sexual behavior after castration. “Some degree of sexuality is retained in certain cases, at any rate for a number of years, and some cases have been able to achieve a coitus satisfactory to their wives at intervals of about a month. To the majority of cases, however, this does not apply.” Insufficient data on ages and on sexual responses and frequencies of activity before and after castration.

13.    Stürup 1946b. A discussion of the psychiatric treatment of criminal psychopaths in Denmark. Only a general statement of “good results,” without specific data which would allow critical analyses of the results. States that “The detainee must show hyper-sexuality beyond doubt or a stable sexually conditioned criminality, before we use this irreversible treatment.”

14.    Beach 1948:23-27. Surveys the studies on male castration. Concludes : “Despite the frequency and possibly the accuracy of generalizations regarding the depressing consequences of human castration, the literature is replete with references to complete retention of sexual function in individuals who have been castrated for many years.” Then adds: “The frequency of accounts describing the survival of normal sexuality following castration need not obscure the fact that in many, if not the majority of cases, the human male exhibits a gradual loss of mating ability as a result of testicular removal.” This last statement, however, ignores the fact that non-castrated males similarly show a gradual loss of mating ability with advancing age.

15.    Fuller 1950. No original data. Points out that the medical profession is not agreed on the use of castration as a means of reducing sexual responses. States that there is no assurance that “in man the sexual urge may not persist for years after the castration.”

16. Hawke 1950. In a paper delivered before the Illinois Academy of Criminology, Hawke discusses the program of castration employed, under his direction, at the State Training School at Winfield, Kansas, where 330 male castrates furnished material for a nine-year research program. These cases were also the source of physiologic data on castrates in Hamilton 1948:257-322, who gives ages at castration in 57 of these cases. These ranged from eight to twenty-two years, and included 11 boys who were 12 years of age or younger. The cases were largely drawn from a defective delinquent group. The sweeping generalizations as to psychologic improvement, lack of inferiority feelings, increased stability, and lessening of the “social menace” in these cases are not substantiated in the paper by any sufficient data. Only three case histories of individuals, castrated at sixteen, eighteen, and twenty-four, are described in detail, and the only evidence given as to the satisfactory result of these castrations was the fact that they later adjusted to life outside the institution. Hamilton 1948:286-288 presents detailed data, however, showing that a group of these same subjects had difficulty in carrying out their motor activities. Hawke, nonetheless, states that the castrate is “physically a better organism.” There do not seem to be any data on the sexual behavior of these subjects which allow reliable analyses of the sexual effects of the castrations.

On the basis of the more reliable of these published studies, and on the basis of the few cases we ourselves have seen, we may generalize as follows: Human males who are castrated as adults are, in many but not in all cases, still capable of being aroused by tactile or psychologic stimuli. They may still be capable of showing essentially all of the physiologic concomitants of sexual response, including the tumescence of all parts of the body and the specifically genital tumescence which may effect normal erection. They may still be capable of developing neuromuscular reactions which include rhythmic pelvic thrusts of the sort necessary for coitus, and they may still be capable of attaining orgasm. The frequency and intensity of response may or may not be reduced by the castration. The psychologic effects of such an operation may make it difficult for some of the males to make socio-sexual adjustments.

Ejaculation may or may not follow orgasm in a castrated human male. In the lower mammals, removal of the testes may cause degeneration of the prostate and seminal vesicles, which are the chief sources of the ejaculate, but there are some recorded instances of a reduced and modified ejaculate in some castrated human males. In most cases there is no ejaculation. The individual variation probably depends on the length of time which has elapsed since the castration and the stage of degeneration of the secreting glands. None of this, however, makes it impossible for a castrated male to have orgasm. We have the history of a male engaging in sexual activity with normal frequencies and with orgasm fifteen years after the castration, and it will be noted that in the literature cited above there are instances of the retention of sexual capacity for similarly long periods, including one case of a male who was normally active thirty years after castration.

Castrations of adult males of lower mammalian species produce, as we have already noted, a more general physical deterioration than is recorded for adult human male castrates. In general, male animals castrated as adults show diminished sexual responses, but the data are insufficient to allow critical analyses. We have already noted that in chimpanzees there are records of adult male castrates who were as active sexually as males who had not been castrated.
Data on the reduced sexual responses of castrated adult males of lower mammalian species may be found, for example, in: Stone 1927:369 (rats). Commins and Stone 1932:497 (rabbits and rats). Stone in Allen et al. 1939:1246 (rats). Beach 1944c:255 (rats). Beach 1948:21 (summarizes earlier studies). Rice and Andrews 1951:115-116 (farm animals).

In any event, the laboratory experiments on animals, and the data which are at present available on human male castrates, do not justify the opinion that the public may be protected from socially dangerous types of sex offenders by castration laws.

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