Philosophy of emasculation

Humanities and Social Science
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Emasculation is basically a sentiment. As opposed to a clear objective status, it’s a feeling of being stripped of power and authority. It’s a sense of being alienated from a role central to one’s identity as a man. This experience may be related to societal, emotional, or relational pressures. The result is a feeling of being less than what a man should be .

Are these feelings primarily a facade for deeper feelings of inadequacy? Or do they reflect real stresses brought about by changing social structures?

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Pre-modern monarchistic doctrine is based on a truth we embrace even today. That simple truth being: no man is an island. The claim the monarchs held was that without a supreme authority, a man would be doomed to live his life constantly trying to be such, an island, a source of power, an independent being not needing any other person, despite this being a complete and utter lie. Constantly proven wrong in every turn and in every experience in life. No matter how smart you are, no matter how strong, no matter how wealthy, there’s always someone greater in one or more of these aspects. And if we base our identity or self-worth on qualities that are simply not intrinsic to who we are, we will inevitably live life lost and in subjugation to the constant yet fleeting desires of such.

To put it simpler. We are raised from birth, consciously and unconsciously, to value the sentiment and judgements of others more so than our own. And when this is set and solidified in one’s mind, we find ourselves at the mercy of public opinion, no matter how lost and warped said public is. Consider slavery. This was normal and common practice. Someone who said “hey, wait a minute, this doesn’t seem right” was instantly mocked and lost all social status and soon fell into mental despair.

We are social creatures who have a need to belong. And if we fail to instill this regal authority to any but ourselves or a higher power beyond the petty jabs and acts of men, we will inevitably succumb to whatever the majority opinion or social zeitgeist happens to be, no matter how vile or detestable it may be.

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I don’t know. Is this thread just about men or mankind?

To me, youtube videos have emancipated a lot of people – from not being able to cry and be vulnerable, to not being to wear the clothes they want. Nowadays, it seems nothing shocks the public anymore. (And if you’re shocked at what you see, you’re the weird one).

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Actually, I think women are in the best position to answer the question because the eye can’t see itself.

I don’t know about YouTube. I’ve mostly been on reddit lately.

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You’ve chosen a “hot” topic, but in my opinion, it’s broader: what about “tongue removal” or “limbs amputation,” which were also practiced during the same era as castration?

You could take a broader view and call it an intervention into the body. Any intervention into the body affects identity. In a remote village, I met a man with frostbitten hands and feet (due to drunkenness). The locals nicknamed him “Octopus.” Of course, this is crude folk humor. But without arms and legs, the very identification of a Human (in the usual sense) becomes more difficult. The same applies to castration. Legally, a castrate remains a human being, a citizen, an individual. But is this really true? Let’s be honest.

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If Octopus thought of himself as a whole human with extra challenges, would other people start to see him the same way? I guess I’m asking about Octopus’ objective status versus what he thought of himself, versus the harsh assessments of his peers. People love to look down on others because it lifts them up (at a price.)

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I think the problem here is a bit deeper than it seems:

The human body is merely a cage for the soul (Platonism, modern Christianity in its pop interpretation, Kantianism)

or

A person cannot be considered separately from their body (Monism, Merleau-Ponty, Corporeality).

I wouldn’t like to take a position right now, but I’ll give an example from my own life. I once played sports, which was such a huge part of my life that I couldn’t imagine it any other way. I played a role on the team, I led training sessions, I was a sports referee. Then I suffered an injury that prevented me from continuing all of this.

Everything remained the same, but not quite the same. My teammates supported me, I continued to attend their matches as a spectator, but it was no longer the same. And it happened rather abruptly, unlike the usual “aging.” Eventually, all of this went away, and I found myself in other areas of life.

This isn’t just whining, but my experience. I’m sharing this not to pity, but to clarify. I was part of the group, part of the sport, while I was healthy, and then I stopped and found myself outside. The reason was the lack of a suitable body. Therefore, no matter what we claim or how we construct constructs in the spirit of Plato’s “body as a cage for the soul,” life refutes it.

Let’s return to castration. A man with a cock is not the same as a man without one. He’s different. This doesn’t mean he’s worthless as a person, but it does mean he doesn’t fully correspond to the concept of “man.”

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Curiously enough, one might simply pose the opposite dynamic and say, if one has “power” or “authority” some sort of autonomy or free will was conversely stripped from those who the alleged person of power or authority has over.

It takes two to tango. Even if said partner is an unwilling one. One must have a subject to be considered a ruler of anything but his own imagination.

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Ok, that’s profound. I’m going to have to ponder.

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This issue showed up in the thread about communism. Is capitalism an eternal ideal? Or is it a set of historic events and circumstances? We could go down the trail of seeing how the two orbit one another like a binary star, but the way I think it relates to emasculation (whether that’s physical disconnection of organs or a figurative emasculation) is this:

If a person is altered, it’s a path to blindness to deny the fallout. A person who once existed is gone. The altered person is now playing the same part, but just fundamentally isn’t the same. A person isn’t just their history, a person is also their potential. An emasculated man can’t choose to ignore that kind of limitation.

The question that remains is this: What specifically does the potential of a man include? To what extent are these things a birthright?

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If we change the register to “philosophy of law,” we must understand that the method of legal philosophy differs from that of “general philosophy.” Legal philosophy seeks to grasp a concept and make it a generally binding rule of conduct, whereas general philosophy suffices with dissection and dialogue with tradition.

When we talk about “inalienable rights,” we fall into the eternal debate: are these very rights inherent in people and then discovered by humans, or were they originally constructed by humans to rationally regulate the “war of all against all?”

There’s a lot that could be written here. But I’ll try to answer your question about “natural rights” from the perspective of pop culture. The basic assertion in this case is: Natural rights are inherent in a person from birth and are inalienable throughout life.

I’ll share another funny story from my life: When I was serving in the army, a puny and arrogant soldier was transferred to our unit. People didn’t really like him. He was also “a bit arrogant.” But then we went to the communal bathhouse, where everyone saw the size of his “instrument.” It was impressive. I’d never seen anything like it before or since. The attitude toward him in the group changed to respect. It just happened somehow.

He was born this way. Most other people have nothing to boast about in this regard. Now think about it: he was born this way, and given the public discourse, the micro-society has developed a corresponding attitude toward him. Does he have more rights or potential than I do? Yes, he does. The thing is, we are not born equal. I’m more than sure that some are born deprived in this regard, or were deprived of it throughout life. Do we have the same rights?

The potentials enshrined in law are the same for us. But some are born beautiful, some not, some smart, some fast. So, speaking of natural rights, I would write it this way: Everyone has the right to live in the form in which they were born. But if there’s a right, what’s the corresponding duty? The duty not to interfere with a person’s body without their knowledge. Congratulations, but that already exists.

If we’re talking about equalizing potentials, then it’s a waste of time. Just a temporary fad of modern fashion. Men are prohibited from being forcibly castrated. If a man is castrated, he won’t fully meet the definition of a man, but he will still remain a human being, a citizen, an individual. He has the same rights as any other person. We have no right to legally restrict his rights because of organ loss. That’s my opinion.

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If testicles make the man, then a child is a man.

The conservative claims the transsexual is a man, regardless of body modifications. Is he wrong?

The liberal considers the man with testicles a woman if she believes herself to be. Is he wrong?

The liberal and the conservative believe the cancer patient without testicles to be fully a man. Are they both wrong?

What about a woman without ovaries? Still fully a woman? Suppose post menopause or with a mastectomy?

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Sorry, but please continue this discussion without me.

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You seem to be a gender essentialist. Or perhaps an essentialist period. I don’t think I have ever in my life thought about what it means to be a man, so perhaps for this reason I’ve not been attracted to essentialist frameworks. I remember in the 1980s having to sit through a cinema studies talk on how the films of Martin Scorsese were about masculinity. I disagreed and thought it was more the case that the films of Martin Scorsese were about cunts. By “cunts” I mean repellant antisocial misfits. How this came to be conflated with masculinity may be why the subject has become so problematic in some places.