You have accessJournal of UrologyHistory of Urology Forum I1 Apr 2015FRI-05 CURIOSITY OR CURE? THE CASE OF SURGICAL CASTRATION Barbara Chubak and Paul Gittens Barbara ChubakBarbara Chubak More articles by this author and Paul GittensPaul Gittens More articles by this author View All Author Informationhttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.juro.2015.02.483AboutPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES While the singing castrato and court eunuch defined the castrated male as an exotic curiosity in the early modern period, orchiectomy was routinely performed as a surgical treatment for disease in otherwise normal men. This paper considers how surgeons and patients negotiated the tension inherent in an apparently beneficial therapy that compromised a man's normative identity. METHODS Close reading and analysis of relevant primary and secondary source literature regarding castration and masculinity, for both the early modern period and today. RESULTS Early modern men, surgeon and patient alike, were acutely aware of the psychosocial hazards of curative castration, but any attempt at a normalizing discourse was undermined by extant ontological and political structures that were grounded in biologically functional masculinity. CONCLUSIONS Therapeutic castration was uniquely harmful in the early modern context, which placed (pro)creative masculinity at the center of all natural order. Since then, the meaning of manhood has changed, but the duality of castration as both curiosity and cure continues to complicate patient identity and urologic treatment today. © 2015 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Volume 193Issue 4SApril 2015Page: e583 Advertisement Copyright & Permissions© 2015 by American Urological Association Education and Research, Inc.MetricsAuthor Information Barbara Chubak More articles by this author Paul Gittens More articles by this author Expand All Advertisement Advertisement PDF downloadLoading ...