''Eunuchs'' is a

television documentary Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. * Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

film which premiered 3 April 2007 on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

. The film interviewed and followed the lives of a number of men who chose voluntarily to become

eunuch A eunuch ( , ) is a male who has been castration, castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2 ...

Overview

The film starts by interviewing the Sheriff of

Haywood County, North Carolina Haywood County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 62,089. The county seat and its largest community is Waynesville, North Carolina, Waynesville. Haywood ...

at the Waynesville home of S&M enthusiast Richard Sciara—known as 'Master Rick'—where he and two of his companions had been castrating men. The interviewer meets Roger, a British man who was castrated by Dr Murray Kimmel, a surgeon in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, and a young American man called Zachary Arnold who was planning to do likewise. The programme also interviews Bill from

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, who used a burdizzo at home to remove his own testicles to control his overactive sex drive and put the photographs online. The fourth man they interview is Brother Shawn Francis Benedict from the

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

-affirming Ray of Hope Church in

Elmira, New York Elmira () is a Administrative divisions of New York#City, city in and the county seat of Chemung County, New York, United States. It is the principal city of the Elmira, New York, metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses Chemung County. ...

. He said that his castration represented "the end of my cooperation with all the traditional expectations of the American male".

Reception

Lucy Mangan in ''The Guardian'' sarcastically wondered whether Channel 4 was adequately serving its public service remit, saying after watching it she felt "informed, entertained and ever so slightly like I am about to have a stroke". Mangan also noted that the programme failed to address the wider issues regarding gender and sexuality: it "told the stories without attempting to ask or answer questions about how we construct masculinity, what there might be to fear in belonging to an ostensibly privileged gender that you would rather cut off its physical markers than remain part of it, or what part an internalised cultural hatred of homosexuality might have played in the men's decisions". In ''The Scotsman'', Andrea Mullaney said that "the programme did make it seem less freakish" but she was left baffled as to why the men desired castration. In ''The Independent'', Thomas Sutcliffe remarked that the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

enabled documentary film makers to locate "human compulsion or oddity" much easier as "prospective interviewees are stacked up on the specialist chat-room sites just waiting to receive your email". Sutcliffe also expressed concern for the interviewees over the "prurient curiosity" of the British television audience.

References

External links

*{{IMDb title, tt1002530 Channel 4 documentaries 2007 television films 2007 films Castration 2000s British films