Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
Most of the time when people say they have an unpopular opinion, it turns out it’s actually pretty popular.
Do you have some that’s really unpopular and most likely will get you downvoted?
Most human males should be castrated.
Men commit almost all rape and murder, but no one seems to think this is a problem we need to do anything about. If any other group committed 90% of serious crimes – let’s say immigrants – people would be calling for them to be rounded up and exiled. But when it’s men, that’s just the way things are, nothing to be done about it.
But we know exactly what to do about it when we’re talking about other species. We castrate male cattle because bulls are dangerous and steer aren’t. Violent criminals typically have elevated testosterone levels. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that putting men on testosterone-blockers is going to make them less dangerous.
What will be the other effects?
I’m an anarchist, so I don’t want to force this on anyone. But if I believed in prisons or police, I would also believe in mandatory castration.
I somehow don’t believe that.
There’s a feminist movement. One of the major theses of the feminist movement is the rape and murder overwhelmingly committed by men. I’d like it if a lot more people were feminists, but it’s not correct to say that no one cares.
And that would still be an insane reaction to that fact even if it was true, which no self-identified anarchist should support. Rehabilitation must still be the goal of any justice system.
Okay, that’s reasonable. However, that doesn’t mean that we should accept absolutely any solution to eliminate misogyny no matter the cost. There are wildly more creative and practical ways to go about this.
Spicy hot take: we shouldn’t be castrating bulls. Technically you would probably achieve your goal of taming a bull by castrating it, but at the disproportionate expense of the bull’s personality, health, and bodily autonomy. Now we’re not bulls or trained in bovine social cues so we don’t miss the minds of castrated bulls, hence why there’s no controversy; it’s not obvious. However, men are
Correlation ≠ causation!
The other effect is that men will have their bodily autonomy violated. Women have been suffering a related torment from patriarchal governments banning their access to abortion. Generally, women’s bodily autonomy has been systematically disregarded, and they have suffered through bizarre mutilations and “treatments” aimed at making them more palatable to men.
I gotta be blunt with you: I typically let stuff like this slide. I understand that a lot of women and other vagina-owners have been put through a tremendous amount of pain by men, so I’m usually willing to give you space to vent. And if it’s worth anything to you, I’m sorry that this stuff still happens, and we need to take concrete action to prevent rape and femicide.
But you wrote a really detailed paragraph defending sex-based eugenics. The thing about eugenics is that it never really went away. Seriously, go scroll through Reddit and see how long it takes before some “bleeding heart liberal” goes on a tirade about how people they don’t like need to be castrated. The world is absolutely flooded with eugenicists ready to torture and murder people, and there’s no telling what suffering they’ll impart on humanity if we don’t challenge them wherever they pop up.
It is especially irritating to see someone who claims to be a comrade express views like this. It makes me less confident to call myself an anarchist when my views are associated with eugenics. We already have a tremendous amount of ill will generated by “anarcho”-capitalists and “anarcho”-primitivists; we really do not need more bad takes.
Now I would prefer it if you dropped the eugenics, but if you really can’t drop the eugenics then at least stop dragging anarchists through the mud. I’m sorry if I’ve been harsh…but just know that I’ll be equally as harsh in your defense when the eugenicists come to neuter you.
Yeah, as a male sexual assault victim, this made my skin crawl honestly.
Since everyone seems to have focused on the thing I said I would believe if I weren’t an anarchist (mandatory castration), I guess I should clarify what the anarchist version of this belief is. When I say “most males should be castrated,” I mean it in the same way as “most children should go to school.” I don’t think that parents or any other authority should force children to go to school if they really don’t want to. However, I think it’s good for children to go to school, I would personally encourage them to, and I think it should be a social norm. I feel the same way about men taking T-blockers. If I got to design society, I would make the norm that when boys reach the age where they get the talk about puberty, they would be given T-blockers and told that taking them will make them less likely to want to hurt people. They wouldn’t be forced to take them, but I think many would choose to if it were seen as a normal and safe way to be a man.
I don’t think there’s any conceivable way we could make this a social norm, so this is just a pipe dream of mine. Nevertheless, it’s a good fit for a “really unpopular opinion” thread.
I agree. My point was to show that there is a double standard in how mainstream society treats men committing a lot of crime compared with any other group committing a lot of crime. I was not trying to say that attitudes towards immigrants, etc. committing crime are correct.
Point taken, although I’d say that only a small proportion of feminists take male violence as seriously as you would expect people to if it were any other group committing almost all crime.
That’s true. I don’t think this idea is practical at all, although I don’t think any practical idea would be as effective in preventing violence as this one.
I actually agree. Humans should not use animals for food or labor, so really the only place we should interact with cattle is in zoos, and I think trained professionals should be able to handle uncastrated bulls.
True, but come on. When we remove the source of testosterone in other mammals, they become less aggressive. About half of all humans have high T levels starting in adolescence, and it’s exactly at that age when their crime rates shoot way up. And some of the most violent people in society also have the highest T levels. Do you really think that’s all just a coincidence? Can you think of a another non-tortured explanation for these observations?
Right, I don’t think we should violate people’s bodily autonomy to prevent crime, which is why I think castrating men should be a norm, not a mandate. However, a lot of people are fine with violating people’s bodily autonomy if it stops serious crimes. They want the state to crack down on people putting heroin in their bodies and becoming violent as a result. Well, I don’t see why they logically shouldn’t also want the state to crack down on people having testosterone in their bodies and becoming violent as a result.
I proposed two methods of reproduction in a world where most men were chemically castrated: (1) men would go off T-blockers while trying for a baby, or (2) people would rely on a small number of uncastrated sperm donors. Of those, (1) is not eugenics, but (2) could be, depending on how the donors were selected. Obviously eugenics is not compatible with anarchism, but as you said, there are a lot of people who still believe in eugenics. My argument is that people who think that the state should limit who gets to reproduce to make society safer should also want it to limit the number of people with high testosterone to make society safer.
This is the type of take I give when people ask for “really unpopular opinions.” It’s not something that I talk about when I’m trying to advocate for anarchism. And I mean… I don’t think you have much to worry about people associating anarchism with this idea. The only person other than me I’ve ever heard expressing an opinion like it was a weird blogger 10 years ago who was definitely not an anarchist.
Props for having an unpopular opinion. I think its interesting a self proclaimed anarchist has such an incredibly totalitarian belief. Also one that sounds rooted in a deeply right wing/bigoted style of thinking. “Men are inherently violent so we need to castrate them against their will to fit our view” wouldnt the much more logical conclusion be to try and change culture to one that discourages toxic masculinity? Rather than believing in a massive violation of human rights
I don’t think we should castrate men against their will, although I would if I weren’t an anarchist. As it is, I think it would be a good social norm for men to take testosterone blockers.
I’m not sure what “men are inherently violent” means. I think that testosterone makes people more aggressive. Adult men with typical levels of testosterone are more likely to be violent than people with lower testosterone levels. Men with very low testosterone levels are not particularly likely to be aggressive. Aggression is not inherent to being a man, but it is caused by a chemical that’s found in larger amounts in men than in women.
I do think we should discourage toxic masculinity, and I do think it’s responsible for some of the difference in aggression in men and women. However, I think that testosterone also plays a major role.
“Hey everyone, here are some serious and pressing issues. Should we address these issues in a comprehensive, sane manner?”
Are u human male?
I’m a trans woman, so I would be castrated under this policy but would have wanted to be anyway.
Okay. That might explain why you have a strong oppinion on gender specific topics.
I won’t judge if you let me keep my ding-dong. I think during my lifetime I grew kind of fond of it. I’d certainly miss it.
Look… I belive this is wrong because:
Ppl put a lot of thought in their rage bait these days
Well, men are also most of the victims of serious crime and do most of all dangerous jobs. These are all consequences of taking more risks.
Really? No one?
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that, it takes a fool, because it’s not necessarily true. It may make them less aggressive, but what else would happen? You’re giving an easy answer to an extremely hard problem.
YES, there are many people thinking about this. What about we make society less toxic first, for example? But I commend you for posting an actual unpopular opinion.
That’s true. I don’t see what it has to do with my argument, though. I’m pretty sure that testosterone increases risk-tolerance, and that’s part of why it correlates with aggression. Are you suggesting that men have elevated risk-tolerance for reasons other than testosterone, and that risk-tolerance is responsible for aggression instead of testosterone? Or are you saying that risk-taking is important so it’s worth keeping men the way they are even if it causes most serious crime?
Most people see violent crime as a problem, but few see it as a problem with men. When people discuss crime, I never hear them frame the problem as “there’s something causing men to commit 10 times as much rape and murder as women: what is it and how do we stop it?” Even feminists who talk about male violence generally don’t frame it that way.
No empirical data can lead us to accept something as “necessarily true,” but it stretches credulity to think that castration would reduce aggression in pretty much every kind of male mammal we try it on except humans and further that the most aggressive humans coincidentally have elevated testosterone levels. I don’t think that you actually believe that, since you said:
I specifically listed the other effects I could think of. If you think something else bad might happen, just say what it is. If your objection is that we should be cautious because there might be unexpected effects… well sure, that’s true, but it’s also a general-purpose objection to any suggestion to change anything ever. You can’t really have any interesting opinions if you accept that reasoning.
I’m in favor of that. But I think there’s a limit to how much you can improve society via culture alone. You could probably design a culture where people would be a lot less selfish than they are today, for example. But I don’t think you could get people to never be selfish at all, because some amount of selfishness is part of human nature. I think the same is true for aggression, and that the minimum amount of aggression you could get from people is in large part of function of testosterone levels.
Furthermore, “make society less toxic” is a goal, not a policy. A policy to reduce violence by making society less toxic could be something like teaching children to play cooperative games instead of competitive ones. That would probably have a small effect in a few decades. But I think chemically castrating men would have a bigger effect in a shorter amount of time than just about any other policy you could think of, and those effects would be in addition to anything else you did.
You’re proposing an extremely harmful measure to remediate a problem that men cause without citing that we’re also the main victims of said problem. You’re framing it as if we only cause suffering and do not experience it.
Risk-taking is one example of effect of testosterone other than violence. It does not justify serious crime, it shows that if you get rid of testosterone you also get rid of other caracteristics.
Telling that a group very concerned with gender equality don’t frame it that way, isn’t it? Reasonable people will never suggest that racialized groups should learn western European values by norm to solve their high criminality rate.
Again, it doesn’t. People are orders of magnitude more complex than any other animal and, even then, we haven’t castrated that many animals. You’re thinking of domesticated animals, and we’ve done a lot of other things to remove undesired traits in them, like selective breeding. Do you think that eugenics is a reasonable solution to violence amongst men too?
So we already have a much more reasonable, though still very unethical, measure: bring down testosterone levels of violent individuals so that they’re closer to the average. Miles ahead and still in the same line of thought.
I don’t have an specific effect in mind and your examples are bad. Let’s quickly analyze the third one:
Is solving hormone-caused impotence that straight-forward? What are the side effect of using Viagra? For how long can you take Viagra and how frequently?
I don’t think we could enumerate the problems that would arise from screwing with people’s endocrine systems. The issue isn’t that solutions also bring problems, the issue is that your “solution” brings so many problems that it is very hard to believe that you actually want to solve anything.
Yeah, sure, and castrating men is a “policy”.
Wow, and the things you can think of are so spectacular, while you can’t even spot your own prejudices. Your “fax and logic” facade does not fool anyone other than yourself that you want to help society instead of externalizing your prejudices.
They also won’t ever want sex, their penises will never grow to adult size, and their voices will always sound like that of a little boy.
Now, maybe you’re lesbian or asexual or something, and you’re fine with all that, but I imagine some women would not be pleased.
This is not true. Historically, “Many castrati lived rather promiscuous lives. Because their unions could produce no embarrassing offspring to explain, women saw them not only as beautiful, ethereal celebrities of the opera stage, but as prime candidates for affairs.”
I bottomed for a trans women with a highly atrophied penis and had a great time. Tbh I don’t know why anyone cares about penis size.
Their larynx won’t drop, but they won’t sound like little boys. Only some features of adult male voices are caused by biological puberty—there are a lot of other vocal characteristics that distinguish adults from children and men from women. I’ve known trans men who hadn’t gone on testosterone who still had masc-leaning voices. And adult women sound different from little girls even though their voices don’t drop during puberty.
I’m bisexual, and I’d be totally down to date a guy who looked like this. As pointed out above, castrati were highly sought-after by women in the past. Obviously contraceptives negate the appeal of their infertility, but still, they must have been otherwise sexually appealing enough for women to want to sleep with them in the first place. Sure, it would be a loss for those who only like super-manly men, but that seems like an acceptable trade-off to me.
For you, yes, but not all women are like you. That’s the problem.