Castration Left One Man A 'Nullo': Why He's Happier Without His Penis And Balls
A South Florida man, who goes by the name of Gelding, grew up, by his definition, with very large, uncomfortable genitals. When his teammates would grab his testicles in the shower, saying the size didn't match his self-described "baby face," Gelding began to fantasize what life would be without anything down there at all. Yep, we’re talking castration.
His fantasy started to become a (welcome) reality after he fell on a guy’s knee during soccer in college, the force of his plastic cup causing severe nerve damage to his testicles. So, in 1994, he had his balls removed. Only that didn’t completely resolve his pain. “I still had the nerve sensations in the penis, which woke me up at night,” Gelding told Gawker. “So I could get erect, but it was painful.”
Speed up to 2011 when Gelding suggested a voluntary castration to his doctor. Eventually, after a psychological evaluation to confirm this procedure would, in fact, improve Gelding's wellbeing, he became a "nullo" (adding to his existing identifiers as a nudist and "gay, submissive bear"): A man without a penis or balls. Something, he said, doesn't make him any less of a man. "A friend of mine Mack in San Francisco likes to use the term 'mascunull,' because I remain as masculine as they come with fur and so forth. But I no longer have the parts," he said.
Gelding faces some challenges, though not the kind you would think. While he can’t urinate without sitting down or using “one of these female urination devices," after his urethra was relocated to the base of his penis, he can still "unload." "With ejaculation, just before you reach the peak, all the fluid is there at the base of the penis, and right before orgasm happens it's the urethra that acts like a rail gun and expels the semen," he said. "So when you don't use the penis, there's no force behind it. It just flows out."