Fluttershy comments on Open thread, Nov. 09 - Nov. 15, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Prepare yourself.
This may shock some of you, even by my standards.
Suspend your judgement for a moment to objectively consider the prospect of chemical castration.
There are health benefits, and growing numbers of voluntary eunuchs who don't do it because of prostate cancer or coercion.
I, for one, have felt compelled to chemically castrate for many years. I do not know if the feeling that my sexual urges are more trouble than they are worth is idiosyncratic or more widely shared, but too taboo to act upon. So, I'm opening up the question to the thread!
I have some reservations based on implementation. So, even if I do decide it would be a desirable course of action, the execution may be delayed until the evidence of safety becomes clearer or new techniques emerge.
My concerns specifically are:
I would appreciate any evidence anyone can dig up on bone mineral density loss and chemical castrates, relating to long term use and reversibility. I'm struggling to find what I need. And, in the spirit of improving my research skills - if you can give me suggestions for how to do it myself (keywords for google scholar, for instance) that would be good as an alternative! It seems to be a very long and specific question so it's hard to get clarity!
I'll probably trial depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (antiandrogen associated with bone mineral loss for long term use) and trial Benperidol (antipsychotic that reduces sexual urges) instead of Androcur, since the latter has well known depression and withdrawal side effects. There seems to be a huge vacuum on internet information and research on the antipsychotic. But, it may be easier for me to get access too since I have other, ambiguously psychotic symptoms. Any info on that antipsychotic truly appreciated. Given that it's the most potent neuroleptic (tranquiliser), and I've been on other antipsychotics which were overwhelmingly neuroleptic (and thus I discontinued them), I most likely won't give it a try, actually.
edit: I'm considering this now in light of reflection on other libido reducing substances (antidepressants) that didn't feel very good. Sexual desirelessness felt and probably will feel undesirable in light of this, contrary to my earlier thoughts
What are the specific reasons you are considering this procedure-- for libido reduction, or for the health benefits, or for the ostensible life expectancy increase this procedure might provide? You don't have to answer these questions here, but I'm posting them to make sure that you yourself know your own specific reasons for wanting to be castrated; if you know them, you can focus your research on those areas.
Regarding bone density, I'm not sure how much chemical castration hurts you. In any case, I seem to vaguely recall that there's other stuff you can do to maintain bone density as you age (some of which women tend to pay more attention to then men), so do look into that if you decide to follow through with castration.
It's been a while since I looked into this, and I looked into the stuff on physical, rather than chemical castration, anyways (I don't have a good intuition on how much the two differ on most axes, since I didn't ever look into the chemical castration side of things much). What I'm trying to say is that it may be wise to set aside the research you find on physical castration if you are committed to going the chemical route, unless you're able to convince yourself that it's relevant.
Now that I've disclaimed that which I needed to disclaim, in the spirit of blatant self-promotion, there's always this post.
For all the reasons you mentioned!
I prefer chemical since it's reversible.