Indonesia just became the first Southeast Asian country to use chemical castration on pedophiles, and I have so many feelings about this (in case you forgot, I was that idealistic idiot who majored in Gender Studies and got, like, deported for not being a valuable resource in the US job market *insert eye roll*). Anyway, chemical castration is a process whereby the sex offender is basically pumped up with female hormones so that he loses his sexual appetite. Personally, this confounds me because my libido goes through the roof every time I get (naturally) pumped up with female hormones, but I guess chemical castration has to do a lot with using drugs to make a person feel more sick and, therefore, less sexy. Apparently, it can lead to osteoporosis and increased body fat, along with impotence, hot flashes and mood changes (it’s like menopause on steroids). And, like, who feels sexy when they’re weak at the knees, on edge, and gaining weight?
You know, a part of me really (really) does want to believe that this kind of punishment is justified. I literally explode in paroxysms of rage every time I read a news story about rape or molestation (so basically like every day). If you violate someone else’s human rights to this extent, you should be subjected to an equal or worse punishment. If you cause someone irreparable physical harm, you should be relegated to a walking stick (and not the kind they sell at Bergdorf’s, by the way). But, even if all this was okay to say and do, the Gender Studies student in me wonders if chemical castration is effective as a process. I mean, apart from having insane health effects, it’s a clear violation of human rights and it’s mad expensive. Plus, numerous studies have shown that sex crimes have not decreased significantly in places where chemical castration has been implemented.
Indonesia now provides for the chemical castration of sex offenders, especially those who prey on children
According to me, it totally proves that pedophilic activities are in fact behavioral and not hormonal
It was one of the most memorable days of my life. I had just received my grade for my first A Level math test and I was less than pleased. I sat down on my seat and stared at my paper. “Please drop math”, Sir Majid had remarked on top with a bright red pen. He did, however, have the courtesy to draw a two eyes and a nose on top of the ‘U’ I received - my test was ‘ungrade-able’.
“Maha,” I whispered to my only friend in the class, “I didn’t fail math.”
“Umm…what you did is much worse,” she whispered back, grabbing my paper and looking through it. “You need help”
“Hey, didn’t you have a math tutor last year who came to your house? Do you still have his number?” I asked, not afraid to show my desperation.
“Oh, he was weird. He was really frank and stuff—like he’d always talk about himself and waste tuition time. He’s miss; my mom fired him in like three weeks.”
Understandably, measures such as chemical castration have great appeal in many sections of public opiniion in Indonesia and the global community
***
Okay, so I read something totally amazing in college that might explain why chemical castration doesn’t really work. In her essay Visual Presence and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey makes a really cool point - it’s the very image of a woman (or a child in this case) that instigates all this ‘hoopla’ about the phallus. In other words, the female’s ‘real absence’ or lack reminds the spectator (read: creep), who is gendered male in Mulvey’s analysis, that he may be susceptible to experiencing that same lack. This threatens the male (*face palm*) and, in turn, makes the phallus a desirable entity. So what does a creepy dude do when a female or a child threatens him so? Well, as per Mulvey, he can either live with the anxiety (not fun) or he can try to overcome it by making the image less threatening and more pleasing. How? By eroticising the threat and converting it into a fetish object (duh!). This process is called Fetishistic Scopophilia and it basically makes the image accessible and appealing (mind blown yet?). According to me, it totally proves that pedophilic activities are in fact behavioral and not hormonal and completely K.O’s the assumption that chemical castration is effective. I mean, taking away the phallus would mean taking away the male’s only way of feeling safe (because women are tough), which in turn would characterize the greatest loss of his life, and lead him to repeatedly commit raging crimes in an attempt to regain what he has lost. Straight up, unless you want to create murderville (creepy men with hot flashes!), I doubt chemical castration would be a good solution.
***
During break time, Maha perused the contact list on her phone just to make sure she had deleted that tutor’s number. He was an old man, she remembered, and fat, and he always smelt of achaar (pickles) and saalan (curry). He was also her first kiss. He had just grabbed her one day as she was escorting him out of the living room and kissed her on the lips. He had then told her not to eat ketchup before tuition. Maha had gone straight to her mother after.
