The Language of Emasculation: Implications for Cancer Patients

Language can be used both literally and metaphorically. In this article, we explore the metaphorical use of terms including impotence, castration and neutered, to better understand how these words are interpreted by both the public at large, and by the approximately half a million men in North America who, at one time or another, take chemically castrating drugs to control prostate cancer. Specifically, we examine contemporary, publicly accessible sources for keywords related to emasculation; i.e., the Internet, jokes, films and printed news reports. We find that these terms are almost always employed negatively. We conclude that the language of emasculation often faults the subject and implies general dysfunction and powerlessness—socially, politically, and sexually—adding to the shame and “othering” felt by cancer patients who are castrated out of medical necessity. In addition, we show that recent efforts to refer to sexual impotence more narrowly as erectile dysfunction fail to separate the metaphorical from the physical meaning of impotence, and do not solve the problem of the shame associated with medical castration. Society’s failure to recognize that castration is still common adds to the stigma of those who are emasculated for medical reasons.