"SNIP!" by Vickie Tern (VickieTern@aol.com). Men are often such anti-intellectuals. Why would an educated man skip past this story and instead read one entitled "Drunk Guys Fuck GirlS with big Tits in the Ass"? I suppose it has something to do with the legendary male fear of castration. I assure you men that this review will be harmless. For now, assume that the STORY may give you nightmares; but my review will be friendly - even humorous and enlightening, perhaps. Nothing will happen to your goddam balls while you read this review. I promise. So relax.

First let me share with you what my encyclopedia tells us about castration. Castration is the surgical removal of one or both testicles of a male person or animal in order to suppress the development or function of the sexual glands. Male farm animals are castrated, or gelded, in order to improve the breed or make the animals more docile; house pets may be castrated to keep them from wandering or producing unwanted offspring.

The practice of castrating human males is an extremely old one. In imperial China and other Oriental empires castrated men known as eunuchs occupied important court positions, and in Europe in the 16th to the 18th century male singers were sometimes castrated before puberty so that they would retain a soprano or alto vocal range. {The term Unix is pronounced exactly the same as "eunuchs." The fact that programmers typically see nothing funny when they say, "My job is to take care of the Unix system" shows either an unfamiliarity with the English language or an abysmal absence of humorous insight among these poor drudges.}

Today the operation may be performed on men with cancer of the prostate or certain diseases of the testicles. If the operation is done after puberty, it produces sterility but has little or no effect on secondary sex characteristics. There; that wasn't so bad was it? Well, actually Freudian psychoanalysts think it IS pretty bad. In fact, they have coined a term called the "castration complex" to refer to the notion that a child may feel that he or she will be or has already been genitally mutilated as a punishment for sexual and aggressive desires. {As I've said before, Mr. Rogers of the famous television neighborhood has a song about this childhood problem.} If these and other complexes remain unresolved and persist into adult life, they can produce disturbances in the person's love relationships and ability to work productively. No wonder you guys feel anxious when you look at this title. That exclamation point doesn't exactly alleviate your anxiety, does it? SNIP!

Now on to the present story. Aurora and the narrator come together frequently to fuck like rutting rabbits and to play delightful little games, like languorous courtesan, Amazon princess, bitch in heat, and stallion (not one of Aurora's favorites). Aurora also enjoys snippety snip, which involves hacking away (with the fingers as imaginary scissors) at hair, clothing, and other needless appendages in the region of her lover's groin. When he objects to this as even an imaginary activity, Aurora asks him why he is concerned. After all, he doesn't really need his testicles. He doesn't intend to have more kids. She certainly doesn't want children. So why keep the testicles? They're in the way when he jogs or plays tennis or does anything healthy, bouncing, and jouncing. When he's Aurora's captive maiden in her dungeon, they ruin the view; and anyone can put him into agony by punching or kicking him in the balls. And, she might add, according to my encyclopedia, if the operation is done after puberty, it has little or no effect on secondary sex characteristics.

Aurora has been to a detailed sex education class. They didn't teach me this stuff in the ninth grade. Actually, they didn't teach me some of this stuff until right now.

At Aurora's urging, the narrator undergoes surgery in which he mistakenly thinks he will get a practically permanent hard-on; whereas in fact he is really undergoing castration. During a crucial point in the story he asks the doctor, "Will it always be hard?" The doctor answers, "No, it gets easier with time." I always urge my students not to use "hard" when they really mean difficult. Following my teaching would have been useful here. Ooops! The poor guy was too far gone from the anesthesia to deal with grammatical niceties.

Hear that, guys? You've got to make English grammar automatic in your personal lives. Otherwise, you might get your balls cut off.

A further grammatical lesson ensues. Near the end of the surgery, the guy wonders if she has cut his cock off. The doctor reassures him: "I'm taping your penis to one side, to keep it out of the way until the wound heals. There's a catheter in it now, so you won't need to pee. I'll remove it tomorrow before we discharge you." Grammar problem: What's the antecedent of "it"? The doctor looks up and smiles. "I mean remove the catheter, of course! My but your pulse jumped when I said that! No, this is only an orchiectomy."

When the guy comes out of the anesthesia, Aurora is at his side. "Aurora, do you know what they did?" he asks. "SHE did, dear. It's a very simple operation, and doesn't really need a team." Aurora really knows her grammar! And you guys thought this story would scare you! There's nothing scary about good grammar.

Back to the story. The guy soon realizes that what's done is done. All the resentment in the world wouldn't bring his testicles back. As the saying goes, "There's no use crying over snipped off testicles." The doctor has done what she thought he wanted, and had asked him twice, and he had signed for the operation . He just hadn't picked up on her cues while they were talking. Need I say more about the value of the skills learned in a high school English class?

Now, let's see what you have learned. The next day the doctor visits her patient and says, "Your body's manufacturing traces of the hormones you need to maintain firm skin texture, and other sex characteristics, and above all to maintain sexual desire. But not enough. In a few days you'll lose all interest in that part of life, when what's there now is used up. So we need to replace the hormones your testicles once manufactured with the other kind right away. You understand this, don't you?" Now, what question should this guy ask the doctor before he gives an affirmative answer? That's right! He needs to ask if the continued therapy is going to give him MALE or FEMALE hormones. To put it another way, he needs to verify that he and the doctor are on the same page of the program; and with his track record so far, he should be skeptical. {If you answered that the patient's next question should be "Is this going to be covered by insurance?", you would be right, of course - but that answer would be more appropriate for an economics class.}

If all this worries you guys, just find a girl who has a harmless hobby - like cow tipping - instead of castration. Even defenstration might be better than castration, unless she lives above the third floor.

I don't want to ruin the ending for you. As you may know, this author always has logically complete and happy endings - at least they're happy if you buy into the right perspective - and, of course, if you can handle the grammar.

I personally think this is the best Vickie Tern story I have yet read. And that's saying a lot!