Boy’s penis permanently damaged in school attack

[reader]

This is one of the most disheartening reports of bullying I’ve read about in Thailand.

A 15-year-old is suffering from a severe infection after a senior student forcibly injected a chemical into his penis at their school in Nakhon Si Thammarat. His penis is said to be permanently disfigured. 

From the Bangkok Post

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2685109/boy-suffers-nerve-damage-in-school-penis-assault

 

[vinapu]

hopefully law enforcement will provide the same treatment to offending senior student. alternatively castration will do

[PeterRS]

14 minutes ago, reader said:

This is one of the most disheartening reports of bullying I’ve read about in Thailand.

A 15-year-old is suffering from a severe infection after a senior student forcibly injected a chemical into his penis at their school in Nakhon Si Thammarat. His penis is said to be permanently disfigured. 

From the Bangkok Post

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2685109/boy-suffers-nerve-damage-in-school-penis-assault

Sadly I have heard worse. Back in the early 1990s a group of teenage Hong Kong schoolboys returning to their housing estate were having an argument about A having "stolen" B's girlfriend. The argument became heated. A few got into a lift to go up to their homes. Two friends of B then held boy A down while B pulled down his shorts and cut off his penis.

I was friendly with the Justice of the Peace who had to preside at the court trial and who told me the gory details when we were both having lunch in a nice restaurant in Tokyo! He said it was one of the saddest cases tried before him. The remains of the penis were never found and at that time the boy clearly had a pretty miserable life ahead of him. (Please, no jokes about a future as a ladyboy. This was much too serious an event.)

[vinapu]

another case where castration would be most fitting penalty, no anesthetics though

[reader]

From the Thaiger

Teen almost loses penis 

A 15 year old Thai boy almost lost his penis after his school friends forced him to have a beeswax injection and recorded a video of the procedure to blackmail him.

The victim’s mother claimed the incident happened at her son’s school in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat on August 1 but the case has not progressed because the school will not cooperate with the investigation. The school director also threatened to expel the victim if the family did not drop the case.

The mother said she decided to seek help from social media celebrity Kannarat “Gun” Pongpaiboonwet because she felt sorry for her son and wanted the school to take responsibility for the problem. The mother said the school gave her 1,000 baht along with a gift basket but is not taking the matter seriously.

The mother told the media that her son was dragged into a bathroom by older students. One of the attackers placed a piece of beeswax on a spoon, burned the spoon to melt the beeswax, and injected the melted beeswax into her son’s penis.

The boy also told his mother that the gang recorded the act in the bathroom and threatened to release the video to the public if he told anyone about the incident.

According to the victim, the group of attackers set themselves up as a mafia. They sell kratom drinks and smoke cigarettes in school and teachers turn a blind eye. After the attack, the gang went to school as usual while the victim was treated in hospital for a serious injury.

The mother said her son’s private parts were swollen and his penis was almost cut off. She sought treatment for her son in many hospitals but his condition did not improve.

Lelux Hospital doctor Jirawee Chantaranukul said the victim was suffering both physically and mentally. The injury is considered life-threatening and may develop into cancer in the future. The infection has destroyed most of the nerves in the organ.

However, the doctor is confident that the organ will heal. The medical process will take about three months, starting with the removal of all the beeswax.

Gun said he would take the matter to the Deputy Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police, Surachate “Big Joke” Hakparn, and also seek justice for the victim from the Ministry of Education.

 

 

[PeterRS]

2 hours ago, vinapu said:

another case where castration would be most fitting penalty, no anesthetics though

Perhaps interesting that in the 17th and 18th centuries when boys with particularly beautiful voices prior to puberty were castrated to prevent the voice breaking into a lower register, they also had no anaesthetics. It will seem odd to us nowadays but castrati who became successful were virtually the pop singers of their day. Castration not only prevented the voice from changing, it did not stop other parts of the body from developing. Most castrati were known for their long limbs, tall bodies and incredible lung power. Women who attended operas or who had been successful in inviting a castrato to sing at one of their private soirees (for humongous fees) were aghast that a note could be held for well over a minute often with a crescendo starting in the middle and ending very loudly. Many would faint. Some sought them out as lovers for clearly they were considered "safe"! The few who reached the top earned fees akin to those earned by a Paul McCartney or an Elton John.

Only a few did reach that top. Many boys were castrated by poor parents in the hope that fame and fortune would follow. For the vast majority it was merely poverty and a ruined life. Yet the top castrati virtually ruled the world of opera for a century from around 1680. The most famous was Farinelli whose life as a boy with a beautiful voice, a castrated singer and a sensuous lover whose brother would be a party to his seductions by quietly taking the place of Farinelli to achieve climax was made into a successful movie in 1994. It won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. To achieve the vocal sound, the technicians married the voices of a low counter-tenor with a high soprano. 

 

[Keithambrose]

2 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Perhaps interesting that in the 17th and 18th centuries when boys with particularly beautiful voices prior to puberty were castrated to prevent the voice breaking into a lower register, they also had no anaesthetics. It will seem odd to us nowadays but castrati who became successful were virtually the pop singers of their day. Castration not only prevented the voice from changing, it did not stop other parts of the body from developing. Most castrati were known for their long limbs, tall bodies and incredible lung power. Women who attended operas or who had been successful in inviting a castrato to sing at one of their private soirees (for humongous fees) were aghast that a note could be held for well over a minute often with a crescendo starting in the middle and ending very loudly. Many would faint. Some sought them out as lovers for clearly they were considered "safe"! The few who reached the top earned fees akin to those earned by a Paul McCartney or an Elton John.

Only a few did reach that top. Many boys were castrated by poor parents in the hope that fame and fortune would follow. For the vast majority it was merely poverty and a ruined life. Yet the top castrati virtually ruled the world of opera for a century from around 1680. The most famous was Farinelli whose life as a boy with a beautiful voice, a castrated singer and a sensuous lover whose brother would be a party to his seductions by quietly taking the place of Farinelli to achieve climax was made into a successful movie in 1994. It won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. To achieve the vocal sound, the technicians married the voices of a low counter-tenor with a high soprano. 

 

Nowadays a lot of the castrati roles in early Opera, Handel, for example, are sung by countertenors. However I have also heard a male soprano, and am not sure of the distinction. I suspect that PeterRS will know?

[Keithambrose]

Just now, Keithambrose said:

Nowadays a lot of the castrati roles in early Opera, Handel, for example, are sung by countertenors. However I have also heard a male soprano, and am not sure of the distinction. I suspect that PeterRS will know?

Also, I believe that the Ottoman Turks practiced castration, got the eunuchs, by tying a tight cord around the testickes which would in due course, drop off! Not sure if that is true, but it might be less painful!

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, Keithambrose said:

I have also heard a male soprano, and am not sure of the distinction. I suspect that PeterRS will know?

I have heard of this type of voice but never heard one. It seems to be a result of certain medical malformations - as, for example, a larynx that has not completely developed. This enables the normal chest/head voice to reach much higher than a normal tenor. Can't add any more.

There was another voice - the super high tenor. This was very common in France, especially in the 19th century when composers like Berlioz wrote for it. This was a natural tenor voice but trained go considerably higher up the scale than a regular tenor voice. But the fashion for this high voice died out, perhaps as a result of the rise of the counter-tenor voice in the mid-20th century.

1 hour ago, Keithambrose said:

I believe that the Ottoman Turks practiced castration, got the eunuchs, by tying a tight cord around the testickes which would in due course, drop off! Not sure if that is true, but it might be less painful!

The tight cord method certainly seems to have been used by the Ottoman Turks. But it took a long time for the genitals to finally fall off and I believe it was actually a more painful process than the knife!

Castration was also practised in many dynasties in Imperial China. It was also sometimes used as a punishment. Because of the Chinese belief that the body must be buried whole, the excised organs were kept in jars, presumably with names stuck on them! Korea and Vietnam are two other countries where castration was not uncommon, especially in the Imperial courts. The French colonial power sometimes used castration as a means of degrading individual Vietnamese.

[unicorn]

13 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

Nowadays a lot of the castrati roles in early Opera, Handel, for example, are sung by countertenors. However I have also heard a male soprano, and am not sure of the distinction. I suspect that PeterRS will know?

Counter-tenors' vocal ranges are typically in the mezzo-soprano range. They typically play the roles castrati played in 18th-century operas, although the role of Cherubino in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro if often played by a female soprano. It was played by a woman when performed at the Los Angeles Opera last year, for example. 

 

[unicorn]

Here's the same aria performed by a real counter-tenor (not a cross-dressing woman):

 

[fedssocr]

18 hours ago, reader said:

From the Thaiger

Teen almost loses penis 

A 15 year old Thai boy almost lost his penis after his school friends forced him to have a beeswax injection and recorded a video of the procedure to blackmail him.

The victim’s mother claimed the incident happened at her son’s school in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat on August 1 but the case has not progressed because the school will not cooperate with the investigation. The school director also threatened to expel the victim if the family did not drop the case.

 

 

"his school friends"!?!?!?!?!? Whoever wrote this article needs to resign

[t0oL1]

WHY beeswax for a punishment? Researching- beeswax and olive oil is a common thing to inject for volume enhancement, not that it's medically recommended. 

Finding others who think the boys story is not adding up and may change later...

[PeterRS]

2 hours ago, unicorn said:

Counter-tenors' vocal ranges are typically in the mezzo-soprano range. They typically play the roles castrati played in 18th-century operas, although the role of Cherubino in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro if often played by a female soprano. It was played by a woman when performed at the Los Angeles Opera last year, for example. 

The castrati came in different vocal styles. Gluck was the famous opera reformer and his most popular work today is Orfeo based on the tale of Orpheus who goes down to the underworld to take back his beloved Euridyce who has died. When first performed in Vienna in 1762 a few years after Mozart's birth, the title role was written for the famous mezzo-soprano castrato named Guadagni. When it was revised and performed in Italy some years later, the role was rewritten for a high soprano castrato Giuseppe Millico. There were also contralto castrati such as the hugely popular Senesino for whom Handel wrote many of his major operatic roles. Senesino was based in London for about 16 years where Handel then lived.

As for Cherubino, this has traditionally been played by a woman with a mezzo-soprano voice. In the opera Cherubino is a teenage boy besotted by teenage love and is one of quite a few "trouser" roles in opera. Another teenage role is Octavian in Richard Strauss' most popular opera Der Rosenkavalier, always sung by a mezzo. There he also plays a teenager in love with a woman but who is much older. Indeed, the opening scene sees them in bed together after a short orchestral prelude depiciting their passionate love-making. As one critic wrote, that Prelude concludes with "four quick upthrusts on the horn"!

I have never heard of counter-tenors singing the role of Cherubino. Much as I love Philippe Jaroussky's voice, the vdo is of a concert performance. He has never sung the role in a staged performance. I suppose somewhere in Germany there will be an opera house or two where directors trying to be modern have used counter-tenors in the role. But oddly, in the youtube excerpts I have listened to, the counter-tenor voice sounds less like that of a youngish boy! One of the greatest Cherubinos of the last century was the Spanish mezzo Teresa Berganza. Not only was she relatively small and therefore physically more suited to the part, when you listen to the subtlety she brings to the aria it's surely clear this is the voice Mozart intended foe the role.

 

[Keithambrose]

3 hours ago, unicorn said:

Here's the same aria performed by a real counter-tenor (not a cross-dressing woman):

 

Thanks!

[Keithambrose]

17 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

Nowadays a lot of the castrati roles in early Opera, Handel, for example, are sung by countertenors. However I have also heard a male soprano, and am not sure of the distinction. I suspect that PeterRS will know?

Thanks. I cannot now remember the opera, it was at Covent Garden, and the male soprano was Polish!

[kokopelli3]

Here is an actual recording of a castrato, Alessandro Moreschi sings Ave Maria. 1904.

 

[PeterRS]

2 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

Thanks!

Moreschi was in his mid-40s when that recording was made and he was apparently petrified about the whole business of recording. He was probably never a more than an average singer and that recording is of interest merely because it highlights what a castrato sounded like virtually at the end of his career. It lacks the warmth, depth, fullness and beauty of a true castrato in his prime. As an historical record, though, it is fascinating.

When he joined the Sistine Chapel Choir aged around 25, there were only six other castrati in the Choir, although its Director had once been a castrato Chorister himself. The year after the recording was made all the castrati in the Choir were pensioned off and employment of such voices in future banned.

[PeterRS]

I'm going to add three more vdo clips of extraordinary female voices, but in order not to derail this thread too much, I have added them in a new thread under Theatre, Art, Movies and Literature.

[unicorn]

5 hours ago, PeterRS said:

...As for Cherubino, this has traditionally been played by a woman with a mezzo-soprano voice...

Thanks for the info. It looks as though the practice is mainly due to tradition, although I suppose a woman can be made to look like a male teenager, perhaps more easily than most middle-aged men. Do you know if this tradition goes back to the 18th century? Was this role never intended for castrati or counter-tenors? Last year's LA Opera performance was the second time I attended that opera, and I remember the first time I attended that opera was some years ago at the SF Opera. I remember feeling upset at that time as well, that the role wasn't given to a counter-tenor. I didn't realize that this has simply been the tradition. I'm curious as to what happened in Mozart's day. 

[PeterRS]

The heyday of the castrato voice in opera was the first half of the 18th century. Mozart never intended Cherubino to be sung by anyone other than a soprano or mezzo-soprano female voice. The castrato voice was becoming less popular by the time Mozart's genius was recognised. In his early operas written before he was 25, he certainly did include roles for soprano or contralto castrati. Therafter he only used one once again in his last opera Clemenza di Tito. He never used any in arguably his best-known and finest operas: the three with libretti by Lorenzo da Ponte - Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte - or in Magic Flute. I suspect this is because by this time he had become far more aware of the vital importance of the dramatic action happening on stage.

The voices in his early operas included both soprano and contralto castrati. Nowadays some of the soprano castrato roles are at the very highest range for a counter-tenor and so are almost always performed by female sopranos. Incidentally, the famous motet Esultate Jubilate was composed when Mozart was 17 for the celebrated castrato Rauzzini.

The counter-tenor voice did not gain popularity until around the mid-20th century with Russell Oberlin in America and Alfred Deller in the UK leading the way. Essentially this is a falsetto voice. All males can create such a falsetto sound but it requires years of technical and vocal training to develop the sound, to make it 'even' and develop character if you wish to become a professional singer.

[kokopelli3]

5 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Moreschi was in his mid-40s when that recording was made and he was apparently petrified about the whole business of recording. He was probably never a more than an average singer and that recording is of interest merely because it highlights what a castrato sounded like virtually at the end of his career. It lacks the warmth, depth, fullness and beauty of a true castrato in his prime. As an historical record, though, it is fascinating.

 

Sadly there are no recordings  of a true castrato other than Moreschi. 

[Keithambrose]

5 hours ago, PeterRS said:

I'm going to add three more vdo clips of extraordinary female voices, but in order not to derail this thread too much, I have added them in a new thread under Theatre, Art, Movies and Literature.

Thanks.

[omega]

10 hours ago, t0oL1 said:

WHY beeswax for a punishment? Researching- beeswax and olive oil is a common thing to inject for volume enhancement, not that it's medically recommended. 

Finding others who think the boys story is not adding up and may change later...

Absolute nonsense.

Mother drawing as much attention to the issue as possible, instead of trying to hide the incident suggests that a sense of injustice is motivating her.

The school refusing to co-operate indicates that there is a problem that they do not want to, or are not capable of dealing with.

There is apparently a video of this incident circulating amongst the students of the school.

[t0oL1]

apparently or supposedly?

https://www.medicaldaily.com/doctors-remove-mans-penis-after-illegal-injections-cause-genitalia-swell-size-coconut-243577

The injections, which are sometimes performed with beeswax, silicone, and paraffin, are an illegal procedure that used by Thai men in order to increase the size of their penises. Despite their common use, evidence has not shown that they work.