No sex please, we're eunuchs

Like many sensitive teenagers, Roger Davies felt different from his peers. He wasn't into sport and abhorred the aggression he saw in other boys. When, at the age of 22, he still hadn't grown out of his sense of isolation, he took radical action: he travelled to America and underwent castration.

"I'm really happy with who I am now," says the 25-year-old cleaner and caterer from Southport. "I don't have any desire to be accepted as a woman or change genders. I just didn't like my masculinity."

Roger is not the only British eunuch. He knows around a dozen other men who have also had the operation, and estimates that there are hundreds of others in the UK. According to a Channel 4 documentary to be shown tonight, every year thousands of men across Europe and the US seek out castration.

Last month three men in America who were accused of operating what police described as a sadomasochistic dungeon - where activities included castrations - were sentenced to more than 20 years in prison. But Roger wasn't seeking a sexual thrill. Quite the opposite. He wanted to dampen down the normal sexual urges that started in puberty. He says he always stood out for being "soft-hearted" and was repeatedly bullied. He was also different in another way - he has never been able to bring himself to stand up while urinating. "It doesn't feel right. I did try when I first started at primary school, but I couldn't," he admits.

He started to resent his testicles, which he refers to as "that part of my body". "I didn't like the way it made me feel. It wasn't me and the feeling escalated with puberty. I really hated the urges to have sex. I didn't like the idea of going bald or having facial hair either."

His feelings about his sexuality are ambivalent. "I have cross-dressed a couple of times, but I think gender is a lot more complex than a bipolar idea that society would prescribe. I don't like to think of myself as a guy and I don't like to think of myself as a girl either."

At 16 he discovered an online eunuch community, and learnt of an operation to remove his testicles. A year later, he went to see his GP. "I said I didn't like that part of my body and I wanted to have it taken away. He said it was a job for a psychiatrist's couch, not for a surgeon's table. He implied that I was crazy, and it was really quite hurtful. He probably saw me as a raving lunatic."

A bilateral orchidectomy [removal of the testicles] is only performed on the NHS for strict medical reasons - cancer (testicular and prostate) and some cases of gender reassignment, which is a recognised medical disorder. Private doctors are governed by the same rules. According to Professor Mayur Lakhani, chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, anyone wanting to have their testicles removed for psychological reasons such as Roger's would automatically be turned down. "We would not support that request because there is no medical indication for it. We must resist this."