Sex - Basic Aspects of Human Sexuality

The Role of Hormones: Testosterone

What are the effects of castration on sexual behavior?
Castration in adulthood
In an adult, castration has a different effect: He also becomes infertile, but his sexual capacity, motivation, and performance do not necessarily come to an immediate end. In the long run, he will experience a considerable reduction in all of these areas, but on the psychosocial level he may still be able to act out some of his earlier sexual scripts. A castration in adults can become necessary because of testicular cancer and other diseases.

Castration of sex offenders
Castration has sometimes also been authorized by the legal authorities to be applied to violant sex offenders. In recent years, the surgical castration of sex offenders has increasingly been replaced by the so-called chemical or hormonal castration. Substances like cyproterone acetate are used to suppress the gonadal hormone production. This kind of 'castration' is, of course, reversible by discontinuing the treatment.