MIAMI
A man has been arrested in Florida for castrating a companion who submitted to the procedure voluntarily after they met on an internet fetish site specialising in eunuchs.
“This one is a little… let’s just say sensitive. You could even say it’s kinda nuts,” the Highland County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement posted on Facebook after the arrest.
Gary Van Ryswyk, 74, came to the door when sheriff’s deputies knocked on Sunday and told them he had just castrated a man, who was bleeding heavily on a bed with a towel over his groin.
A pink container nearby held “two body parts that had recently been much closer to the victim,” the sheriff’s office said.
The victim, who was not identified, was taken to hospital and later flown to a regional medical centre where he was in stable condition.
According to the sheriff’s office, Van Ryswyk had outfitted the bedroom as an operating theatre with medical equipment and a video camera to record the procedure.
He told deputies he met the victim through a site for people with castration fetishes, and that it wasn’t the first time he had attempted the procedure.
He said a castration attempt that he performed in a motel a few years ago “turned out pretty much like this one,” with the man ending up in the hospital.
Van Ryswyk told the victim he had experimented on animals and even removed one of his own testicles in 2012, according to the sheriff’s office.
He was charged on Monday with practicing medicine without a license resulting in bodily harm, and bond was set at $250,000.
“This one will definitely hang around in the memory for a while,” the sheriff’s office said.