Well, there goes UPenn's swim team's chances

Cutting off the production line?

Police raid sinister 'Nullo' cult in north London and arrest seven men after 'pay-per-view live footage of members being CASTRATED appeared online'

Police have arrested seven men including a suspect in his sixties linked to a 'bizarre' castration cult who have intimate body parts removed on film led by a ringleader nicknamed 'The Eunoch Maker', it was revealed today.

The group is likely inspired by asexual Japanese artist Mao Sugiyama who had his penis and testicles surgically removed nine years ago, aged 23, to serve as a meal to five guests at an exclusive banquet. He would later have his nipples cut off.

The Met Police has revealed it raided a property in Finsbury Park, North London, and spent three days there removing desktop computers, laptops and other items in plastic evidence bags.

It is alleged that removal of body parts were carried out in the basement flat and screened on a pay-per-view basis, via an adult channel boosted by a Twitter account.

A 44-year-old Norwegian man living there has been held on suspicion of conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm. Six other people, aged in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, have also been arrested. 

The alleged ringleader, who lives at the property, is said to have given himself the moniker: 'The Eunuch Maker' and is understood to have undergone an amputation himself. The seven suspects have all been released on bail.  

A neighbour of the Finsbury Park apartment told The Sun: 'It was all very bizarre, there were police outside the flat for a few days. They were putting everything in plastic bags — it looked like computers and laptops.'     

The Nullo movement has grown in popularity in recent years. There are extreme cases where people are castrated for cannibalistic or sexual desires - but the majority remove their genitals because they don't identify as male or female. Many opt for a 'smoothie' - a procedure that leaves them with a fully smooth groin.

More than half of those people use amateur 'cutters' - often doctors or vets - or do it themselves. There are an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 voluntary 'Nullos' worldwide, though the true number is unknown. Two-thirds never tell anyone they have no genitalia, including their families, a 2014 academic study found.

(Have we really progressed so far that nut-chopping parties like this must have scare quotes around ‘bizarre’?)

UPDATE: A clash of two trends: Hollywood’s now showing male actors’ penises and makeup artists are scurrying around making up prosthetic ones. No word whether our beloved, respected icons are secret Nullos, or just suffering from an inferiority complex, but let’s all stand up and cheer for them, regardless.

RELATED?

The end of 'Dear Sir/Madam'? Leading law firm Withers LLP drops traditional introduction on letters