De-sexing our cats changes them from real animals to living toys

We are fooling ourselves if we believe we are forced to spay and neuter our cats for their benefit and ours and to solely keep down the domestic cat population. Spaying and neutering are invasive operations; they remove the sex organs of the female and male cat. This both prevents reproduction and alters behaviour. It turns them into living toys.

Many Americans go a step further in this quest and remove their cat’s claws as well – ten amputations. It is called ‘declawing’ which is a deliberate misnomer to make is sound less ghastly. And a few even go one step further in turning their cat into a living fluff ball; they remove their cat’s canine teeth (detoothing). They are all part of the same human process; a deep modification of the domestic cat on human terms without consent.

How we like them
How we like them. Image: MikeB

The de-sexing operations are described as necessary and in the case of male neutering a trivial matter, carried out rapidly with a speedy recovery. It is not a trivial matter from the cat’s standpoint as it radically alters his behavior. I have said it before, castrating male humans is considered extreme and almost shocking. And yet for our dear ‘pets’ who we consider to be close family members cutting of the balls of the male is a ‘minor op’.

RELATED: Effects of Castrating a Cat (and a man)

The purpose of the operation is equally about stopping unwanted male cat behavior during mating. Humans consider domestic cat mating as unpleasant. They are noisy and the males get into fights competing for females. The females call out for mates and have sex with different males. It is all rather crude and distasteful. An orgy of sorts. We have to get rid of it all.

The female operation, spaying, the removal of the uterus and ovaries is more serious with a longer recovery but the objective is the same; to stop procreation and to stop mating behaviours. It is also said to improve health. Humans can improve on nature.

At the end of the day turning our cats into sexless objects is as much about altering behaviour as it about stopping the production of kittens.

Vasectomy and tubal sterilisation

We shouldn’t fool ourselves into believing anything else as there is a way of preventing procreation while retaining normal feline behavior: the vasectomy in male cats and tubal sterilization in females.

For females this means cutting or tying her fallopian tubes. It stopes pregnancy but not her love-life. For males the vasectomy means tying off their sperm ducts. This prevents him delivering sperm to fertilise the female’s eggs. It does nothing else.

It does not make him lazy or docile (and sometimes plumper) and it does not interfere with his sexual activities which he would continue to enjoy but not us. It would be deeply upsetting for humans to have males chomping at the bit seeking sex.

If you look up why we don’t instruct veterinarians to carry out these operations, they wisely state that it is because they do not alter behavior. We need to alter their behavior. We need fluffy living toys on our terms.

If our cats had a voice they’d object. And it is ironic that animal advocates who say they are the voice of the voiceless don’t criticise the de-sexing operations along these lines. From a strictly feline perspective they are horrible.

I have always said that I prefer the whole male cat appearance. So, this is not even about creating sexless living toys. It is also about altering the appearance of the male. The female’s appearance is unaltered by the spaying operation but the male loses their masculine face. It is sad to be honest. The majority of women love the masculine male human face for a variety of reasons but they accept the less than masculine face of the castrated male cat.

Unsterilised or late sterilised male cat
This boy is 10 years old. He has no teeth! Too much fighting, I guess. He is described as handsome by women. Photo: Community Cat Coalition on Facebook.

I understand the sentiments completely. But at root, these desexing operations are an example of speciesism. The cat does not have a voice. They do as we want and as we please.

Comments welcome.

13 thoughts on “De-sexing our cats changes them from real animals to living toys”

  1. Good point but there is a difference between a vaccination – a benign procedure which has a 99.99% success rate – and ripping out the sex organs of domestic cats to leave then ‘neutered’. We don’t castrate young men (cut off their balls while sedated) as a matter of routine and give young women full hysterectomies as a matter of course. That’s my point. Both these ops are needed for cats but it is an indication of the failure of cat domestication that we have to do them.

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