Dear Mr.Putnam,
Your lovely spinster sister has informed me that you soon sail for the docks of Shanghai. There, you plan to voluntarily submit yourself to the surgical emasculation we seawolves spend most of our lives fervently trying to avoid. While I may appreciate the desire to escape one’s manly burdens and revel in the ribbons and bows of a witless doxy, I cannot in all good conscience recommend this dangerous procedure. I speak in part from direct experience as I for a period did live as a member of the fairer sex while repaying my debts to The British East India Company. Take my brined advice, the life of a woman is not to be envied and I doubt that will much change with the turn of the century.
Only the patriarchal sexism of a capitalist society in decline could possibly invent something as crassly named as a “front hole” and thus pretend a dry lifeless penis-holster is all that makes our mothers and sisters women. Though I highly recommend every mate and wright acquire a vulvus for sheer practicality, consider foregoing the gash. That which a Shanghai surgeon can provide will never equal its twin. If his knife does not kill you, the subsequent fevers and weeping pusses which ensue surely will. Alas, there is quite simply no surgical substitute for the moist gardens of a Godly born woman. You do best to make use of your port hole and enjoy what little stump of you remains upon your bow.
Best of luck to you sir and please offer my best regards to the widow Putnam,
Captain Fraser
Letter from Capt.Fraser to Jonathan C. Putnam Esq. 1883,
UNB Archive, Medical Subject Headings, ISSN: 0361-3623.
