Women's Machete Competition

This is dedicated to Nicole, whose hard work and shared fantasies have given me great pleasure. My thanks to the former “Eunuch Archives” correspondant – Wendy – for the idea. I hope she reads this someday - Finder

An old ritual among sugar-cane farming cultures has, like many other formerly agricultural or hunting practices, become a form of sport and intense competition. This is what is now known as the Women’s Machete Competition.

It appears to have its roots in ancient matriarchal societies from the Dominican Republic or Haiti. It is now practiced on both islands, and, under great secrecy, in Cuba.

It was the Cuban form of the practice that came to the attention of several Canadian ethnologists. Although still virtually unknown to their colleagues in industrialized countries, it is now witnessed annually by a select group of well-heeled etho-tourists, for whom no human custom may be too bizarre or brutal for their jaded tastes.

Its origin appears to be a form of ritual punishment for men in the community who have transgressed the accepted social norms in male-female relations. Specifically, men who are accused of physically or sexually abusing a woman, or who are charged with rape, are put on trial. If convicted, they are invariably sentenced to a seemingly extreme and brutal form of punishment. The trials themselves are informal and quick, often taking the form of a half-hour “kangaroo court” in which the woman’s word, sometimes without testimony from other witnesses, is usually sufficient to convict the accused.

Historically, the punishment was carried out immediately, the night of the trial. The convicted was deemed not fit to possess his main claim to manhood – his penis – and the offending member was summarily severed from his body. Sometimes the sentence was carried out by the accuser, but in more recent history it appears to have become the special work of “the cutter”, a woman trained to perform the amputation quickly and cleanly. Later still, the task involved two or three women, who worked together to obtain “un denier fois” – “one last time” – referring to a final ejaculation – moments before (or, in some cases, actually during) the amputation.

The ritual was always public. Men, women, couples – anyone adolescent or older, from the community - all came to stand in front of the platform in the center of the village to watch a man lose his prime masculine attribute. Undoubtedly the public nature of it also worked as a warning to those men who still possessed penises – use it carefully, or else!

By the middle of the 19th century, the timing of the sentencing had changed dramatically. No longer were they carried out immediately, but were instead “saved up”. The convicted might spend months in confinement, kept in chains at night and working the fields, under guard, by day. When the time came, there were as many as 20 or 30 men in some villages waiting for their sentence to be carried out. All the amputations were then carried out in quick succession, over the space of an hour, or in some cases, just several minutes.

Except for the accused, it appears to have been a night of loud and boisterous celebration, bawdiness and considerable public displays of sexual activity, with a prominent focus on male genitals. Couples actively celebrated together, with the male apparently feeling little squeamishness or sympathy for the accused and his doomed member.

Erect-penis effigies were everywhere – large wooden ones displayed in the town center, all around the raised stage where the sentence was to be carried out, even in penis-shaped bread and deserts baked for the occasion. There seemed to be no prohibitions against the display of actual genitals, either; women would actively stimulate their men as they watched, pulling their erections from their pants for all to see. The entire ceremony or ritual appears to be steeped with highly sexual overtones, with both sexes apparently aroused by the proceedings.

Most villages could not muster a sufficient number of accused men to assemble what was deemed a “great celebration”. Villages began to pool their populations of victims so there were always 20 or 30 ready to be cut in the annual event.

The cutters became more highly trained and specialized than ever. Some, having mastered the art of severing penises with considerable skill and efficiency, never went back to the sugar-cane fields, but practiced over the year for “their night” when their talents would be on display for all to see. A highly secret network of cutters and their protegees developed across the islands, with the experts mentoring new trainees. During the year, they practiced with rubber or wooden penis effigies, honing their skills – and their machetes – for the big event.

The cutters would brag about their prowess – how rapidly they could stimulate a man to full erection; how they could detect the early and subtle onset of ejaculation, before it was visible to any onlookers; how quickly and cleanly they could sever a spurting penis – so sharp were their machetes, that “he didn’t even know what he was missing till he was done coming!” Inevitably, it took on a competitive aspect, with its collection of arcane rules and requirements.

Each man must let loose with at least one spurt of semen, before the blade can touch his penis; the cutter is expected to cleanly remove the erect penis with one stroke (she’s penalized by one penis if it takes two or more strokes to complete the job); the visible portion of the penis must be cleanly severed leaving no more than a 2-cm stump; if she cuts too close and removes skin over the pubic region she’s penalized by half a minute. A downward stroke that starts high and cuts through at an angle, removing portions of scrotal skin, is not penalized, however, since there are significant variations between mens’ anatomies.

The tour guide we met introduced us to one of her more enthusiastic customers, who had taken detailed notes as well as videos of the event. After arranging a time and place to meet, we talked to Helen Pitman, just back from Cuba via Montreal.

“It was unbelievable,” she says, shaking her head. “They had these long benches, about knee height, laid end to end, 10 of them arranged in a circle. Each bench is about 6 feet long, long enough for a guy to lie down on, legs spread with his feet touching the ground. The circle of benches is maybe 18 or 20 feet in diameter. Actually, there are two circles, about 15 feet apart. Then they brought out these guys – stark naked! You should have seen them, some of them were hunks, too – I was thinking, ‘What a waste!’ looking at them – their packages, you know – but I was getting really hot just thinking about what was going to happen, no way did I want to miss this.

“They laid the guys down end to end on the benches – so one guy’s head was about a foot or two from the next guy’s knees. They were face up, so these guys couldn’t hide anything. Everything was showing. They put a little pillow-like thing, I think it was filled with straw, under his butt so his – his pelvis, you know – is raised up a couple of inches – boy, do they look vulnerable! Then the guy’s strapped down with these wide canvas straps – tight. He can’t move. There’s one across his belly so he can’t even wiggle his butt – or his cock. His legs are spread, bent at the knees and his feet just reach the ground, tied to the bench legs.

“The thing is – here’s where the competition is – there’s two circles of benches. So we get 10 guys strapped down head-to-feet in one circle, and over there, there’s another 10 guys tied to the other circle of benches.

“Then the ‘fluffers” show up – 3 of them for each circle of men. These are the girls that are supposed to get the men hard. I couldn’t believe it would work, since these guys all know their cock is going to get sliced off in a few minutes. Turns out these girls have been giving the men weekly hand jobs for months – the guys get – what’s the word? You know, Pavlov’s dogs – conditioned. They can’t jack themselves off while they’re in confinement, so all the sex they get is from these girls. The girl shows up, she takes off her top and wiggles her tits in his face, she strokes his cock – he gets really hard, end of story. Amazingly effective. The girls started working on the guys right away, 3 of them on ten guys, from the middle of the circle. It was hot, I’ll tell you – watching 20 penises rising, practically in unison. And this is all in full public, the entire village is seated or standing 3 or 4 deep around the benches, plus about a dozen twisted tourists like me. We were close – I was sitting front row center, so the nearest guy’s cock was almost eye level, almost close enough to touch. And I could see all the other cocks too, except the ones just behind the girls if they were working a guy on the other side of the circle.

“The competition is between two cutters, one working each circle. The 3 girls doing the dick-stiffening routine work for their cutter – they’re trying to help her win. To win – naturally – you have to be the first to cut off all 10 cocks. But, you can’t just swing away, slice and dice. She can’t whack it off till he comes – or at least, starts to come. He’s got to clearly get off at least one spurt before she applies her machete to his manhood.

“The tour guide – a young Spanish woman, who’s doing her 6th year of this tour – explained the rules. Once we understood them, it was really exciting. The girls got the men really hard first, they’re moaning and trying to buck and thrust into the girls’ hands, but they can’t move, they’re helpless. The girls seem to know exactly how far they can take each guy without him spurting.

“Then the two cutters came through the crowd; a big cheer goes up. Amazing bodies, you should have seen the arm muscles on these women. Naked from the waist up, great physiques – strong and proud. Each waving about an 18-inch machete over her head. She leaps over the nearest strapped-down guy, stands in the middle of the circle. She starts calling out constant instructions to her girls,

“They had it down like clockwork. Each “stiffener” girl knows the sequence they’ll try to follow, how fast they’ll get each guy off, in what order. The cutter is turning slowly, watching her girls and the cocks they’re working on, ever so closely. The tension is unbelievable – it’s completely silent now, just a quiet word now and then from one of the cutters to her girls.

“Then we hear a shout from one of the girls – she’s working a guy next to the one right in front of me. My eyes snap over and see her giving him some real hard strokes, full length, hand slamming into his belly – she knows he’s going over the edge. And whoosh, there’s this huge spurt from the guy’s cock, straight up, must have gone at least 3 feet into the air.

“And the teamwork! The girl has released her man just as he starts to spurt, she’s backed off about 2 steps already, his come is just splashing down on his belly and more onto the ground – and the cutter is right there, taking a big full-arm swing with her machete! You just see this bright silver streak in the firelight, and suddenly the guy’s cock isn’t there – it’s simply gone, just a half-inch stump sticking up. Then there’s a gush of blood, like a little water fountain, squooshing up and running down his thighs. And – this is the amazing part – he keeps coming, hard! You could see his semen still squirting up, a regular rhythm, every half second another spurt would shoot up from the end of his stump, as though the blood and all wasn’t even there.

“Of course, the guy’s cock hasn’t really disappeared, it’s just taken about a 20-foot trip through the air and landed in the audience. You can tell by the crowd noise where it lands, and then there’s a girl holding it up – get this: raising it high like a trophy with one hand, blood and semen both running down her arm – and her other hand is still stroking her own man’s rigid cock, not missing a beat. About two seconds later her man comes, and she keeps pumping him while he shoots into the ground.

“Meanwhile, the action in the circles is heating up! In the course of another 60 seconds or so, 4 cocks went flying out of the other circle, and two more from the circle in front of me. One was especially memorable: the guy had a really thick penis, beautiful to look at, I kept watching and waiting for him to spurt. The girl’s hand barely fits around it, but she’s pumping away on him. All of a sudden she yells, and the cutter spins around, taking two steps closer. The girl gives him about two more hard strokes, then suddenly leaps away – I didn’t even see anything come out yet. The cutter’s gliding within range, her machete held way back, ready to swing. There’s a loud groan from the guy and suddenly this gush of semen, like a thick white rope, spurts up and away from his erection. There’s just this flash, I don’t even see the machete move, but in an instant her stroke was done, and she’s spinning halfway around from the momentum of that monstrous blade. I’m looking at the guy’s cock, and it’s still there. I’m thinking, what the hell, she missed completely. There’s this silence from the crowd, the guy groans again, and you see this bright red line circling his erection, right at the base, and I’m thinking, OK she didn’t miss, she just slashed him, she’ll have to swing again. Suddenly the line gushes blood, spraying out in all directions – and then – I’ll never forget this – his whole penis, everything above that red line, just topples off sideways, falls over, slides down his thigh, and hits the ground with a kind of soggy splat. The crowd went nuts, cheering and clapping. The guide whispered to me, said that’s the quickest cleanest cut she’d ever seen.

“Well, the cutter in the circle in front of me didn’t win; she had two left, when the one in the other circle shouted something - holding up the last of 10 penises herself, and there wasn’t a single one standing in her circle anymore. The cutter in my circle was still waiting for number 9 to spurt, and he wasn’t cooperating.

“She realized she had lost, and hung her head, machete arm just limp suddenly, tired I guess. I kind of felt bad for her. Then she picked up her head again, looked at her girl who was still working on number 9 – said something to her, motioned her away. The girl backed off, a little chagrined, feeling a little guilty maybe that she couldn’t get the guy off fast enough. So the cutter steps up to him, looks him over, giving his erection a hard stare. It was spooky, I didn’t know what she was going to do.

“Then she raises the blade, real slowly, brings it right up to the base of his cock – and starts stroking him with it! She runs that cold steel up and down the underside, razor-sharp blade scraping his most sensitive flesh – he’s trying to wiggle around, going nuts. She presses the blade, almost gently, into his penis, maybe about halfway up the shaft – you can see it pressing into the skin – I’m wondering if it’s cutting or not. She moves it around, presses into the underside at the base, then on the upper skin, near the glans – I see these criss-crosses of thin red lines growing, everywhere she touches him, and then little red drops beading up on the lines, like paper cuts. She’s making a network of red lines, shallow cuts into the skin all over his penis, just barely pressing into the skin, blade must be scalpel-sharp. The crowd is dead silent, watching, all eyes on what must be the hardest erection of the night. Then you see his penis starting to move – something’s happening, a rhythm begins to develop. The head swells bigger, the veins start to protrude even more visibly – she knows it’s coming. She brings the blade back around, so it’s pressing into the softer underside, into the thick bulge of his urethra, half way up the shaft. His penis starts to bob forward and back, the ejaculation building, and she follows it with the blade, pressing it harder and harder into the skin over his urethra. The force of the ejaculation building is pressing it back into the blade – I see red dribbling down, and realize the blade is starting to penetrate his shaft. He lets out this huge groan, and you see his cock expand, pressing even harder into her blade, which she then reciprocates by pushing back into the shaft – I’m wondering, is she going to press it right through? Suddenly there’s a spray of semen – but it’s coming out horizontally, a wide fan of spray, just under the blade! She had cut completely through his urethra, blocking the normal exit. The spray came out in spurts, getting onto the people sitting nearest to him – and they didn’t seem to mind at all!

“She pulls the blade out, and he keeps pumping, semen spraying out horizontally from the deep cut, and now a little spurting out the top. Then I realize she’s winding up for a big swing, you hear the sound of the blade but it’s too fast to see, and there’s a kind of wet thud and his penis is just gone. She cut him real close, not even a stump, just a red circle at the junction of his legs, and then the gush of blood shoots up. The crowd went wild! They didn’t care if she had lost the ‘official’ competition, she had entirely made up for it with this final cut. You could hear the groans of men all through the crowd, coming themselves in the hands of their women.

“There was one left. The last girl stayed with him, stroking enough to keep him resolutely rigid, but nowhere near coming. Then I realize the cutter is looking right at me. ‘You want to try?’ The tour guide gives me a big smile, says, ‘It’s customary to let one of the guests do the “leftovers”. The competition is over.’

“’Cutting it cleanly off, accurately,’ she says, ‘with a free-hand stroke like the “cutters” do here, is not easy. It takes a lot of practice and training. She’s got about a half-inch section of shaft that she’s got to hit, with a lot of speed. For the guests, we give them the cleaver option. It’s just like cutting a big Italian sausage on a butcher block – it’s a lot easier’. I was apprehensive but – how could I turn it down? It was a once-in-lifetime opportunity. How often does a woman get the chance to really know what it’s like to cut off a hard penis, entirely legally?

“I had to wait about 20 minutes while they “prepped” the guy. We – me and about 6 other girls on the tour - were in the community kitchen, a big room with lots of big copper and iron kettles hanging from the walls and ceilings. The man was standing, bound to a post in the center of a big cleared area of the kitchen, naked, legs spread wide. A narrow wooden block was attached to the post, extending out between his legs, almost like he was sitting on it. It was about 3 inches wide, and ended just under the base of his penis, so he hung down, long but soft, over the end of the block. He was gagged but not blindfolded – he could see everything we did.

“The guide is telling us how it works: ‘The cutting block extends just past the base of his penis. This gives us full access to almost all of his member, for stimulation. Just remember, when you cut, bring it down hard and fast, as close as possible to the base of his penis. The block gives a hard immovable surface, just like a chopping board.’

“The guide handed me the cleaver, a big mean-looking weapon of heavy steel. Now here’s the amazing part. The guy, after all the prep and no genital stimulation for almost a half hour, was entirely flaccid, his penis just hanging down, bending over the edge of the cutting block. What I can see of his face says, he’s nervous but resigned to his fate. His eyes never leave the cleaver, follow it as I move it closer. His penis is saying something else! As I lower it toward his member – thinking of doing the blade-stroking thing, inspired by the cutter’s last conquest – we all see some movement. His penis is swelling, hanging down longer, getting thicker by the second. I couldn’t believe it – he’s getting aroused. Experimentally, I held the cleaver closer and closer to his growing flesh – about mid-shaft, if he had been fully erect - and we all watch with wonder as his penis grew, started rising. You could follow every beat of his heart by watching it rise and stiffen, discrete little steps. I held the cleaver real steady, just over mid-shaft, and his penis actually rose until, rock-hard, it touched the blade. The contact just seemed to stimulate him more – he groaned and you could see his shaft pressing harder and harder, upwards into the blade.

“When this happened I looked around at the faces of the other girls – their eyes were bright, excited, they all felt the same fascination as I did. A couple of them were pressing one hand between their legs, getting a little self-stimulation in. I realized I had relaxed my hold on the cleaver and its full weight was pressing down, into his rigid penis, but it was so hard there was almost no give at all. I said, “Oops!”, raised it up, and there was a little cut right across the middle, just a thin red line. That cleaver was sharp!

“I moved the cleaver underneath it, blade edge upward now, and stroked the sensitive underside with the razor-sharp steel. We were so mesmerized watching his erection we almost forgot about the next part – bringing him to orgasm. The guide gently reminded us that we had some work to do, gave us a little bottle of some kind of oil to help. The girls decided who was going to be the main massager, while one of the others operated the video camera. I moved the cleaver away to give them a clear area to work in.

“Nicole poured a line of oil down the full length of his shaft – he was big, almost 8 inches I would guess – and she started working it in, long full-length strokes. The oil smeared and mixed with the little drops of blood, until he was slick and shining its full length. Nicole didn’t have to work too hard; after about a minute of firm stroking you could see he was about to let go. Everyone moved back except Nicole, on one side, and the camera woman, just next to her. Suddenly he groans and his cock seems to rear up and point higher – then there’s a huge spurt that shot out, it must have gone as high as our heads, then halfway across the kitchen before splashing onto the floor. It didn’t even land before another he launched another spurt – I’m so fascinated, watching the force of his ejaculation, that at first I didn’t even hear the guide – “OK, now!”

“’Do it, Helen!’ – Nicole has moved away now, and calls out to me – his penis is clear and ready, slicked and shining, violently ejaculating across the room. This was it, precisely the moment.. I raised the heavy cleaver high as his fourth spurt shot out, focused on an invisible line across the top of his penis, a half-inch from its junction with his belly. I put all my strength into swinging the cleaver down, hard and fast, right through that imaginary line. There was a loud thud as the cleaver effortlessly separated flesh from flesh, penis from man, embedded itself into the wooden block under the root of his penis. 8 inches of suddenly-free flesh cartwheeled down, hit the floor with a wet ‘splat’. The girls started to cheer and clap, except the once who were touching themselves – they told me later they both had orgasms at that instant.

“The cleaver stood, embedded in the wooden block, pressed against the root of his penis. I had this urge to see the stump, to see how close I had cut it, so I pulled the cleaver away, quickly. There’s a gush of blood, it pours out and splashes onto the softening penis on the floor – and – if you looked closely – he was still spurting semen out, shooting past the blood, making a trail of white drops across the kitchen floor. The girl with the camera pulled in close to catch that, got some amazing detail. You can see the arteries, the inner anatomy of his penis in that shot, just like a cross-section in medical class or something, see the semen still dribbling out of his urethra.

“This had to be the high point of our travels – we still get together every month or so and watch that video several times during the evening. We even know some guys that seem to get aroused watching it – they love nothing better than getting a long, abusive hand job while we’re all watching. They almost always come when the cleaver scene comes to a climax. Or, if they can hold off, we give them a slightly-less realistic replay, on their own members, in my kitchen. They just can’t seem to get enough of it!”

Helen invited us to watch the video. The outdoor scenes (the competition) are of marginal quality because of the low lighting. The indoor cleaver event is, however, everything she advertises.