Last week an ugly little news story broke about a wife who reportedly partially tore of her husband’s testicles after a drunken row over housework on International Women’s Day.

I’d barely read the headline, but I knew that what would come next wouldn’t so much be a story about brutal and sexualised domestic violence, as a quirky little also-in-the news, written with barely-concealed nudge-nudge, wink-wink glee.

It was predictable because that’s exactly how the media always seems to frame stories about the actual or symbolic castration of men.