I was getting bored and just flipping channels looking for new movies on my Prime Video Subscription. The following movie attracted my attention after reading the synopsis and reviews. Here's my write up of the movie with the capable assistance of one of my Writing Assistants.
Lilies Not for Me: When History and Fiction Intertwine in the Quest to “Cure” Desire
Cinema often reflects forgotten corners of history, and the recent British film Lilies Not for Me does exactly that. Set in 1920s England, it tells the story of two men in love—Owen and Philip—who find themselves caught between their desire for one another and a society that insists homosexuality is a sickness to be treated. At the heart of the film is a disturbing medical procedure: the transplanting of testicles from one man into another, in the belief it could “cure” same-sex attraction.
As bizarre as this sounds to us today, the film is not pure invention. It draws directly from real experiments and medical practices that emerged during the early 20th century.
The Film’s Story
In the film, Owen (played by Fionn O’Shea) is confined to a medical facility that claims to rehabilitate homosexuals. His lover, Philip (Robert Aramayo), becomes convinced by doctors that a radical surgery—receiving transplanted testicles from a “healthy” heterosexual donor—will correct his desires. Philip undergoes the procedure and later pressures Owen to do the same. The narrative is heartbreaking, a blend of romance, coercion, and the dark history of conversion therapy.
The Real History Behind the Fiction
The “Steinach Operation”
The inspiration comes largely from the work of Eugen Steinach, an Austrian physiologist who believed glands and hormones controlled not only aging but also sexuality. In the 1910s and 1920s, Steinach experimented with testicular grafts, vasectomies, and other endocrine procedures. He claimed these could rejuvenate men and, in certain cases, redirect sexual orientation.
Gland Mania of the 1920s
Steinach wasn’t alone. Surgeons like Serge Voronoff became famous for transplanting slices of animal testicles—monkey glands, in his case—into human patients. Newspapers eagerly reported on these operations, framing them as miracles of modern science. For a brief moment, gland transplants were a cultural phenomenon, attracting everyone from Hollywood actors to intellectuals.
Targeting Homosexuality
Within this frenzy, some doctors explicitly targeted homosexuality. They treated it not as a natural variation but as a defect of the glands. A few case reports describe men receiving testicular grafts to “cure” them of same-sex attraction. The results were unreliable, often harmful, and entirely unsupported by evidence—but they were real attempts nonetheless.
Why It Failed
From today’s perspective, these operations were doomed. Immune rejection made tissue grafts ineffective. More importantly, sexual orientation cannot be reduced to a single gland or organ. By the mid-20th century, the medical community dismissed these procedures as pseudoscience.
Why It Matters Today
Lilies Not for Me dramatizes this forgotten history, not as a curiosity but as a warning. The film reminds us of a time when love itself was pathologized, and when science was bent to serve prejudice. Watching Owen and Philip’s story unfold, we are forced to reckon with how medicine once inflicted trauma in the name of a “cure.”
Closing Thoughts
The haunting beauty of Lilies Not for Me is that it blends romance with horror, tenderness with cruelty. What might look like melodrama on screen is, in fact, drawn from the strange, unsettling reality of early 20th-century medicine. It is a reminder of how far we have come—and how dangerous it can be when society seeks to erase love instead of accepting it. I enjoyed this one hour and 39 minutes movie very much and highly recommend it. For Details and other reviews visit:
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lilies_not_for_me/reviews
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