How a person acts defines them as a Man, Woman, or other? Now a eunuch is a male which may not have the male genitals, but it does not define the persons gender, as may other things do that.

_g

This discussion always breaks down because there is no workable definition of what a man is or what a Eunuch is. I have been in this discussion many times except instead of Eunuch, insert woman. Other than DNA it can be real difficult to actually find a significant difference. While we can make generalizations about how men, women, or eunuchs behave, all are capable of the actions, feelings, and perceptions of the others. Man can pass for women, women can pass for men, eunuchs can pass as men or women, women can pass for eunuchs.

I think that when people talk about being a "man", they are not really talking about genitals. What is it to "man up" or "get a pair"? It means stereotypical behavior of a male or what society expects of a male bodied person. But those expectations alone are not enough to make anyone anything, because many people just give up on what people expect of them once they realize they can not fulfill the expectations. I always believed that being a "good man" meant first and foremost to be honest, take care of my responsibilities, put my family first, have integrity, be dependable, be loyal, be a hard worker, pay your taxes, take the worry off of everyone else. I just don't see where having testicles or not really makes a difference in those things.

Elizabeth

Take the old definition of a duck, and put in human attributes and you have your answer!

smoothie36 (imported) wrote: Fri Mar 02, 2012 5:45 am Take the old definition of a duck, and put in human attributes and you have your answer!

I can think of a lot of real life examples that would definitively disprove this claim.

The answer is real easy, simple and always correct, If you are a man and you are castrated and you still think of yourself as a man you are, you are just a man without balls.

I am a eunuch, I am also a man, its just that simple.

If you are a eunuch and you believe in your heart you are no longer a man then you were most likely not a man when you had balls.

Its all between your ears its never been between your legs.

River

By definition from dictionary, men who have had theirs testicles removed or rendered non functional are eunuchs. needless to tag those men with the word eunuch but they are no less eunuch. If a man is not a shame to be balless why should he be a shame to be called eunuch, unless they them self perceived eunuchs as something less than a human being. Peoples can still love them as much as before perhaps even more. I've had few dogs that have been castrated and I loved them very much and I've cried every time I lost one.

From a biological standpoint, among the primates a male is one that is born with a 'y' chromosome and no over-riding second 'x' chromosome (as in a few rare cases of 'xxy' females). Certain males can get mistaken for females but being childless and lacking certain female anatomical parts, upon investigation they are found to have a 'y' chromosome. These are 'xy' CAIS which technically are 'male'. However since their testicles (since they do not have ovaries but instead their glands are structured like testicles) are unproductive they are deemed as 'eunuchs'. Then there are many other types of eunuchs as a consequence of 'xy' PAIS, xxy, the mumps, other diseases, accidents, and finally surgical removal of the testicles. A male may not necessarily be considered an adult (a 'man') that lacks full mature adult developement.

In this respect many of our matriarchal native american societies which considered there to be a 'third gender' were right afterall.

paring (imported) wrote: Fri Mar 02, 2012 9:09 am By definition from dictionary, men who have had theirs testicles removed or rendered non functional are eunuchs. needless to tag those men with the word eunuch but they are no less eunuch. If a man is not a shame to be balless why should he be a shame to be called eunuch, unless they them self perceived eunuchs as something less than a human being. Peoples can still love them as much as before perhaps even more. I've had few dogs that have been castrated and I loved them very much and I've cried every time I lost one.

Because as I have pointed out earlier, eunuch is both an identity AND an adjective. There IS such a thing as an eunuch man, if one happens to be a castrated man who still identifies as a man. The very existance of trans people disproves that someone without balls automatically becomes not a man, since conversely someone who has balls is not automatically a man.

Devi, I'd point out that being female and being a woman are 2 different things. I think you assign too much importance to the physical, and too little to the soul/psychological/whatever-else-you-may-call-it. Also, to pre-empt what I'm half expecting as a counterpoint, please don't start with the "if you have a cock you are a potential rapist" thing. I've had quite enough of being called a potential rapist the last time, thank you.

I know I'm quite late to this discussion, but;

There's a town near here called Estes Park. It being a park, a wide flat valley, it annually

has a large congregation of elks. Males and females who come to graze and have romantic

encounters. It is also a popular tourist town, and elk are not the least of the attraction.

A year or so ago a particularly handsome elk, call him Bruce, was very boistrous in his

courting, and put on much show of chasing off human animals The local humane authorities

decided that something had to be done about Bruce and after much consideration they

tranquilized him and sawed off his fine rack of horns. On awakening Bruce was mortified.

Heartbroken and despondent Bruce skulked away to the mountains, never to show his

mutilated head again.

That is what I like about this site and this thread, keeping things in perspective, Thanks Sweetpickle.

River