Hello, I wanted to ask your personal opinion.

During the course of history, men have always been castrated, sometimes more often than other times. It seems that in some cultures, it was pretty normal for slaves or conquered enemies to be gelded. What I want to ask: Do you folks think think that castrating another human being was usually more a thing done for practical reasons or did those who performed it or ordered it also have more "personal" motives? Like a certain pleasure in depriving others of their masculinity?

Thank you

nina_caravalli (imported) wrote: Sun Dec 18, 2016 1:42 pm Hello, I wanted to ask your personal opinion.

During the course of history, men have always been castrated, sometimes more often than other times. It seems that in some cultures, it was pretty normal for slaves or conquered enemies to be gelded. What I want to ask: Do you folks think think that castrating another human being was usually more a thing done for practical reasons or did those who performed it or ordered it also have more "personal" motives? Like a certain pleasure in depriving others of their masculinity?

Thank you

Throughout history, men have been castrated for various reasons. Most of these men died of infection shortly after their castration. For the defeated soldiers, it was made to humiliate them and take their power. For the slaves, it was made to prevent coupling with Master's wives and daughters. It was not always forced castration, some choose to be castrated to get better jobs from leaders. I am sure that some have amused themselves by castrating others. As it is today, some practitioners of castration, doctors and cutters, enjoy doing so.

The answer to both parts of your question is "yes." Castration was probably even performed before the evolution of humans. It has been observed in the wild that when an alpha male bonobo or chimpanzee is defeated by his rivals, they may attempt to bite or rip off his scrotum, thus castrating him.

Some early human writings describe castration of the defeated in warfare. The bas-reliefs and inscriptions at Thebes in Egypt celebrating the victories of Pharaoh Ramesses II (1303-1213 BCE) display piles of penises from the defeated. The text on one stele reads "conducting some prisoners into the presence of his majesty; they are a thousand in number; cut off penises, 3,000." Another stele gives the total number of penises cut off after another battle as 2,325. The practice has continued to the present day in some warfare.

The castration of domestic animals for economic purpose (to keep them calmer or to fatten them for the table) began before writing. The earliest recorded castration of humans for economic purpose (to use them for labor without any chance that they would breed) took place about 4,000 years ago. It was recorded in the city of Lagash, then the largest city in the world, that the young sons of slave weaving women were castrated before being put to work hauling barges on the canals of Sumer, alongside their castrated donkey counterparts.

It was only a short while before it was discovered that humans castrated before puberty had other uses as well. They soon found employment as praise singers to the gods, the first castrati. They high and powerful voices were deemed perfect for the task. We have cuneiform tablets with some of the praise songs and notes that there were sometimes over 100 castrated choristers attached to a major temple.

Soon after, their known safety around someone else's women brought them into the royal palace as guards and other functionaries. Due to close proximity to the king and to their lack of biological kin, they came to be considered part of the royal family (and ancestral rites for them were conducted by the king in later times).

Soon educated and ambitious eunuchs became important functionaries in the government bureaucracy. Small boys from the periphery of the empire were sent to the capital to be castrated for royal service. The Old Testament prophet Daniel and his three companions (if they existed, which theologians dispute) were clearly part of this process. Before the modern age, when eunuchs were still relatively common, it was accepted that the four of them had been castrated when they reached the capital.

By the time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, even important families might castrate younger sons to ensure them a position in the government hierarchy. Even members of the royal family who were outside the line of descent for the throne might be castrated as boys. The eunuch Menostanes was a son of a younger brother of King Artaxerxes I. He rose to become head of the palace guard. After the death of Artaxerxes, he took the side of the new king Xerxes II's younger brother and assassinated Xerxes II in the brief civil war that ensued. The plotters were defeated and Menostanes was executed. His position as head of the palace guard was taken by a eunuch from the Black Sea coastal area--a foreigner who had been sent to the capital to be castrated as a small boy.

On the Nonfiction Board there are a number of posts about famous eunuchs in history, including military leaders and royalty. Examples would be Narses, who defeated the Ostrogoths and saved Rome for the empire or Muhammad Khan Qajar, castrated at age 6 when his father was defeated in battle. He rose to become a warrior and defeated the Zand Dynasty rulers of Persia in 1794. His nephew succeeded him as ruler of all of Persia. There are a great many others.

Thank you very much for the clarifications and the very interesting historical details. I am still a bit lost though on the "pleasure"-part in forced castrations. Was it because one took away a slave´s or enemy´s ability to procreate and to enjoy sex?

nina_caravalli (imported) wrote: Sun Dec 18, 2016 5:37 pm Thank you very much for the clarifications and the very interesting historical details. I am still a bit lost though on the "pleasure"-part in forced castrations. Was it because one took away a slave´s or enemy´s ability to procreate and to enjoy sex?

While I cannot explain the attraction or pleasure of a sadistic man depriving another of his manhood, I can explain the willingness of a man to surrender his manhood. I was raised from an early age to be submissive whether to a domineering sister or to playmates. As I grew older, submitting to the sexual advances of dominant males became routine and eventually led to accepting that surrendering my manhood to a superior male was the ultimate act of submission.

Hi Nina, its been a long time since I have "seen" you around I hope you are doing well:) I know we discussed this topic several times in the past. I had to get a new computer and reset all my emails etc so I lost contact.

I think the historical "business" of castration is reasonably well documented and Jesus is certainly an authority on the history of castration as well as the recorded motivation for the action in relation to making eunuch slaves etc. In terms of the pleasure a castrator got I think this would vary from person to person and culture to culture. I am sure there were eunuch makers that revelled in their jobs in historical times, they would be responsible for castration of slaves in some cultures ready for selling. There would also be castrators who were already eunuchs, these would be charged with looking after the new young eunuch and their upbringing into positions of power. There is some erotic writing and plays that may well indicate some degree of pleasure from the act but it is not possible to decide if this is based on fact or just if it is pure fiction designed to titillate an audience. I have read some accounts where it sounds as if the castrators must surely have gleaned some pleasure from the act even if it was purely revenge based and nothing more. Most accounts of penis removal relate to corpses, and even those not quite dead would bleed out. Cutting the penis from an adult male without any medical knowledge, intervention or even care would normally result in them bleeding out. Even castration without any care would likely lead to problems with infection. I think the castration in these cases was symbolic of victory and purely trophy acquisition. Reproductive ability was not a consideration in these situations.

Who can tell about the Chinese cutters who made eunuch for the palace, they may have got some pleasure from it but maybe it was just a job. I have found nothing in my reading that strongly suggests any real element of wholesale pleasure in the castration of males, or where pleasure in the act was the primary motivating factor for doing it. I am sure that there were castrations performed where this was indeed the case. Personal vendetta would be a strong motivation as it is today for many actions. Perhaps historians have assigned more traditional motivating factors to spare the blushes of their reader. Whatever the reason, pure pleasure as a main reason for castrating a man is poorly represented in historical records that I have seen. Of course this allows the imagination free reign and the fantasy can be taken to any level without fear of proven contradiction so you can envisage all manner of castration scenario and enjoy them without rebuff from historical records.

@tjstill: my yahoo is is still the same

you could write all manor of stories of fantasy creatures being castrated, I think there is one here about the castration of a Centaur, I know there is one on the castration of a Dragon, I have seen storyboards on the castrations of Gryphons, but those are in the sites I peruse. These would probably be done for the business of not being killed by the beasts in question, as a gelded version of each is less likely to kill you, unless they are intelligent, and you did the deed.

@thstill: Cannot answere your mail on yahoo, gets returned to me. Probably your mailbox is full?

@nina: I am getting your mails with some pics attached, I hope you are getting my mails too ok?