A quick, but none the less complex question I feel. The word Eunuch is synonymous with surgical castration. It’s not so widely used in associated with chemical castration however. Is a chemically castrated man still classified as a Eunuch?

Sure. Working balls make the man. Non working or missing balls castrate a man into a eunuch. Non working or missing balls both have the same emasculating and neutering affects on a man s body and mind. The surgically castrated have that greater visual impact that shrunken balls can t match.

geldwish (imported) wrote: Fri May 22, 2020 11:43 pm A quick, but none the less complex question I feel. The word Eunuch is synonymous with surgical castration. It’s not so widely used in associated with chemical castration however. Is a chemically castrated man still classified as a Eunuch?

Maybe we could say those on chemical castration are Diet Eunuchs lol. Just kidding.

You are an eunuch if you feel like one. I personally don't feel like an eunuch, even if I don't have my male parts anymore. The term eunuch is too much linked to things like harem guards and other things I personally can't identify with. So for me it's simple, even though I am nullified, I am still me and nothing else.

I always thought eunuch was someone castrated before puberty

T van Keel (imported) wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 4:09 am You are an eunuch if you feel like one. I personally don't feel like an eunuch, even if I don't have my male parts anymore. The term eunuch is too much linked to things like harem guards and other things I personally can't identify with. So for me it's simple, even though I am nullified, I am still me and nothing else.

I kind of agree with you. Although I am technically a eunuch, I don't feel like the word is an accurate one for me. A "castrated male" seems more appropriate.

Who/what is a “EUNUCH”?

The medical definition would be that a eunuch is anyone who was born with testicles, whose testicles have been removed, destroyed in place, or made non-functioning. There is question about those very rare persons who are anorchic – whose testicles simply disappeared for unknown reasons after they were born. Their bodies formed with all of the other male parts and clearly had functioning testicles in utero. Most had testicles at their “well baby” check-ups, but their testicles disappeared before the age of puberty.

Age of castration (removal or destruction of testicles) is not part of the definition. Historically, eunuchs have been created at various ages.

We don’t know about the earliest eunuchs in Sumer, but a guess from surviving records is sometime around the age of puberty. In the Assyrian Empire, the preferred age of castration for locally produced eunuchs was infancy. Their testicles were crushed into disappearance when they were only a few months old. For the imported eunuchs, they could be as old as early puberty and they were surgically castrated. (For the Assyrians, the locally produced eunuchs included some of the sons of the king, as well as sons of the nobility. The king had a great many wives and generally produced over 100 children. Only a few males were left intact to contend for the throne. The rest became part of the administrative eunuch bureaucracy.)

The Chinese, at least in the Qing Dynasty, preferred eunuchs castrated before puberty to serve the women of the palace, and those castrated in early puberty (15 to 20 or so) to work on the grounds as gardeners, cooks, etc.

The Byzantine Empire was staffed by eunuchs mostly castrated before puberty, sometimes by their parents in poor rural areas seeking to provide sons with better employment opportunities. Some eunuchs, though, seem to have started as slaves. For example, Narses was an Armenian, castrated as a boy. He rose in the court hierarchy and was the general who lead the army that defeated the Goths and saved Rome for the empire in 554 AD. (Armenians and Georgians were preferred eunuchs as late as the 1800s in Persia and the royal court seems to have hundreds of them as late as the 1860s. African eunuchs were much more expensive and less common than European or Central Asian ones in Persia.)

The Italian castrati were, of course, castrated before their voices changed. This could be quite young or, since the age of puberty was older then, as late as 14 or 15, or even older. For example, Atto Melani, one of seven brothers born in Pistoia, was castrated at 10 or 11, as were four of his younger brothers. Their castrations were all arranged and paid for by the local cathedral. We have lots of records of castrati castrated at ages from 5 to 16.

For the Moslem world, the early caliphate was administered in Greek before there was even an Arabic vocabulary to run a large bureaucratic state. The central government was staffed by thousands of eunuchs who were literate in Greek. Literate eunuchs were largely supplied by slave raids on Christian churches and monasteries and the age of castration could be as late as their 40s or so, although younger, already literate, boys were preferred, when available. In later periods, eunuchs were almost always castrated before puberty and African eunuchs gradually came to replace those sourced from Europe, India, or Central Asia. (Not included in high school history texts is what Venice was selling to the East in return for the gold and spices that they imported. Much of it was European slaves, including young girls and castrated boys. An 840 AD treaty between Venice and the Holy Roman Empire included a provision that the Venetians would no longer castrate German boys for sale UNLESS they were already slaves when they arrived in Venetian territory. The Vikings supplied eunuchs from slave raids in both the British Isles and the Slavic lands to the east.)

More than you wanted to know....

Great answer ! Who knew so many european males were gelded for slaves in foreign lands.

Jesus in what cases they left the dicks?

CircItaly (imported) wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 1:53 pm Jesus in what cases they left the dicks?

In most cases only the balls of slaves or defeated soldiers in Roman times were cut off because cutting off dicks bled more and resulted in more deaths than castrations alone.