music perception in eunuchs

[erikboy (imported)]

Not long ago I read an article about human developement during puberty, and it said among other usual things that for teens music becomes very important thing due to sexual hormones released into bloodstream. Music and singing can create emotional states and can expresses ones emotions. Teens suddenly find that music can do wonderful things. Music, especially loud music creates feeling of satisfaction and releases endorphins. We all know that fact. But I didn't know that hormones are playing so important role.

It seems like that music importance originates from our anchestors. It seems like music or singing or melodies could attract females and males for mating. Pure nature

I would like to ask now from people who are castrated or have been chemically castrated, did they notice any change in perception of music?

Was it so that music you listened to before, turned out to be boring? Did you lost some joy you got from music previously? Did you listen to music much less? - purposedly less. Did music you found extraordinary left you more or less indifferent after castration? Did you stop to listen music very loud?

How do you feel?

[tugon (imported)]

Interesting question. I love music and I have for many years. Unless there is something on TV that I want to watch music is always playing. I do not think I listen to music more now than before I was castrated but since I enjoy being home I have more opportunity to enjoy music.

One thing that is different for me is that I enjoy instrumental music more. Before castration I always needed a vocalist in about 95% of my music. Now I can listen to classical, jazz and other instrumental music and enjoy the emotions they stir in me. Before I needed the vocalist and the words to reach an emotional place.

I think with my heightened emotional state I need less to trigger a connection with the music. Being more open I find my musical tastes expanding. Oddly I do not enjoy happy or perky music. I love the Russian composers.

[kristoff]

Unfortunately, I don't really have a great appreciation for music. My hearing sucks. As a result I miss a lot of the finer elements of music. The Princess usually has the stereo or radio playing, but mostly to me it is noise.

[moi621 (imported)]

I am not a eunuch and NEVER had music appreciation.

It is mostly like noise to me except for some special cases, classic rock. TV is my back ground sound because via speech if I tune in it is NOT noise.

More in PM to K because I don't wanna get kicked out.

Moi

[fhunter]

Yes, when I was on chemical castration, my music perception changed. I will write more, when I return from work.

[bobover3 (imported)]

Bach, Mozart, and so many other musical greats were child prodigies who began composing and performing as early as 4 or 5. That argues against a hormonal requirement for music appreciation.

People castrated later in life may experience many changes, and that might include their response to music. Still, I doubt that sex hormones are primary.

Music is very abstract - an emotional response to proportions and durations of sound frequencies. Surprising, really, that so cerebral an art would so pervade human life. There's lots of research showing that people good with abstractions - mathematicians, scientists, chess players, etc. - are particularly good at music. Think of Einstein, Von Neumann, and so many other scientists who were talented amateur musicians.

[erikboy (imported)]

I couldn't find the original article. At first I didn't pay much attention to it but then later thinking more about adolescents and music I thought back when I was an adolescent. I can assure that with T starting to increase in my bloodstream, I became much more deeply affected by music. Music created feelings in me I never experienced before. There was some brain chemistry and receptors turned on by sex hormones that were easily affected by music as I remember from that article. Thus becoming an eunuch should turn off these receptors and switch off certain chemistry processes. It was related to feeling of sexual pleasure if I am correct.

It is a well known fact that adolescents suddenly start to listen to music, and they do that extensively. Some even almost all day around. Loudness of music is also an important factor as it increases extatic feelings from music.

I did it myself. Only I didn't know why. If I listen to the music I liked back then, it sounds simplistic and naive. But this fact show a developement stage rather than effect music created in my brain.

There is one slighty related study:

http://scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/disserta ... AI3397941/

I am very curious about fhunter :headphone experiences

[transward (imported)]

I am curious if any of the great castrato singers of the seventeenth century became composers of note. I remember a line in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, where Jubal comments that eunuchs are notably absent from the list of creative geniuses.

Transward

[bobover3 (imported)]

There probably aren't enough creative geniuses to say. Geniuses and castrati are both small groups. The intersection of those two groups must be very small.

[erikboy (imported)]

I am curious if any of the great castrato singers of the seventeenth century became composers of note. I remember a line in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, where Jubal comments that eunuchs are notably absent from the list of creative geniuses.

Transward

There are several ways to be creative. If we talk about great composers, painters, sculptors, poets then creativity of many of them seem to have been driven by unsatisfied sexual desire. By inner burning. These types of geniuses aren't the only one existant.

There are other ways to be creative. There is at least one victorious eunuch general in history.