Brothel of Gelded Boys by "Edgeman"
Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2007 1:13 am
I stumbled on this by accident. It impressed me, and deserves to be more widely read than it (seemingly) has been, since it was posted in 2003.
Readers with a classical background will recognise Juvenal, Satire VI, where the poet describes the practice, prevalent among sex-starved Roman women, of castrating favourite slaves as bed-partners. However, from Juvenal's description, these were youths rather than boys, who were already well-hung and could sustain strong erections after their testicles had been removed. There are hints that black youths were especially prized because they had bigger penises.
Juvenal also draws a distinction between these, and the more usual market for boy-eunuchs:
"Slave-dealers' boys are different, patheticaly weak; ashamed of their empty bag and their lost little chick-peas". In other words, pre-pubescent boys who couldn't "do it". The little boys preferred by one of the women's husbands would certainly have been boy-eunuchs.
Just a final comment: Edgeman't choice of names for the women makes them sound more like freedwomen than the wives of senators: Aspasia and Clio are both Greek not Roman. Also, Roman women were not as confined by the street door as their Greek counterparts.
C van D
Readers with a classical background will recognise Juvenal, Satire VI, where the poet describes the practice, prevalent among sex-starved Roman women, of castrating favourite slaves as bed-partners. However, from Juvenal's description, these were youths rather than boys, who were already well-hung and could sustain strong erections after their testicles had been removed. There are hints that black youths were especially prized because they had bigger penises.
Juvenal also draws a distinction between these, and the more usual market for boy-eunuchs:
"Slave-dealers' boys are different, patheticaly weak; ashamed of their empty bag and their lost little chick-peas". In other words, pre-pubescent boys who couldn't "do it". The little boys preferred by one of the women's husbands would certainly have been boy-eunuchs.
Just a final comment: Edgeman't choice of names for the women makes them sound more like freedwomen than the wives of senators: Aspasia and Clio are both Greek not Roman. Also, Roman women were not as confined by the street door as their Greek counterparts.
C van D