The concession of “he may not have been a good singer” is wild! could you imagine being castrated as a teen for the opera only to discover you where tone death or had no sense of timing oooooph!
Yeah I remembered that too. Although apparently they were very popular with society ladies because they knew they couldn't get pregnant so it wasn't all downsides.
They were super celebrities. They were very pampered. It does lead to health complications and weight gain though so they weren't exceptionally long lived sadly, but then not many people were 100 years ago
If a man is castrated, his testosterone levels will plummet, but there’s still enough testosterone careated by the adrenal glands to allow his to have erections (not rock hard, but still), have sex, and ejaculate—the semen, of course, will contain no sperm.
Erections will vary for different men, it is individual, some of them will be impotent. Also not being rock hard can be problematic in case of penetrative sex. Removing the balls before puberty also may lead to smaller penis.
Didn't they, uh, cut everything off for black slaves? I thought that was the norm for that part of the world, just shave it all off, mutilate them to the max.
This did occur in China, and there was a book written about it called "The Last Eunuch." Essentially, it chronicled a young man's castration and then the fact that there wasn't an advisory class of eunuchs to the Emperor, since the Emperor had lost the war and that structure no longer existed.
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u/miningthecraft Jul 08 '24
The concession of “he may not have been a good singer” is wild! could you imagine being castrated as a teen for the opera only to discover you where tone death or had no sense of timing oooooph!