Eunuchs were castrated men, who had their penis and testicles (or just the testicles) taken off. The first records of men without bilau are from the 14th century BC – and, by all indications, the practice survived until the middle of the 20th century! The origin of the name helps to explain the reason for this violent practice: in its Greek origin, the term eunoukhos can be translated as “guardian of the bed”. In the Middle East and China, eunuchs were used as guards or servants of the harems where royal wives and concubines stayed. Many of them lost their bilau after becoming prisoners of war, but in China many poor men voluntarily submitted themselves to castration to get a mouthful in the palaces of the nobility. In ancient Greece, the practice was used as a penalty to prevent recidivism in cases of rape or adultery, although the Greeks also used to castrate domestic servants to make them more docile and harmless. One thing is certain: the main purpose of castration was to make eunuchs sexually impotent. But many who had only their testicles removed were still able to get erections. For this, the surgery had to take place after puberty. “From that age onwards, testosterone, the hormone that regulates sexual appetite and plays a key role in erection, is also produced by the adrenal glands. They manufacture between 2% and 3% of the hormone. It seems little, but many times the hormone level was enough for a eunuch to sustain an erection”, says urologist Jorge Hallak, from the Brazilian Society of Cancerology, in São Paulo. Some “desbilauzados” were not so lucky. This was the case of the castrati, singers who from the 16th century played female roles in Italian operas. As they had their testicles removed between 8 and 10 years of age – the idea was to prevent their voice from deepening – castrati were unable to have any erections. 🙁
No scarf and no document Eunuchs existed in various countries and religious sects until the 20th century
ASSYRIAN EMPIRE
The first mentions of eunuchs occur in the Assyrian Empire, which occupied parts of Iraq and Turkey from the 14th century BC to the 6th century BC Some eunuchs became high imperial officials – it was believed that they were less corrupt because they had no descendants to leave inheritances
CHINESE EMPIRE
Since the 12th century BC, eunuchs served as political advisors to Chinese emperors and attendants to imperial wives and concubines. The practice lasted millennia and was only extinguished in the country after the Republican Revolution (1911-1912), which overthrew the monarchy.
ROMAN EMPIRE
In the 1st century, Roman emperors employed eunuchs as court advisers and state officials. The practice was stopped in the year 81 with a law by Emperor Domitian. But eunuchs gained a living in the following centuries in the Eastern Roman Empire, in Asia Minor.
EUROPE
Castrated opera singers, known as castrati, began to be employed in the 16th century, when women were prohibited from singing in church choirs. Castration of boys to serve as cantors was abolished by Pope Leo XIII in 1878
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
In that Empire, which dominated Turkey from the mid-14th century to 1922, eunuchs were employed in palaces and in the household of anyone who could pay for them. From the 16th century, Ottoman court harems were guarded by black eunuchs, brought as slaves from Ethiopia and Sudan.
RELIGIOUS SECTS
In the 3rd century, the sect of the Valesii, which flourished in the territory of Jordan, castrated its members as a way of serving God. The same thing was happening in the Christian Skoptzy sect, which spread across regions of Russia and Romania between the 18th and 20th centuries.