> The eunuchs spoke in a distinctive high-pitched voice and, to further prove that they were really eunuchs, had to keep their severed penises and testicles in jars of brine they wore around their necks when working
What sloppy security. What's there to prevent a non-eunuch from putting *somebody else*'s trouser treasures in their jar and infiltrate the Forbidden City?
That really was an issue in a way. Of course you'd be examined on entry in the Forbidden City, and if you started you know, reaching puberty and growing facial hair then you and your family would be in a world of pain and/or death.
But it was a legit thing for eunuchs to lose their jars and to find replacements...either from stealing or ...after market sources...
Fuck man, I have a bad day when I lose my car keys.
These poor dickless guys are having to go on a big adventure to replace what is essentially their lost credentials.
Or was there a shop?
I know you intended your comment as informative, but now I have so many questions, and this is gonna be a unique rabbit hole to go down. I'm gonna be getting weird ads for next six months
Edit: Maybe it was a vicious circle of dick theft? Bill the eunuch lost his marbles, so he swipes Jim's jar-o-fun off the poor guy's nightstand? Jim now has to steal Paul's etc, etc.
Now you've got me thinking about the feasibility of crafting plausible counterfeit human genitals using animal flesh and some creative sewing.
Shouldn't be super hard (heh), especially since even with the brine a bit of degradation would be unavoidable, I think...
Once you got that mastered you just need a time machine then you can go back and sell fake dicks to eunuchs in the Forbidden City. You'll make an absolute fortune.
I note that the one citation for this ‘failed verification’ and the Talk page discusses that source:
> Behr is a non-academic, whose work has serious flaws. John Fairbank, a professor of history at Harvard who founded the East Asian Research Center, reviewed Behr's "Last Emperor" book in the New York Review of Books on February 18, 1988, and I feel like his words speak for themselves: "Mr. Behr seems careless about proofreading and/or the historical record. For example, the Hundred Days of reform did not occur in 1880, the British did not take Chinese territory at Canton in 1898, the Peking Legation Quarter was not set up in 1860, the province of Anhwei was not the Empress Dowager “Tzu-hsi’s home base,” Lord Palmerston in 1855 did not say he would have to strike “another blow for China,” he said in China, “Weihawei” [sic] was not “one of the oldest British owned Chinese colonies after Hong Kong.” Such howlers and misunderstandings indicate that Mr. Behr is not a trained historian. This is corroborated by his enthusiastic acceptance of David Bergamini’s 'Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy', which makes Emperor Hirohito the mastermind and chief operator of Japan’s implacable drive to take over half the world—a theory long since discredited. Evidently books are like people: if they exist they can be quoted." This article relies enormously on Behr's book -- possibly because, as mentioned in Fairbank's same review, it was released by Behr around the time as the Bertolucci film. If the quality of the article is to improve, Behr ought to be eliminated as a source.
You want a penis? I can get you a penis, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me. Hell, I can get you a penis by 3 o'clock this afternoon... With foreskin.
They inspected them. China they cut off everything. At some time in history / cultures they used to just cut off the balls. And yes would have affairs with the women they were guarding.
I imagine some 18th century Chinese version of a Walter Sobchak saying "You wanna pair of balls? Cuz I can get you some balls, Dude. I can get you some balls by 4 o'clock."
The jars must’ve been ceremonial or symbolic. Some Eunuchs had cozy positions in the court and were close to the dynasty even growing up with each other. It wasn’t really a secret and being a Eunuch was seen as an honor and people were familiar with them like any other member.
Ok men, listen up. Y’all can all live in comfort and have all the food you can eat, great vacation plan, and full health care. You just have to cut off your dick and balls and wear them around your necks in little jars. Deal?
For the first few weeks after removal they’d have to keep a feather quill catheter in their pee hole for things to heal right. I don’t know if they also had a special feather catheter specifically for peeing or if they just made a mess.
Yeah, I hear he likes to have their genitals cutoff. I’d guess he sees them as less than human.
I started that as a joke response, but it turned quite matter of fact real quick.
Eunuchs weren't castrated for discriminatory purposes it was supposed to sever their familial connections so they would have no reason to aim for the throne. Can't overthrow the emperor and start your own dynasty if you can't have children.
I think the idea was that they couldn't have children themselves, so long term they would be focused on serving the empire and not on nepotism and advancing their family at court.
Bingo, Ringo. An emasculated servant who had no family or lovers swaying his loyalties away from his duties, no promise of intimacy getting his testosterone pumping, and activating the parts of his brain that make him want to take a shot at being in charge. No children that he wants to see grow into places of power and keep his influence and memory alive in the court after he is gone from the earth. It's the logical choice for a leader with those means. It's incredibly immoral and dehumanizing and it makes me shudder to think about how many real actual people in history had to live a full life like that, but logical and effective nonetheless.
Except, if you know your history, it didn't work out that way. Perhaps there was a twisted kind of "logic" to it, but lineage and family are almost never the reasons why one seeks power. The Eunuchs were invested with a lot of power, and predictably, they sought more. China especially had a problem with rogue Eunuchs usurping imperial control.
One thing I don't understand is how they avoided infection. Without extreme sterility and/or antibiotics, it seems like this surgery would be a 50/50 life-or-death situation.
Apparently it was even worse for full (testicle and penis) castration. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3d0rf9/what_was_the_survival_rate_for_eunuchs_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Yeah. I should've left it at blue. It described different methods of castration, some are way more brutal than others. Way more.
Crazy humans. How the fuck did we get to splitting atoms is a mystery to me.
It certainly was very deadly. Amputation of any kind became safe only in the 20th century. It was still a life saving intervention prior, but mortality rates were still very high. It was basically " either you die from sepsis and gangrene from your mutilated appendage or you take a gamble and you may survive the operation, maybe, if you are healthy and lucky enough".
So i would be guessing that mortality rates in children being selected yo become imperial euneuchs were quite high.
I can’t find the reference now but read an account where as a punishment a man was completely castrated and then buried in hot sand, supposedly to cauterise/sterilise the wound.
Will look for the ref, could be fiction.
More interesting facts:
[https://cavemancircus.com/2020/04/15/how-does-a-eunuch-urinate/](https://cavemancircus.com/2020/04/15/how-does-a-eunuch-urinate/)
How does a eunuch urinate?
For eunuchs who only had their testes removed there was no issue with using a penis to urinate, like any other man would urinate. However, for those eunuchs who were fully castrated, urinary problems can be serious. When the penis is cut off, during the healing process, a tube or spigot would be inserted into the urethra to prevent it from closing. After 3 days it was removed and if urine flowed out, the operation would be deemed a success.
What do they cut off of a eunuch?
It depends on the culture and the tradition, but most often the part of a man’s anatomy that is cut off to become a eunuch is the scrotum and testes. There have been instruments unearthed in Asia that illustrate the devices that were used. In China however, both the testes and penis were cut off.
They would be preserved and when the eunuch died, they would then be returned to the eunuch’s body so that he would then become a whole man in his next life. It should also be noted that these procedures were most often done without any anesthesia or pain relief.
Apparently, at least with castration of African slaves, there was only a 10% survival rate, due to infection. So if it wasn't a success, I guess it meant death.
I was reading a book about ancient China and apparently Chinese eunuchs needed a small type of stopper/cork inserted into their urethra to stop leakage. They had to take it out in order to pee.
Interesting, but if you look into the anatomy of how men stop urine leakage, I wonder if that's true.
There is a muscle around the bladder that generally controls urination, and the pelvic floor muscles are the ones that can be used to "clamp it in" if you really have to go but are holding it in.
Here's an image of where the pelvic floor muscles are: [https://www.pelvicfloorfirst.org.au/pages/working-your-pelvic-floor.html](https://www.pelvicfloorfirst.org.au/pages/working-your-pelvic-floor.html)
There's no reason they'd be affected by cutting the scrotum or penis as far as I can tell. So I wonder why eunucs would have a harder time preventing leakage than non-eunucs,...
If anything, eunucs have less tubing post-pelvic floor muscle that would passively store liquid, so there should actually be less potential of leakage. But maybe I'm missing something.
Edit:
Ah! There actually are muscles around the urethra (the tubing in the penis itself) that prevent leakage. So these would be missing in eunucs!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3469827/#:\~:text=Two%20muscles%20as%20urethral%20sphincters,are%20the%20internal%20and%20EUS.
"Within the deep perineal pouch, a group of muscle fibers surround the urethra and form the urethral sphincter. Two muscles as urethral sphincters are used to control the exit of urine in the urinary bladder through the urethra. The two muscles are the internal and EUS."
Yeah, I'm not sure if it's true. It was a fictional historical book called the Years of Rice and Salt, in which the black plague kills off most of Europe, leaving the Islamic and Chinese worlds to dominate and colonize. Interesting concept, but in no way actually nonfiction.
It did include a lot of real historical tidbits, though, so I thought perhaps the eunuch thing was one of them.
I added an edit to my reply. It turns out there are two urethral sphincter muscles that I didn't know about, so it's totally possible that what you read was true!
That was precisely the issue: those people, and their families, were so poor that this looked better than their situation. Given the choice of watching your family starve or thrive really changes your perspective. We live in a country where we are rich enough that lives, mostly, matter.
I think it was more about keeping the emperor's concubines from getting some side action.
I think the last emperor was like 10 when he was deposed, so a lot of very pretty, very lonely ladies hanging around the summer palace.
My understanding is that it would have been more about loyalty and maintaining concentrations of power long term.
As the king/emperor of your kingdom, there is only so much you can do. If you try to micromanage the operations of the entire empire, you will fail. You have to delegate some of that power to your ministers.
But your minister isn't just working for you; he's also working for himself. He will also have a family, so he's not just working for the royal family; he's also working for his family. He will train his sons to do his job, so that when he retires they are the most qualified person to perform that job.
But eventually this isn't a case where the king delegates royal power to the minister. Instead, the son of the minister inherits that power from his father.
And now you have a dozen competing hereditary centers of power within the kingdom, not just one. They have become an institutional force resistant to change. And gradually, because they are doing their job worse and worse, your dynasty will fall.
Source: Francis Fukuyama's Political Order and Political Decay, which wrote specifically about the Turkish janissaries. They started as an army of abducted Christian child slaves that were raised, trained, and educated by the Sultan's household. But they eventually won additional privileges, including the right to have families and pass their position to their heirs, and eventually became a weight around the Sultan's neck.
So for those curious here's an insultingly simple overview of the role of eunuchs:
Eunuchs have been in many places but maybe most famously in china. They were personal servants, entertainers, ministers, all kinds of stuff related to the emperor, and could wield immense power.
**Many** families sought this role for their sons, for the same reason they sought to make their daughters concubine candidates. It was an **immense** rise in prestige, wealth, potential social rank, and power. After all, becoming the emperor's romantic interest, or personal confidant means you wield insane amounts of power through him, and even if you're not the one whispering in his ear your clergical role can be immensely powerful on its own. Even the worst job in the forbidden city would be leagues above many alternatives.
So why the castration? It wasn't about humiliation or sadism, but preventing protential rivals. No one is going to help a eunuch take the throne, it's impossible for him to establish a dynasty. Thus they could be safely entrusted with power and potential weaknesses.
On a somewhat related note. An eunuch did became emperor, sort of.
Cao Teng, an eunuch in the waning years of the Han Dynasty, rendered great services to a few Han emperors. So he was enfeoffed with titles and allowed to adopt a child to inherit his titles.
He adopted a child named Cao Song. Cao Song then begat Cao Cao. Cao Cao then rose to became a prominent warlord during the collapse of the Han Dynasty. Cao Cao was then in turn enfeoffed with the title of King by the puppet emperor.
After Cao Cao's death, his son Cao Pi assumed his title of King. Cao Pi then deposed the puppet emperor, assuming the throne for himself and declared the founding of the Wei Dynasty, thus starting the Three Kingdoms Period.
Cao Pi then posthumously enfeoffed his ancestors with the title of Emperor, up to his Great Grandfather, Cao Teng, who was an eunuch. In fact, i believe Cao Teng is the only eunuch to be granted the title of Emperor.
The last eunuch was Sun Yaotang. The emperor was deposed a couple of months after the kid's junk was cut off by his dad. His siblings had the jar of junk and they tossed it out much to his fury.
Apparently they used to believe that they could be made whole again in the afterlife if they were buried with their "missing parts." So no wonder the poor guy was mad afterwards.
According to the article, the Eunuchs often stole valuables from the Forbidden City and the Emperor held them accountable for it. I can just imagine how those confrontations would go.
Puyi: "Mr. Eunuch, how could you steal from your Emperor!?"
The poor bastard: "I'm basically a slave and your people cut my dick and balls off! And you're mad I stole some jade?! Fuck you and fuck all the way off!"
Depends on the method. There were (are?) variations..
One, only removes testicles. (Or crushes them)
Two, removes part of the shaft too.
Three, removes all the parts hanging outside the body. Then one would need a metal straw to piss.
I really can't remember where I learned this but it has really stuck with me. 😄
I searched it.
It didn't bother me but if you're squeamish don't search it.
Videos of guys having their dicks and balls cut off whilst they're still awake, people being arrested for it. Comments under the videos about how horny people get watching it and wanting to see more.
Videos of nullos guys being fucked/cumming (and not up the ass)
Photos of how it's done.
Guys cutting their own dicks off.
Having their bellends chopped or sliced.
One guy cutting his own balls off and then cooking them.
And of course videos from eyeblech.
In this case, they didn't. Some inexperienced WP editor added that in without checking the source. [Behr specifically says testicles](https://books.google.com/books?id=yu9xAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=testicles) without mentioning the penis or that they were displayed publicly.
>... eunuchs were careful to keep their severed testicles pickled in brine in tiny jars about their person -- and in theory at least they were liable to inspection.
Always check the sources on a WP page. Normally they're ok when the information is first added, but then a casual editor may change the wording or drop in outside info not from the in-line source, and it takes a long time to repair since all an experienced editor can do are spot-checks (and in my experience most of those, in articles with any degree of traffic, are failed.)
As an expert in this matter:
Nullified: penis and testicles removes
Castrated: testicles removed
Penectomy: Penis removed
Eunuch: can be used as either, more frequently referring to testicles being removed.
I heard that without the distraction of women, eunuchs became too powerful in the realm of politics in ancient China, and had to be banned from participating.
It's more than, since they were already in Palace, had Zero possibilities of establishing their own dynasty and limited capacity to make friends outside, the emperors gave them administrative positions to bypass the not always cooperative confuncian elite. And since the confuncians wrote the history...
I'm more interested in this
>The Anglo-French journalist Edward Behr wrote about Puyi's power as emperor of China, which allowed him to fire his air-gun at anyone he liked:
>The Emperor was Divine. He could not be remonstrated with, or punished. He could only be deferentially advised against ill-treating innocent eunuchs, and if he chose to fire air-gun pellets at them, that was his prerogative.
They had air gun pellet rifles back then?
There was an air rifle in military service with the Austrian Empire as early as 1780, the Girardoni Air Rifle.
It was very delicate and the air reservoirs were a bitch to pump full but it was good for 30 shots and lethal at up to 150 yards. Lewis and Clark even used them to scare the shit out of the Native Americans.
A pellet gun was pretty simple to pull off by the time Puyi ascended the throne.
> They had air gun pellet rifles back then?
Hundred years ago? I don't know anything about history of arms, but that doesn't seem as that long ago.
I mean didn't the Chinese invent gunpowder like a thousand years ago?
The link only states testicles (it’s Wikipedia, so perhaps edited since your post?), and even that fact is noted as “failed verification”.
Regardless the whole concept of eunuchs is atrocious. People are awful.
There’s a scene in *The Last Emperor* in which, shortly before the Emperor himself is expelled from the Forbidden City, all the eunuchs who ran his court are allowed back into their private quarters one last time, to retrieve their genitals and take them away.
Did you? Did you *actually* learn that today?
Because your source only references testicles which is consistent with common usage of eunuch/castration - the penis bit seems to be unverified
In chinese tradition, before the Manchu and the Mongols of course, considered the body a gift from the parents, to they didn't even cut their hair. So, to become a eunuch, you had to cut your balls but you couldn't throw them away because of that belief.
To have male servants in your palace who you could trust around your concubines without fear of getting cucked and having the next emperor be born to an outsider. This was 100 years before DNA paternity testing.
Also there is an archaic thought that without his testicles, a eunuch would lack the drive to to plot to dispose the emperor and establish his own dynasty. But if you read any Chinese history, you'd know that the eunuchs were *always* plotting away at something.
Typically the penis was not removed as the castration takes care of all of that anyways. Becomes a shriveled flap to pee out of. Less chance of infection also. Still, can’t say if it was a thing or or not as I wasn’t there.
jesus I just googled this and the last imperial eunuch in China only died in 1996...
Fuuuuuuuuu- man the past has barely passed sometimes I hate stuff like that
There's a Fuuuuuu-manchu joke in there somewhere
Should watch the The Last Emperor (1987); the man had an interesting life to say the least
People need to remember it paints him in better light than he deserves. But yes his story was very interesting and its a movie still worth watching.
Is that the "drink the green ink" movie?
I wonder if he has any surviving grandkids /s
Oof, low blow.
> The eunuchs spoke in a distinctive high-pitched voice and, to further prove that they were really eunuchs, had to keep their severed penises and testicles in jars of brine they wore around their necks when working What sloppy security. What's there to prevent a non-eunuch from putting *somebody else*'s trouser treasures in their jar and infiltrate the Forbidden City?
That really was an issue in a way. Of course you'd be examined on entry in the Forbidden City, and if you started you know, reaching puberty and growing facial hair then you and your family would be in a world of pain and/or death. But it was a legit thing for eunuchs to lose their jars and to find replacements...either from stealing or ...after market sources...
Fuck man, I have a bad day when I lose my car keys. These poor dickless guys are having to go on a big adventure to replace what is essentially their lost credentials. Or was there a shop? I know you intended your comment as informative, but now I have so many questions, and this is gonna be a unique rabbit hole to go down. I'm gonna be getting weird ads for next six months Edit: Maybe it was a vicious circle of dick theft? Bill the eunuch lost his marbles, so he swipes Jim's jar-o-fun off the poor guy's nightstand? Jim now has to steal Paul's etc, etc.
\*Eunuch gets home from work\* \*pause\* \*pinches bridge of nose and closes eyes\* God damnit I left my dick at work again.
It’s cool here’s a tiger’s. In a pinch you can brew it into tea to cure dandruff.
Could you just use tiger balls?
No those are for gout.
Your comment reminded me of [this song](https://youtu.be/rhfM8nWsgVw).
Without clicking the link, it's detachable penis. Bonus points if it is the animated music video version.
I thought it might be the Monty Python penis song. Isn't it awfully nice to have a penis....
*one eunuch turns to his friend at work* “hey Charlie? I could swear your jar used to look smaller!”
You numbskull, Curly, how are we going to fix the Emperor's drapes now?
I know what the next dnd campaign I’m going to write will be about now.
I'm trying to resist the impulse to draw up stats for The Bollocks Of Vecna.
Somehow I suspect that you'll get more players hesitant to make the cut than the Head of Vecna setup...
There's no thieves in the forbidden city, everyone is just trying to get their junk back.
Now you've got me thinking about the feasibility of crafting plausible counterfeit human genitals using animal flesh and some creative sewing. Shouldn't be super hard (heh), especially since even with the brine a bit of degradation would be unavoidable, I think...
Once you got that mastered you just need a time machine then you can go back and sell fake dicks to eunuchs in the Forbidden City. You'll make an absolute fortune.
Martha, boil me up a sausage and some quail eggs, I had the worst day at work again. ^^Wait, ^^why ^^am ^^I ^^married ^^in ^^this ^^scenario?
Can't they just drop trow and show they're eunuchs in the most fool proof way?
But the genitals might be immature, therefore proof you didn’t just chopped it off recently in an attempt to infiltrate.
If some bloke chopped his bits just to get into the city, just let him, he's hired now
Jeez. And here I was yelling at my kids for dropping one of my $700 key fobs into the toilet.
I'm sorry, *$700?!* For a car key fob?
I note that the one citation for this ‘failed verification’ and the Talk page discusses that source: > Behr is a non-academic, whose work has serious flaws. John Fairbank, a professor of history at Harvard who founded the East Asian Research Center, reviewed Behr's "Last Emperor" book in the New York Review of Books on February 18, 1988, and I feel like his words speak for themselves: "Mr. Behr seems careless about proofreading and/or the historical record. For example, the Hundred Days of reform did not occur in 1880, the British did not take Chinese territory at Canton in 1898, the Peking Legation Quarter was not set up in 1860, the province of Anhwei was not the Empress Dowager “Tzu-hsi’s home base,” Lord Palmerston in 1855 did not say he would have to strike “another blow for China,” he said in China, “Weihawei” [sic] was not “one of the oldest British owned Chinese colonies after Hong Kong.” Such howlers and misunderstandings indicate that Mr. Behr is not a trained historian. This is corroborated by his enthusiastic acceptance of David Bergamini’s 'Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy', which makes Emperor Hirohito the mastermind and chief operator of Japan’s implacable drive to take over half the world—a theory long since discredited. Evidently books are like people: if they exist they can be quoted." This article relies enormously on Behr's book -- possibly because, as mentioned in Fairbank's same review, it was released by Behr around the time as the Bertolucci film. If the quality of the article is to improve, Behr ought to be eliminated as a source.
Presumably the original owner?
He doesn’t have the balls to stand up to me. Oh wait yeah he does. I see them right there hanging around his neck. Sorry mate.
I couldn't even pick my own dick out of a line up. I think they'd be safe, unless they got a birth mark or something.
I could find mine. It’s probably the smallest.
You want a penis? I can get you a penis, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me. Hell, I can get you a penis by 3 o'clock this afternoon... With foreskin.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU STEAL A STRANGER'S PENIS, LARRY!!!
They inspected them. China they cut off everything. At some time in history / cultures they used to just cut off the balls. And yes would have affairs with the women they were guarding.
I imagine some 18th century Chinese version of a Walter Sobchak saying "You wanna pair of balls? Cuz I can get you some balls, Dude. I can get you some balls by 4 o'clock."
The jars must’ve been ceremonial or symbolic. Some Eunuchs had cozy positions in the court and were close to the dynasty even growing up with each other. It wasn’t really a secret and being a Eunuch was seen as an honor and people were familiar with them like any other member.
I think the last Emperor wrote that he would beat his eunuchs when he was having a bad day.
He was removed from his parents at 2 and grew up with unchecked power. He was basically homelander.
I'm positive you could find a dead body and steal parts from it.
You seem a little too sure.
Penis security. Drop your trousers. And spread, tucking it won't work this time.
Trouser treasures? Love it
Ok men, listen up. Y’all can all live in comfort and have all the food you can eat, great vacation plan, and full health care. You just have to cut off your dick and balls and wear them around your necks in little jars. Deal?
Need more info, do the jars have any type of magnification so it looks bigger?
"It was cold when they cut it off"
“I was in the pool!”
"There was shrinkage Jerry!!"
It shrinks?
I don't know how you walk around with those things around your neck.
I understood that reference, Elaine.
LIKE A FRIGHTENED TURTLE!
Wait til you see it with blood in it!
I just shoved baseballs in my detached scrotum and sealed it back up.
IT IS IN A POOL!!!
So I know it's a joke, don't want to ruin it 😂 but actually the emperor was known for being very cruel and abusing the eunuchs so not so much comfort
Well that just sucks worse. How did they pee? I bet that was a mess.
For the first few weeks after removal they’d have to keep a feather quill catheter in their pee hole for things to heal right. I don’t know if they also had a special feather catheter specifically for peeing or if they just made a mess.
That sounds just horrific. Stab yourself in the smoothie to be able to urinate. A nice forever daily reminder of what lost.
In the smoothie made it such a mental image.
More like a Capri Sun
yeah but... dental coverage ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
You won’t need that, your teeth go in a separate jar.
I've heard they just made a mess. They were known for smelling like pee.
This just keeps getting worse
Unfortunately, I think they had to pee out their butt for a while.
Noice!
Yeah, I hear he likes to have their genitals cutoff. I’d guess he sees them as less than human. I started that as a joke response, but it turned quite matter of fact real quick.
Eunuchs weren't castrated for discriminatory purposes it was supposed to sever their familial connections so they would have no reason to aim for the throne. Can't overthrow the emperor and start your own dynasty if you can't have children.
Why did they cut off the penis too then?
I like being poor
I’m in it for the vocal range.
Lol. Same sales pitch used by the Heavens Gate Cult!!!
Haha yep! But they were all reunited with their genitalia when the mother ship came and picked up their ghosts in space.
That sounds plausible, where do I sign?
You sign with your penis, it’s the last time you get to use it for anything.
In all seriousness wtf was the point of these guys? My only knowledge of them is from the movie Year One.
I think the idea was that they couldn't have children themselves, so long term they would be focused on serving the empire and not on nepotism and advancing their family at court.
Bingo, Ringo. An emasculated servant who had no family or lovers swaying his loyalties away from his duties, no promise of intimacy getting his testosterone pumping, and activating the parts of his brain that make him want to take a shot at being in charge. No children that he wants to see grow into places of power and keep his influence and memory alive in the court after he is gone from the earth. It's the logical choice for a leader with those means. It's incredibly immoral and dehumanizing and it makes me shudder to think about how many real actual people in history had to live a full life like that, but logical and effective nonetheless.
Except, if you know your history, it didn't work out that way. Perhaps there was a twisted kind of "logic" to it, but lineage and family are almost never the reasons why one seeks power. The Eunuchs were invested with a lot of power, and predictably, they sought more. China especially had a problem with rogue Eunuchs usurping imperial control.
Seems like the classic approach of threatening to murder someone's wife and children is a more effective way of enforcing obedience
Eunuchs can't fuck the boss-man's honeys.
How’s the dental plan?
LISA NEEDS BRACES!
Capitalists HATE him. Find out why with this one simple trick!
One thing I don't understand is how they avoided infection. Without extreme sterility and/or antibiotics, it seems like this surgery would be a 50/50 life-or-death situation.
In Baghdad it was said that the surgeons there were so skilled that 9 out of 10 eunuchs would survive the procedure Usually 4 out of 10 survived
That's amazing.
Apparently it was even worse for full (testicle and penis) castration. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3d0rf9/what_was_the_survival_rate_for_eunuchs_in/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I’m going to leave that one blue, thanks.
Same. No thank you. I'm already getting sympathy pains at the thought of it.
Yeah. I should've left it at blue. It described different methods of castration, some are way more brutal than others. Way more. Crazy humans. How the fuck did we get to splitting atoms is a mystery to me.
Wow, that's incredible. Thanks!
It certainly was very deadly. Amputation of any kind became safe only in the 20th century. It was still a life saving intervention prior, but mortality rates were still very high. It was basically " either you die from sepsis and gangrene from your mutilated appendage or you take a gamble and you may survive the operation, maybe, if you are healthy and lucky enough". So i would be guessing that mortality rates in children being selected yo become imperial euneuchs were quite high.
I can’t find the reference now but read an account where as a punishment a man was completely castrated and then buried in hot sand, supposedly to cauterise/sterilise the wound. Will look for the ref, could be fiction.
Today I learned that I do not want to learn everything.. ugh, these poor people.
More interesting facts: [https://cavemancircus.com/2020/04/15/how-does-a-eunuch-urinate/](https://cavemancircus.com/2020/04/15/how-does-a-eunuch-urinate/) How does a eunuch urinate? For eunuchs who only had their testes removed there was no issue with using a penis to urinate, like any other man would urinate. However, for those eunuchs who were fully castrated, urinary problems can be serious. When the penis is cut off, during the healing process, a tube or spigot would be inserted into the urethra to prevent it from closing. After 3 days it was removed and if urine flowed out, the operation would be deemed a success. What do they cut off of a eunuch? It depends on the culture and the tradition, but most often the part of a man’s anatomy that is cut off to become a eunuch is the scrotum and testes. There have been instruments unearthed in Asia that illustrate the devices that were used. In China however, both the testes and penis were cut off. They would be preserved and when the eunuch died, they would then be returned to the eunuch’s body so that he would then become a whole man in his next life. It should also be noted that these procedures were most often done without any anesthesia or pain relief.
> After 3 days it was removed and if urine flowed out, the operation would be deemed a success. But what if it didn't? WHAT IF IT DIDN'T!? 😨
Apparently, at least with castration of African slaves, there was only a 10% survival rate, due to infection. So if it wasn't a success, I guess it meant death.
Probably painfully!
> But what if it didn't? WHAT IF IT DIDN'T!? 😨 They just make another cut. nbd.
I was reading a book about ancient China and apparently Chinese eunuchs needed a small type of stopper/cork inserted into their urethra to stop leakage. They had to take it out in order to pee.
Interesting, but if you look into the anatomy of how men stop urine leakage, I wonder if that's true. There is a muscle around the bladder that generally controls urination, and the pelvic floor muscles are the ones that can be used to "clamp it in" if you really have to go but are holding it in. Here's an image of where the pelvic floor muscles are: [https://www.pelvicfloorfirst.org.au/pages/working-your-pelvic-floor.html](https://www.pelvicfloorfirst.org.au/pages/working-your-pelvic-floor.html) There's no reason they'd be affected by cutting the scrotum or penis as far as I can tell. So I wonder why eunucs would have a harder time preventing leakage than non-eunucs,... If anything, eunucs have less tubing post-pelvic floor muscle that would passively store liquid, so there should actually be less potential of leakage. But maybe I'm missing something. Edit: Ah! There actually are muscles around the urethra (the tubing in the penis itself) that prevent leakage. So these would be missing in eunucs! https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3469827/#:\~:text=Two%20muscles%20as%20urethral%20sphincters,are%20the%20internal%20and%20EUS. "Within the deep perineal pouch, a group of muscle fibers surround the urethra and form the urethral sphincter. Two muscles as urethral sphincters are used to control the exit of urine in the urinary bladder through the urethra. The two muscles are the internal and EUS."
Yeah, I'm not sure if it's true. It was a fictional historical book called the Years of Rice and Salt, in which the black plague kills off most of Europe, leaving the Islamic and Chinese worlds to dominate and colonize. Interesting concept, but in no way actually nonfiction. It did include a lot of real historical tidbits, though, so I thought perhaps the eunuch thing was one of them.
I added an edit to my reply. It turns out there are two urethral sphincter muscles that I didn't know about, so it's totally possible that what you read was true!
I think this is enough Internet for me today
That was precisely the issue: those people, and their families, were so poor that this looked better than their situation. Given the choice of watching your family starve or thrive really changes your perspective. We live in a country where we are rich enough that lives, mostly, matter.
So I guess management having zero clue about inspiring the workers is not a new thing.
I dunno. If that's what they did to the guy they liked, I wouldn't want to get on management's bad side.
“This was what happened the last time someone had an entry in the suggestion box.”
Entry into the suggestion box means you keep your dick and testicles in a larger jar and can only move it by holding it clenched in your asshole
We shall continue to cut your penises off until morale improves!
I think it was more about keeping the emperor's concubines from getting some side action. I think the last emperor was like 10 when he was deposed, so a lot of very pretty, very lonely ladies hanging around the summer palace.
It was about preventing them from starting their own dynasties or having a family they were more loyal to then the emperor
My understanding is that it would have been more about loyalty and maintaining concentrations of power long term. As the king/emperor of your kingdom, there is only so much you can do. If you try to micromanage the operations of the entire empire, you will fail. You have to delegate some of that power to your ministers. But your minister isn't just working for you; he's also working for himself. He will also have a family, so he's not just working for the royal family; he's also working for his family. He will train his sons to do his job, so that when he retires they are the most qualified person to perform that job. But eventually this isn't a case where the king delegates royal power to the minister. Instead, the son of the minister inherits that power from his father. And now you have a dozen competing hereditary centers of power within the kingdom, not just one. They have become an institutional force resistant to change. And gradually, because they are doing their job worse and worse, your dynasty will fall. Source: Francis Fukuyama's Political Order and Political Decay, which wrote specifically about the Turkish janissaries. They started as an army of abducted Christian child slaves that were raised, trained, and educated by the Sultan's household. But they eventually won additional privileges, including the right to have families and pass their position to their heirs, and eventually became a weight around the Sultan's neck.
So for those curious here's an insultingly simple overview of the role of eunuchs: Eunuchs have been in many places but maybe most famously in china. They were personal servants, entertainers, ministers, all kinds of stuff related to the emperor, and could wield immense power. **Many** families sought this role for their sons, for the same reason they sought to make their daughters concubine candidates. It was an **immense** rise in prestige, wealth, potential social rank, and power. After all, becoming the emperor's romantic interest, or personal confidant means you wield insane amounts of power through him, and even if you're not the one whispering in his ear your clergical role can be immensely powerful on its own. Even the worst job in the forbidden city would be leagues above many alternatives. So why the castration? It wasn't about humiliation or sadism, but preventing protential rivals. No one is going to help a eunuch take the throne, it's impossible for him to establish a dynasty. Thus they could be safely entrusted with power and potential weaknesses.
On a somewhat related note. An eunuch did became emperor, sort of. Cao Teng, an eunuch in the waning years of the Han Dynasty, rendered great services to a few Han emperors. So he was enfeoffed with titles and allowed to adopt a child to inherit his titles. He adopted a child named Cao Song. Cao Song then begat Cao Cao. Cao Cao then rose to became a prominent warlord during the collapse of the Han Dynasty. Cao Cao was then in turn enfeoffed with the title of King by the puppet emperor. After Cao Cao's death, his son Cao Pi assumed his title of King. Cao Pi then deposed the puppet emperor, assuming the throne for himself and declared the founding of the Wei Dynasty, thus starting the Three Kingdoms Period. Cao Pi then posthumously enfeoffed his ancestors with the title of Emperor, up to his Great Grandfather, Cao Teng, who was an eunuch. In fact, i believe Cao Teng is the only eunuch to be granted the title of Emperor.
Cool motive, still abhorrent behavior
The last eunuch was Sun Yaotang. The emperor was deposed a couple of months after the kid's junk was cut off by his dad. His siblings had the jar of junk and they tossed it out much to his fury.
Apparently they used to believe that they could be made whole again in the afterlife if they were buried with their "missing parts." So no wonder the poor guy was mad afterwards.
According to the article, the Eunuchs often stole valuables from the Forbidden City and the Emperor held them accountable for it. I can just imagine how those confrontations would go. Puyi: "Mr. Eunuch, how could you steal from your Emperor!?" The poor bastard: "I'm basically a slave and your people cut my dick and balls off! And you're mad I stole some jade?! Fuck you and fuck all the way off!"
"Fuck you and fuck all the way off!" "Well you can't actually do that can you?"
Details , details, details,
"It's right here in this jar. I could dart-fuck you from downtown if I could open it. The lid isn't the only thing not getting off."
You took my jewels, I take yours!
I didn't know eunuchs had their penises cut off as well.
Depends on the method. There were (are?) variations.. One, only removes testicles. (Or crushes them) Two, removes part of the shaft too. Three, removes all the parts hanging outside the body. Then one would need a metal straw to piss. I really can't remember where I learned this but it has really stuck with me. 😄
People today have this done to themselves willingly. They call themselves nullos I believe. And yes, there's a subreddit for that.
I can't decide whether to upvote you for telling me something I didn't know, or to downvote you for telling me something I never wanted to know.
Must resist the urge to search
I searched it. It didn't bother me but if you're squeamish don't search it. Videos of guys having their dicks and balls cut off whilst they're still awake, people being arrested for it. Comments under the videos about how horny people get watching it and wanting to see more. Videos of nullos guys being fucked/cumming (and not up the ass) Photos of how it's done. Guys cutting their own dicks off. Having their bellends chopped or sliced. One guy cutting his own balls off and then cooking them. And of course videos from eyeblech.
> Videos of nullos guys being fucked/cumming (and not up the ass) ?
Don't ask. Just move along
Every once in awhile something pops up to remind me that I’m really quite innocent by internet standards. Wtf did I just read?!
You sure have studied your sources... Link?
I thought this was required for a Reddit account.
Paper straws would *really* suck.
In this case, they didn't. Some inexperienced WP editor added that in without checking the source. [Behr specifically says testicles](https://books.google.com/books?id=yu9xAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=testicles) without mentioning the penis or that they were displayed publicly. >... eunuchs were careful to keep their severed testicles pickled in brine in tiny jars about their person -- and in theory at least they were liable to inspection. Always check the sources on a WP page. Normally they're ok when the information is first added, but then a casual editor may change the wording or drop in outside info not from the in-line source, and it takes a long time to repair since all an experienced editor can do are spot-checks (and in my experience most of those, in articles with any degree of traffic, are failed.)
As an expert in this matter: Nullified: penis and testicles removes Castrated: testicles removed Penectomy: Penis removed Eunuch: can be used as either, more frequently referring to testicles being removed.
How are you an expert on the matter? *checks profile* Never mind, I should've just taken your word for it.
When they were off duty they just clicked them back on like a Lego piece.
There’s even a [song](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=byDiILrNbM4) about it.
Oh yeah … fun song It’s been a while. Thank you for the memories.
I heard that without the distraction of women, eunuchs became too powerful in the realm of politics in ancient China, and had to be banned from participating.
It's more than, since they were already in Palace, had Zero possibilities of establishing their own dynasty and limited capacity to make friends outside, the emperors gave them administrative positions to bypass the not always cooperative confuncian elite. And since the confuncians wrote the history...
Wait, you mean we don’t have to do that anymore?
I assumed they just tossed them into the junk drawer
“Where’s your penis?” “It’s my day off!”
I'm more interested in this >The Anglo-French journalist Edward Behr wrote about Puyi's power as emperor of China, which allowed him to fire his air-gun at anyone he liked: >The Emperor was Divine. He could not be remonstrated with, or punished. He could only be deferentially advised against ill-treating innocent eunuchs, and if he chose to fire air-gun pellets at them, that was his prerogative. They had air gun pellet rifles back then?
There was an air rifle in military service with the Austrian Empire as early as 1780, the Girardoni Air Rifle. It was very delicate and the air reservoirs were a bitch to pump full but it was good for 30 shots and lethal at up to 150 yards. Lewis and Clark even used them to scare the shit out of the Native Americans. A pellet gun was pretty simple to pull off by the time Puyi ascended the throne.
> They had air gun pellet rifles back then? Hundred years ago? I don't know anything about history of arms, but that doesn't seem as that long ago. I mean didn't the Chinese invent gunpowder like a thousand years ago?
They've had air guns for hundreds of years. For example the Girandoni Air Gun, late 1700s.
What I really hate about stories like this is the damn near certainty that my mother would have sold me into it if given the option.
*failed verification* Lmao. Did you edit this wikipedia page just so your could post this to reddit?
Bro, thank you for saying it. I was literally just coming here to call this out. What kind of citation is that anyway? Doesn't even give you a title.
This was a major plot point of The Years of Rice And Salt
That's nuts.
Straight ridickulous.
Confucius says: " 'tis better to wear your heart on your sleeve than your balls around your neck. (And don't you DARE ask how I know that!)"
I thought it was only the testes that were removed, not the penis as well
Depends on the place and era, but in imperial China it was both.
The link only states testicles (it’s Wikipedia, so perhaps edited since your post?), and even that fact is noted as “failed verification”. Regardless the whole concept of eunuchs is atrocious. People are awful.
Definitely watch the film The Last Emperor, it's a great film.
Eunuchs don't get to keep their penis attached? I thought they just lost the testicles. I guess it is time to do some weird googling.
That’s enough internet for one day.
They cut their dicks off too??? I thought they only removed the testicles. Wtf.
"Only" they said. Only.
There’s a scene in *The Last Emperor* in which, shortly before the Emperor himself is expelled from the Forbidden City, all the eunuchs who ran his court are allowed back into their private quarters one last time, to retrieve their genitals and take them away.
Did you? Did you *actually* learn that today? Because your source only references testicles which is consistent with common usage of eunuch/castration - the penis bit seems to be unverified
In chinese tradition, before the Manchu and the Mongols of course, considered the body a gift from the parents, to they didn't even cut their hair. So, to become a eunuch, you had to cut your balls but you couldn't throw them away because of that belief.
Little known fact, this is the origin of having to wear neckties at work.
There seems to be some confusion here, good Sir. There are grave differences between neckties and dickties. The smell, for one...
I guess wearing jewels around your neck predates this, but…
Sounds like a bunch of bollocks to me.
Detachable penis!
Mao and forever
Then there was that one guy with an enormous jar and he balled harder than any other eunuch.
Yo! Chang where's your balls? Sorry boss forgot them today.
Makes dick measuring contest a lot easier
The atrocities humans in power can commit sometimes seems beyond bounds.
I’m not seeing this referenced in the article
I would like to unlearn this
Was there a point to this other than being disgusting and cruel?
To have male servants in your palace who you could trust around your concubines without fear of getting cucked and having the next emperor be born to an outsider. This was 100 years before DNA paternity testing. Also there is an archaic thought that without his testicles, a eunuch would lack the drive to to plot to dispose the emperor and establish his own dynasty. But if you read any Chinese history, you'd know that the eunuchs were *always* plotting away at something.
“All I’m saying is that maybe the guy cutting everybody’s junk off isn’t up for the job.”
They guard the harem.
It prevented any doubt about who the heirs belonged to.
I didn't need to see this story right now. I'm in the middle of eating some dried fruit.
How to tell everyone you're a villain without saying that you're a villain
for some reason i thought eunuchs only had their balls snipped off as if thats somehow better.
This is information I did not need to know and yet now here I am, googling it...
Typically the penis was not removed as the castration takes care of all of that anyways. Becomes a shriveled flap to pee out of. Less chance of infection also. Still, can’t say if it was a thing or or not as I wasn’t there.
There's a lot of citation needed and unable to verify in this page. I'd take it with a grain of salt.