The Castrated Gods and their Castration Cults: Revenge, Punishment, and Spiritual Supremacy (original) (raw)
A Man Without Manliness: A Case of Involuntary Castration
Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology
The practice of castration has its roots before recorded human history and male castration was performed for social reasons in prehistoric times.1 Though, antiquity has revealed variety of reasons for the forced involuntary castration of males but here we are discussing a case of 26 years married male who was in the business of dancing to earn his livelihoods in the company of eunuchs, commonly called as hijra / kinners. One day they took him in an ebriated condition to an unknown isolated place where his private parts were severed and removed. On gaining conscious, he noticed pain in the area of his private parts and found that his scrotum and penis were removed without his consent. He was beaten mercilessly when he protested and then was sold him to another identical group who forced him to in the male prostitution. Examination and investigations established his sex and surgical intervention carried out as per his allegations.
The Ideology of the Eunuch Priest
Gender <html_ent glyph="@amp;" ascii="&"/> History, 1997
Eunuchs were a regular part of the gendered world of Mediterranean antiquity. Most eunuchs were castrated involuntarily, many as slaves and prisoners of war. This paper examines a different class of eunuch, the eunuch priest. This was a free man who, as a mature male, castrated himself voluntarily by removing his testicles with a sharp object, an act undertaken as a token of his dedication to the deity he served. 1 All of the eunuch priests known from ancient Mediterranean society were attendants on so-called Oriental divinities, deities whose cults originated in western Asia. Of these, the most prominent one is the Great Mother Goddess, known in Greece and Rome as Cybele, whose priests will form the principal subject of this paper. The Great Mother was originally a deity of Phrygia, a region of central Asia Minor (modern Turkey). Evidence for her worship first appears in the early first millennium BCE, and she remained a conspicuous figure in the religious life of Mediterranean antiquity until the dominance of Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries CE. Despite her Phrygian origins and her continuing identification as a Phrygian deity, the Great Mother is best known through her cult centers in the Greek world and in the city of Rome. In the Greek world she was addressed as Meter, the Mother, and her civic shrines could be found in several Greek cities. In the city of Rome the Great Mother, the Roman Magna Mater, gained even more public visibility, as she acquired the role of a patriotic, protective divinity, worshipped at an important temple in the very heart of the city. The ubiquity and public presence of the Mother Goddess are marks of a deity who enjoyed a great deal of dignity and respect in Mediterranean antiquity. Yet this circumstance forms a sharp contrast to the position of her eunuch priests, whose asexual condition caused them to be viewed with disgust and loathing outside the goddess's Phrygian homeland. In some cases the eunuch priest was described as a man who had deliberately made himself into a woman, taking on all of the negative implications that were attached to a woman's body in antiquity. In other cases the eunuch was addressed as a being who was a grade below a woman, as one 'neither man nor woman', whose appearance and manners incorporated the most disagreeable aspects of both male and female.
Eunuchs in Contemporary Society: Characterizing Men Who Are Voluntarily Castrated (Part I
Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2007
Introduction. Some males desire to be emasculated for no medical reason. These individuals are often secretive about their desires and little is known about their background and motivation.Aims. We sought to characterize these modern eunuchs and to identify risk factors for genital self-mutilation or self-administered chemical castration.Methods. We posted a questionnaire on the Eunuch Archive (http://www.eunuch.org) that was responded to by 135 voluntarily castrated males. Questionnaire data were supplemented by accompanying narrative responses and several personal interviews.Main Outcome Measures. Participants answered questionnaire items pertaining to their knowledge about androgen deprivation, the nature of their castration, and the length of time between initial presentation of castration paraphilia and castration. These questionnaire data allowed us to compare and contrast voluntary chemical and physical eunuchs.Results. The physical castrations were largely premeditated, with an average of 18 years from the time that an individual developed interest in being a eunuch to the time of their actual castration. We identified four factors that may promote castration ideations: (i) abuse sustained during childhood, including parental threats of castration; (ii) homosexuality; (iii) exposure to animal castration during youth; and (iv) religious condemnation of sexuality. Chemical eunuchs were more likely to have sought castration for libido control or to advance transition from male to female (P < 0.05). Physical eunuchs had a nonsignificant tendancy to have masochistic paraphilia involving genital mutilation in advance of their castration (P < 0.1). Both Body Integrity Identity Disorder and Gender Identity Disorders occur among those who self-identify as eunuch.Conclusions. We present evidence that the majority of self-identified voluntary eunuchs are not male-to-female transsexuals. Whereas the majority identify as male, many view themselves as in an alternate nonmale, nonfemale, gender space. We therefore suggest that male-to-eunuch is a valid transgender identity. Johnson TW, Brett MA, Roberts LF, and Wassersug RJ. Eunuchs in contemporary society: Characterizing men who are voluntarily castrated (Part I). J Sex Med 2007;4:930–945.
Castration as Exemplum: The Making of a Medieval Trope
Festschrift for John D. Lyons, 2020
Seeking to transform the Roman Empire from a secular to a sacred construct in De civitate Dei contra Paganos, St. Augustine roundly denounces Roman religion, particularly self-castration by priests of the great Earth Mother, Tellus/Ceres. Augustine describes the ritual self-mutilation so vividly as to transform the rite into a negative example of sacred ecology. The image imprints itself deeply enough to transform historical act into moral concept: an exemplum against Roman religion. His hypotyposis obliges readers to visualize depicted members, thereby posing a problem for Church Fathers who taught that the “parts of shame” should neither be named nor depicted. But as Saint Ambrose and Isidore of Seville demonstrate, it is futile to castrate language or to repress what the imagination evokes.
Castration as a consequence of the strengthening of the dynastic principle
Zbornik radova Vizantoloskog instituta, 2017
The paper discusses examples of corporal mutilation that accompanied intra-dynastic conflicts or clashes with real or potential pretenders to the imperial throne. Castration was a known but rarely applied measure in the political conflicts of the 7 th and 8 th century. Hence the two consecutive cases of castration of all sons of the deposed emperor Michael I Rhangabe (813) and the assassinated emperor Leo V the Armenian (820) deviated from the previous Byzantine practice. The paper establishes that in these cases the choice of castration as the most effective means of ensuring the future political disqualification of the princes and their families was a result of the strengthening dynastic principle, which was particularly noticeable in the cases of the descendents of Constantine V from his third marriage. It also highlights that castration was never used on the deposed emperor autokratōr, but only on the bearers of imperial dignities (co-emperors) or simply princes with no imperial title. In examples where castration was used to ensure political disqualification, it was not a sanction for an individual wrongdoing (in other words, castration was not a penalty prescribed for a specific transgression); if these cases were a matter of punishment at all, the penalty was meant to sanction the entire bloodline (γένος) rather than the (innocent) individual. Castration was a milder form of punishment compared to other forms of physical mutilation (severing of the nose, tongue or ears; blinding). Due to the ambivalent attitude of the Byzantine society towards eunuchs, castration did not necessarily lead to social marginalization. Hence, it was applied more frequently during the reign of the Macedonian dynasty, but prominent castrates were incorporated into the official hierarchy as members of an order of eunuchs (τάξεις τῶν εὐνούχων).
Eunuchs in Contemporary Society: Expectations, Consequences, and Adjustments to Castration (Part II
Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2007
Introduction. There are men in the Western world who are voluntarily castrated and are not male-to-female transsexuals.Aims. We surveyed members of this group to understand their responses to androgen deprivation (AD) and how their experiences matched their expectations of AD.Methods. We posted a questionnaire on the Eunuch Archive (http://www.eunuch.org) that received responses from 92 voluntarily orchiectomized males who identified as eunuchs. Data from this questionnaire were supplemented with interviews with 19 of the eunuchs.Main Outcome Measures. Participants completed questionnaire items regarding: (i) the side effects they expected and experienced; (ii) their current physical and psychological condition; (iii) their level of regret; (iv) what they appreciated most about their castrated status; and (v) who performed their orchiectomies.Results. The most appreciated aspect of castration was the sense of control over sexual urges and appetite (52%). The major side effects experienced were loss of libido (66%), hot flashes (63%), and genital shrinkage (55%). The population had high self-rated sociability, and mental and physical health. Although there was an insignificant reduction in depression after castration, the overall level of self-reported obsessive-compulsive disorders decreased significantly (P < 0.01). Twenty-two percent of the population reported a change in sexual orientation. Many respondents (60%) took supplemental hormone treatments to counteract the side effects of AD. The use of both supplemental testosterone and high-dose estrogen correlated with a significant increase in self-reported sexual desire and activity above the agonadal level (P < 0.001). The majority of the castrations (53%) were not performed by medical professionals.Conclusion. The medical community needs to be aware of men at risk of unsafe castrations in order to provide them with more information on the side effects of AD and access to safe orchiectomies. Brett MA, Roberts LF, Johnson TW, and Wassersug RJ. Eunuchs in contemporary society: Expectations, consequences, and adjustments to castration (Part II). J Sex Med 2007;4:946–955.
Transgender India: Understanding Third Gender, Identities and Experiences; Springer Nature , 2022
Phallus (Linga) is considered as the symbol of universal fertility in the iconography of Shivalinga. This universality of a fertile phallus sprang from a mythological story of ancient Indian literature. Shiva, who is whole heartedly worshipped by the Hijras of India, was once asked by Lord Vishnu and Brahma to create all the beings in the world. Shiva agreed began meditation. On completion, he found that Brahma had already created the world. Finding that his linga was not required further, he cut his linga and threw it to the earth saying that "there is no use for this linga". However, this act didn’t make Shiva asexual or impotent rather as O’ Flaherty points out, his linga becomes the source of “universal fertility” in place of “individual fertility”. In India, the Shiva Linga is worshipped by women during Shivaratri to be blessed with fertility. It is also believed that the hijras, a transgender community in India, can bless a woman with fertility after their ritual castration is done. This helps the hijras to attain purity. Contradiction arises when on one side both the castrated Shiva and the Hijras can bless a woman to be fertile; and on the other side, castration leads to rejection of the transgender community in society for inducing self infertility. Here castration becomes self-contradictory in nature. I propose to provide insights on the contradiction/concurrence of castration and fertility in the iconography of Shivalinga as in Linga purana and Shiva purana. I also propose to conduct a transgender reading of ancient Indian Literature to restructure the binary conception of male/female with the gender triad of male/female/third gender.
Eunuchs in the Sunnī Legal Discourse: Reflections on the Gender of Castrated Men
Studi Magrebini 20, 2, 2022
In this paper I focus on how Muslim jurists gendered and discussed castrated men-eunuchs. Eunuchs were a common characteristic of many pre-modern societies, well beyond Islamic contexts. Far from being only "harem guardians", they had a very important role in court politics and in dynastical decisions but also in the military and the administrative sphere. Numerous sources confirm that their presence in several Islamic courts must have been impressive. This seems in contrast to the fact that castration is seen as strongly prohibited in Islamic law. The fact that eunuchs were usually enslaved and then castrated outside the Islamic world, where Islamic law did not apply, or on its borders, where the caliphal control was less strong, contributes to explaining this apparent contradiction. Given their presence in the dār al-Islām, Muslim jurists took them for granted and, even though not so extensively as in the case of the ḫunṯā, or intersex person, they also were confronted with the issue of their gender. In this article I focus on the question of how Muslim jurists gendered them. In the first part of the article I will focus on how castration was practiced, as this allows us to see how the surgery had an impact on the body of the eunuchs, but also how the different forms of castration had an impact on how castrated men were categorized by Muslim jurists. In the second part of the article I investigate how Sunnī Muslim jurists gendered eunuchs, focusing in particular on scholars from the 9 th to the 14 th century.
Зборник радова Византолошког института САНУ 54, 2017
The paper discusses examples of corporal mutilation that accompanied intra-dynastic conflicts or clashes with real or potential pretenders to the imperial throne. Castration was a known but rarely applied measure in the political conflicts of the 7th and 8th century. Hence the two consecutive cases of castration of all sons of the deposed emperor Michael I Rhangabe (813) and the assassinated emperor Leo V the Armenian (820) deviated from the previous Byzantine practice. The paper establishes that in these cases the choice of castration as the most effective means of ensuring the future political disqualification of the princes and their families was a result of the strengthening dynastic principle, which was particularly noticeable in the cases of the descendents of Constantine V from his third marriage. It also highlights that castration was never used on the deposed emperor autokratōr, but only on the bearers of imperial dignities (co-emperors) or simply princes with no imperial title. In examples where castration was used to ensure political disqualification, it was not a sanction for an individual wrongdoing (in other words, castration was not a penalty prescribed for a specific transgression); if these cases were a matter of punishment at all, the penalty was meant to sanction the entire bloodline (γένος) rather than the (innocent) individual. Castration was a milder form of punishment compared to other forms of physical mutilation (severing of the nose, tongue or ears; blinding). Due to the ambivalent attitude of the Byzantine society towards eunuchs, castration did not necessarily lead to social marginalization. Hence, it was applied more frequently during the reign of the Macedonian dynasty, but prominent castrates were incorporated into the official hierarchy as members of an order of eunuchs (τάξεις τῶν εὐνούχων).
Origen the "Eunuch:" A New Castration Theory
Black Lion Academy, 2020
Did Origen castrate himself, as Eusebius says, because he took Christ's words too literally? Was the castration tale merely a result of malicious gossip from Origen's opponents? This essay argues a third possibility, that Origen was wrongly thought to be a eunuch because he openly used the term mystically, in reference to his own celibacy.