In the United States an estimated 40,000 men per year are chemically castrated as a treatment for metastasized prostate cancer. In many cases the growth of this type of cancer is dependent on testosterone, at least in the initial phase. In the Netherlands 7,000 new patients are diag­nosed with prostate cancer each year. Until well […]

In 1908 the avant-garde sculptor Jacob Epstein designed an angel for the tomb of Oscar Wilde in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise in Paris. ‘Homosexuals, artists and writers are outcasts’ reads the verse inscrip­tion. Epstein’s angel was not placed on the grave without a fight. There was a great commotion among all involved about the […]

The Church Father St Augustine (354-430) had already stated that in sexual relations there should always be the hope of fertilization. And in the past at least that was only possible with a stiff penis and normal testicles. ‘Go forth and multiply,’ as it says in Genesis. Well, impotent men were incapable of that and […]

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries not only the directors of opera companies, but also the Catholic Church made grateful use of men castrated at a young age. In Italy at that time, if you had a reason­able voice when you were ten and came from a poor family there was a good chance that […]

Much later, in the eighteenth century, in the Russian Skoptsy sect, it became the custom after fathering two children to have not just the testicles but the greater part of the penis removed. First the testicles were destroyed (originally with red-hot iron bars, but later a knife was preferred). The second procedure comprised the removal […]

In several places in the Bible there is mention, sometimes in veiled terms, sometimes explicit, of castration and eunuchs. The Talmud is much clearer, for example about Daniel and his friends. In the Chris­tian tradition Daniel is one of the great four: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel and Daniel. In the book of Daniel the story is […]

In Ancient Rome castration was a well-known phenomenon. At a later period, though the Church of Rome was not well disposed towards genitalia, a practice survived until 1913 of feeling between the legs of the candidate elected pope by the conclave of cardinals before he was allowed to mount the throne of St Peter — […]

In the ancient Hindu tradition patients with metastasized prostate can­cer were treated by the same method used by many of today’s uro­logists, namely chemical castration. Nowadays this is done with expensive pills or depot injections, while in the past a cheap, vegetarian diet was used. This was very low in cholesterol, by far the most […]

Like the Chinese emperor the Ottoman sultans kept eunuchs, though these were imported slaves. Since Sharia law forbade mutilation of the human body, they were castrated by non-Muslim traders outside Islamic territory. Recent research by M. W. Aucoin and R. J. Wasserzug has shown that in early-medieval Islamic territory eunuchs were active heterosexually and homosexually, […]

An ancient Chinese term for eunuch was huan kuan: a castrated man employed in the palace. In imperial China there was widespread castra­tion of young boys. The local and provincial nobility imitated the em­peror and also kept eunuchs. Many parents sent their sons to the courts in the hope of later benefits. This resulted in […]