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984 viewsTwo eunuchs to contest elections from Lucknow
Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow
With two eunuchs having plunged into the fray from Lucknow, the forthcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh are likely to witness history of sorts.
While the six-feet-tall Payal is posing a challenge to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's man Friday Lalji Tandon, who also happens to be the state's minister for housing and urban development, Sridevi is taking on Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Suresh Tiwari.
"You have seen the government run by men and woman; now see a government run by eunuchs," Payal says. "Even with a minister for housing and urban development, this constituency remained plagued with poor sanitation, shortage of drinking water and absence of many other civic amenities", she says.
"My aim is to serve the people and get rid of corruption by exposing bungling in high places", she adds
Payal first shot into limelight when she participated in the first ever fashion show by eunuchs. And now she is the first eunuch to contest from the capital of India's most populous state, which also happens to be the political constituency of the prime minister.
She has a great sense of style too! Payal was dressed in jeans, a red button-down collar shirt and a navy blue blazer when she went to hand over her nomination papers. And when the returning officer told her "thank you", she quipped: "Wish me good luck too!"
"We eunuchs have no family or relatives. So, unlike others who have this insatiable lust to fill coffers not only for themselves, but for their future generations, we have no such interests," says Sridevi
Considering that her opponent has earned much disrepute for not having done anything, Sridevi's slogans on corruption and the incumbent's indifference towards the problems of the people is likely to be a hit with the electorate.
Shaista Ambar, a well-known social worker who founded the National Communist Party to promote the political interests of eunuchs, said: "We are going to have a large number of eunuchs from different corners of the country to campaign for the Lucknow candidates."
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/jan/23poll.htm
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1292 viewshttp://www.thingsasian.com/goto_article/article.1734.html
Eunuchs -- India's Third Gender
By Nabanita Dutt
Their face is their fortune. Caked in cheap rouge, kajal, powder and lipstick, they dress in ill-fitting blouses and colourful saris in a grotesque parody of womanhood as they roam the busy marketplaces in groups, terrorizing pedestrians, hustling for ten or a hundred rupees. These are not your average beggars on the street. With male voices shouting expletives, palms meeting crossways in a trademark clap, they prey on susceptible passersby, who will part with their cash sooner than be treated to the sight of the group collectively lifting up their saris and flashing castrated genital areas right in their faces.
Eunuchs - castrated males - have been in existence since the 9th Century BC. The word derives from the Greek "keeper of the bed" because castrated men were in popular demand to guard royal harems. The practice is believed to have started in China where, at the end of the Ming dynasty, there were as many as 70,000 eunuchs in the grand palace itself and many thousands more waiting to fill vacancies in the royal quarters. In the 1930s, when American journalist Vincent Starrett visited Beijing, he interviewed 33 palace eunuchs, ranging in age from 60 to 80. In his journals, he described the surviving eunuchs as "thin, hairless, fat-lipped and bejowled...with shrill voices and hair which hang down to their necks."
By 1960, the number of Chinese eunuchs had dwindled to 26 living in Beijing, and 1996 saw the death of Sun Yaoting, the last of these noble civil servants who passed away a little before his ninety-fourth birthday.
India is the only country where the tradition of eunuchs is prevalent today. There are about 1 million of them, though their role in life has changed drastically from that of royal servants, confidantes and friends.
Eunuchs, or hijras as they are called here, have become something to be feared. Nobody wants to be accosted by one of them - be nudged with their elbows, stroked on the cheek, taunted, cursed and flashed.
It's by taking advantage of this discomfort and embarrassment at their existence, that hijras in 21st Century India are making their living. Begging isn't their only source of income. It's an age-old custom in the country to have hijras bless childbirths, weddings, housewarmings and other auspicious occasions. The eunuchs are believed to possess occult powers, and their blessings - and curses - are both considered potent.
The community has a complex network system, which informs them of every happy event in the neighbourhood. No sooner has a baby been born in the family that a tinkle of ankle-bells herald the arrival of the hijras. They sing and dance and create a commotion outside the house until the mother has allowed them to look at the baby. Once they have blessed the child they demand exorbitant sums of money in lieu of their good wishes. The inspection also carries an ulterior motive. On rare occasions when the baby is born a eunuch, the hijras insist that the baby is given to them. Often, the families will comply to avoid humiliation in society, and the group will take the child away to their ghettoes to raise him as he should be: as one of their own.
What happens in these ghettoes is a mystery few know about. Most people, in fact, have no notion about how hijras come to be. Some believe they are simply born that way - males without the male genitalia - while others will tell you that they are really men who were forcibly castrated in their youth.
Both views are true, though natural eunuchs are a very rare occurrence and castration isn't always by force. An `operation' as hijras call it, is cause for huge celebrations in the community. It is performed out of doors, and feasts, song and dance are rituals that attend the event, which is orchestrated by the head of the community known as Gurus.
Views differ on the exact process of castration and one would believe that there are several procedures by which the hijras dispense with unwanted male appendages. A common practice, however, begins with the individual being sequestered in isolation for some days during which he is fed on a diet of opium and milk to keep him in a permanent state of intoxication. On a day declared auspicious by the Guru, the boy is laid down on a hard surface and a cord is tied tightly around his testicles to stop the flow of blood. Several eunuchs hold him down as a sharp knife severs the penis and testicles in one swift movement. The wound is bled for a period of hours, to signify the draining of manhood and the onset of womanhood. A metal or wooden plug is inserted into the wound to stop full closure and leave an aperture for the passage of urine. Hot oil is poured over the area and herbs are placed on it to hasten the healing process
Some communities, however, do not consider the procedure complete until the boy has been made to sit on a grinding stone and pushed down until he bleeds from the anus. The drops of blood are taken to signify the first menstruation, and only then is the initiation complete.
Thereafter, the Guru takes over the proper upbringing of the newest member. Everything the young hijra learns about the clan's customs and traditions is at the feet the Guru. His adopted family of fellow hijras provides a loving environment and he is fed, clothed and looked after well until he too feels a sense of security and well-being.
The hijras I met at a ghetto in Bombay's Kamatipura area seemed pretty content with their lot in life. This was in 1995, when all I knew about them was that they were neither men nor women, were rude and aggressive people and lived in areas where outsiders were strictly unwelcome. But I happened to be near a hijra neighbourhood, and in a spirit of adventure, I asked a male friend who was with me, if we could take our taxi close enough to see some of them.
The houses they lived in were typical Bombay chawls - ancient three to four-storeyed structures with a long, common verandah running down the front of each floor. Hijras were everywhere, leaning over the banisters, walking down the narrow street, chatting, laughing, combing each other's hair. The appearance of our taxi caused no stir, and encouraged by this, my friend stopped the car and walked a small distance to chat up a hijra. He'd pretend to be a customer, he said. At that point, I had no idea that hijras also sold their bodies. Yet, many of them were indeed standing at doorsteps, hand on hip, the way I had seen prostitutes pose in the adjacent Kamatipura red-light area. Men were everywhere, walking in and out of the buildings.
A couple of hijras walked up to the taxi in which I was sitting and I watched their progress with mounting fear. The presence of a female in their ghetto must anger these people, and I wondered if they would react violently to this intrusion.
"Look, look your man is chatting up another woman," laughed the taller of the two, gesturing with her hand at my friend who was by then deep in conversation with the hijra he had chosen. She urged me to get out of the cab, and informed me she was Sita and her friend was called Aarti. The `woman' my `husband' liked, she said, was Lata. Not only did they have female names, they also spoke of each other as women. The couple invited me into their house, and it was with much trepidation that I began to climb up the dark, dingy staircase with my friend and his woman in tow.
As we made our way along the second-floor verandah, hijras who were lounging about reached forward to shake my hand. I was amazed to note that I caused more of a flutter among them than my male friend. Used to women who ran away at the sight of them, it appeared I was a novelty in these parts and everybody wanted to get closer and touch me.
The room we were led into contained two beds, and a hijra who looked to be about 70 was cutting vegetables into neat piles. I was wondering how they entertained customers in such a domestic environment when Lata, the one my friend had chosen, pointed at a narrow ladder placed at one end of the room. The ladder led up to a platform which was partitioned into three cubicles. Each contained a stained mattress and a naked bulb hung from a low ceiling. Lata led us into her own cubicle and I gathered this was where they serviced the men. There wasn't enough room to sit cross-legged on the mattress and Lata giggled merrily as we tried to get comfortable without banging our heads on the ceiling.
My friend had paid her Rs 300 for an hour, during which time we said we only wanted to talk to her. The request didn't seem to surprise Lata - probably because I was present and there was little chance of any real action - and agreed to tell us her story.
She used to be a young boy from Bihar before her operation, she said. When she was young, her school-master would take her to lonely classrooms and sodomise her regularly. The discomfort disappeared after a while and when other village men began to prey on her, it didn't feel bad or abnormal. By the time she was 17, Lata knew she liked what the men did to her and she decided to have an operation. She couldn't explain the need to cut off her male genitals and could only say that it made her feel more of a woman. Soon after, having collected enough money for the procedure, she ran away and got herself operated at a local clinic in Bihar which did this kind of stuff. Thereafter, she came to Bombay, having heard that business was good in the city, and was pretty content servicing men who visited this hijra neighbourhood.
Clients who came to their quarters, she said, were often heterosexual men who could not afford a female prostitute. The rest were closet gays for whom hijras were the only source of release for pent-up frustrations.
Before the evening was over and we left the place, I had spoken to several members of the community. While all of them told stories that suggested they had homosexual tendencies, few could explain the need to neuter themselves or adopt the hijra way of life. "We are the third gender," said Sita, my first hijra friend. "There is no room for homosexuals in this society. And none of us can envisage a life where we are forced to marry females and have children by them. So the only way out is to cut off our manhood and become hijras. This is the only community which will accept us and let us live our lives the way we want to. By not being heterosexuals, we are already damned. As a hijra, at least we are not the sole target of the derision and ridicule that society heaps on us. We can endure it as a community."
The feeling that life has shortchanged them often prompts their perverse and obscene behavior in public. "What more do we have to lose?" says Sita. "We are anyway treated worse than an untouchable. If we overdo the kind of behavior that is expected of us, we can twist people's arms and make them pay for our sustenance. It's the least society can do for us."
The freedom this deviant existence affords within the community, however, is not without some restrictions. Their society is strictly hierarchical and a eunuch's life is governed by regulations laid down by his immediate superior. Hijras all over the country are divided into seven `houses'. Each house has a Nayak at its head, below whom come several Gurus. The Gurus in turn rule over the community members and regulate their day-to-day life. While the houses of north India have very rigid systems, the ones in the south are said to be more relaxed in the way the members dress and behave.
The high point of every eunuch's life is the annual festival at Koovagam, a small village 200 miles south of Madras. On Chitrai Purnima, the new year of the Tamil lunar calendar, the sleepy little village becomes a hive of activity as hijras from all over the country converge for a 'ceremony of marriage and subsequent widowhood'.
The scene is adopted from the Mahabharata, one of India's two great epics. During the battle of Kurukshetra, the Pandavas brothers had to sacrifice one warrior to gain a tactical edge over their warring cousins. Their war council selected Aravanan, one of epic hero Arjuna's sons. The boy agreed to die for the holy cause of defeating the wicked Kaurava cousins, but he expressed a wish to marry first. Aravanan's last wish posed a huge problem, for who would knowingly let their daughter marry a man who would die in battle the very next day? To solve the issue, Lord Krishna assumed the form of Mohini, a beautiful woman, and married Aravanan.
The man-woman context appealed to the eunuch community, and for over 500 years, Aravanan has been deified and made central to the eunuch psyche. The hijras see themselves as Mohini, and on the festival day the priest at Aravanan's temple marries them off to the diety. The next day, the priest cuts the mangalsutra, the marriage chain, and the hijras all become widows. After the marriage celebrations and mournings of widowhood are over, the time comes for hijras to mingle and find new mates. A number of competitions take place then, notable among which is the annual beauty contest. In gaudily embroidered saris, elaborate hair styles, make-up and jewellery, the hijras parade down the aisle, showing off their stuff to thunderous applause from the crowds.
In recent years, events such as the hijra beauty contest have begun to receive a lot of public attention, and a group of eunuchs even had the opportunity to model in a professional fashion show, which was well-attended by India's fashion circle and the media. This attempt at bringing them to the forefront of public consciousness was a huge success and the eunuchs who took part couldn't get over the fact that they were sharing the stage with Miss Indias and the country's leading models.
Not quite so much in the media glare, however, are a number of social bodies such as the Hijra Kalyan Sabha and the Dai Welfare Society which are working alongside these eunuchs to give them a proper place in society. "We too want to go to restaurants, visit cinema halls and parks," says Revathi, a hijra activist who was in Calcutta recently at a social meet. "We also want to educate ourselves and improve our prospects. We want to enjoy the privileges of being an Indian, and I believe that in time we will achieve our dream. Hijras have already won elections and entered the field of politics. Movies are being made about us, and people are trying to understand our predicament. In the world's largest democracy...maybe there's hope for us yet."
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1538 viewsTime: 12/24/2005 3:13 AM Visits: 357
Possessed3/
This is posted to show you the eunuchs in the background, too much was happening..
I always aim for the eyes as long as the eyes are in focus you are home with your picture there are times I want to force myself into the Eyes of the possessed person I shoot but most of the time they are closed..I have had my fill with this kind of Sufism, what I shot yesterday you will freak a mans neck being punctured with a pointed thick needle bleeding and no pain..I took shots even of the bloodied hanky.
And night before of a boy spreadeagled a sword blow the whole blade pushed deep inside,,who the fuck will believe all this I am posting pictures , for continuity sake, this is Mysticism, sometimes I feel like pulling the internet connection taking myself away from all this.. no net, no buzznet, no yahoo,mail, no 360 ,webshots, no google engine, no gmail,,bloggerspot, no photographerno1.com no muse, no alaska,no scarlet lark, no friared velvet pawed,no bazookiss, no mahayani. no obqupunx, no xris,no epiphany..no drunk, no funksteena,no marc,no anthony , no steve,where is steve?
Update
This picture was also shot at Makhdoom Shah Babas Dargah Mahim, posted at Buzznnet , my pictures were transparently depicting a culure that was unexposed to the Ammerican minds in Buzznet, I mean you could see all this on Discvery Channel or National Geographic , more brilliantly captured, but my pictures were raw , they came with ready made wings taking you into the viewfinder of my imagination, making you feel as you read my stuff that perhaps you too were shooting all this with me..have love will travel..
Moharam pictures of my forehead cutting , made a ritual more real, because these online friends knew I do believe and shoot reality..
What I miss in all honest is the comments , even the goofy ones that made me feel I was as human as they were, this is the magic of the Photo Blog, no Blog obituary can kill the soul of Man.. send him to lie motionless in a Cybernetic graveyard.
Sometimes , I wonder , please dont misinterpret this , its just a thought if I was doing all this for money, would I have achieved that satisfying orgasm, or the high, here I speak for myself.. No.This is me encapsuled in a Photo Blog..I do not have a single poem that I have written on the net, not a single one , no back up nothing..I have given all I have freely , no transaction.. just like a guy sitting near Gateway of India feeding pigeons.. this is my time I placed it on the altar of a Photo Blog.
For all this I thank the Blog Goddess, lately I have moved away from her , try to give her less credit than she deserves, she is not the moving force for me here at Word Press..
This morning too in the Times of India was the usual spiel of the Death of the Internet, the Blogger and Blogs.. but does it really matter.. the Blog can never replace the feel the crispiness the bowel freeing moments of release that the newspaper gives.. This is a fact , we all know it..The Blog is an extension of the newspaper.. for me of late the newspaper has become an inspiration to what I write, I dont need to search or borrow words from a drycleaner of a dictionary, they just come yes they own me my consciousness…
Poems are thoughts that crystallize my human emotions.. Poems hapen , they want to be born live as much as you and me..,be read..
Well its 2 pm Mumbai.. I am at my shop, the Nikon D70 has again gone comatose .. I went to Carter Road for my morning walk, it was very bad 8.30 am blistering heat hand cuffed humidity…
I have asked my guy to bring my lunch to the shop..
As a Blogger I am learning to Unlearn Life as I lived..
April 23rd, 2007
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4422 views
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All India Hijda Sammelan – 1248 viewsThis is the venue where the function of the All India Hijda Sammelan was held at Parksite Vikhroli.
I had gone there on 21st May 2006 on a Sunday directly by Rickshah and dressed as a Sadhu, on reaching the site I tried to seek permission from the Hijda heads or Nayaks .
I was disallowed from shooting pictures of the Eunuchs and asked to leave the premises.
I still tried to shoot a few portraits, at another site and was lucky that I met Nitin Sonawane the photographer for Times of India and with his vouching for me I managed to get the required permission from kind Mr Santosh Shetty and Raju Shrivastav a restrauteur .
There were transgenders from all over India and neighbouring countries.
I was hijghly impressed with Priya hijda from Singapore.
Because of the All India Hijda Sammelan I became a known and trusted face when later I went to Ajmer Sharif for the Urus and met the Hijdas there.
Mona the Child Eunuch her foster Hijda mother her father Gopal Haji, Sohel, Basanti, Zeenath, Haji Bulundsheher the Shia Hijda..
Ajmer and Haji Malang are hijda pilgrimage centres , though for the Aravanis there is nothing bigger than Koovagam..
Than there is Bhaichura Mata ..
The Hijdas are a friendly race , proud of their transgender ethnicity ,devoted and very religious.
They are the only group that respect the Guru Parampara system..They have a hierarchy ,their laws rituals that are obeyed and punihment and fines are meted out to those hijdas who break them.
Among them , are another splinter group adhering the mysticism that comes with their sex , this esoteric group is known as the Hijda Bawas.
Beneath the Tatragadh mountains there is a tomb of the Hijda Saint and his biological son, a tek that the Hijdas never miss..
Ajmer Sharif is the road the Hijdas take during the annual celebrations of Khawajah Moinuddin Chishti..
You will see the most nubile the most beautiful hijdas and you might for a second ...
be mesmerized by their androgynous beauty..
I had my soul divided at Ajmer Sharif, being the guest of Peersaab Fakhru Miya Hujra No6
I would be at his Hujra , and my mind with the Rafaees body piercers at Char Yaar and a part of it at Moti Katra where the Hijdas stayed.
I do not want to boast but God should be within you when you shoot the Hijda in the nakededness of his spirtual soul, and the Rafaees who are not to overtly kind to photographers.
The Rafaees are akin to the Naga Sadhus , but wear clothes and expeert in martial arts..
I met a Hijda Rafaee shot him too.
Because I have to attend to my shop, a one man show its impossible to shirk responsibilty and run to shoot Hijdas.
This is one part of me that does not pay, I do it for free ..
I dont sell pictures nor do I begrudge those who sell pictures..
I do not even have a single poem on my person in writing everything of me is online..
Once love too was online ..
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Heat of the Moment – 1153 views
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Hijda Fashionista – 1130 viewsAnd the eunuchs were very happy doing their stuff, being cheered by the rest of the Eunuchs at the All India Hijda Sammelan, Park site Vikhroli.
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Hijda Mujra – 1025 viewsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mujra is a form/adaptation of Kathak dance originated by north Indian Tawaif during the Mughal era. it takes away more classical elements of the pure kathak dance to make it more appealing to the audience of that time, and adds sensuality fitting a courtesan's dance. Due to the lack of classical training in Bollywood dancers, most kathak related dances in Bollywood films are in reality mujra. In certain modern settings and red light districts, Mujra has become designated as any indian exotic dance
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Hijra Dancing Dolls – 1110 viewspadded bosom
walking tall
plucked out facial hair
hijra dancing dolls
a chorus of cat calls
hijras penectoomy
minus balls
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The Eunuch Queen from Bengal – 1442 viewsstatuesque dark nubile and tall
she made my skin crawl
at the all india hijda sammelan hall
in front of her other hijdas looked very small
this mesmerizing hypnotizing doll
the eunuch queen from bengal
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The Hijda Devdasi – 1105 viewsA Shiv Bhakt
And a Dasi
The Hijda Devdasi
Once she lived at Matunga
sitting at a Temple
under a tree
in a trance
of a spiritual spree
worshipping her Hindu
Gods and Goddesses
And all Holy Saints Sufi
A tear drop from
the eye of the eternal sculptor
who gave birth to Humanity
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A western view – 1121 viewsComing Out As A Eunuch
By: Richard Wassersug
I am a eunuch. The chances are you already know a eunuch or two, although they may not have revealed that fact to you.
There are tens of thousands of us in the world today simply because castration is used to treat prostate cancer. Castration reduces testosterone production, the male hormone that stimulates prostate cell growth. Each year over 40,000 men in North America die of prostate cancer and, along the way, virtually all of us who have failed potentially curative procedures that remove or destroy the prostate gland are offered either surgical or chemical castration as the next treatment option. Given the choice-early death or castration-the majority of us opt for castration.
Few people could spot a eunuch, castrated after puberty, among other citizens on the street. We are not sopranos. We still have facial hair, although it grows slower than most guys'. However, in the months following castration our penises shrink and we start to grow breasts. Most of our body hair disappears. Thus in the locker room we do look different from males. We even smell different. It is my impression (from that same locker room) that we smell better, or at least less than our uncastrated compatriots. That's to be expected, since we don't have the hormones that promote the pheromones that give sexually mature males their musky odor.
As a group, though, we hide the fact that we are castrated. Few castrated men would ever call themselves eunuchs in public, for there is little pride in being a eunuch. I'd like to change that.
I believe that there are some pluses in being a eunuch. I have discovered that my brain works very differently without testosterone and that there are things I understand now that I never understood as a male. To use these new insights well has taken a willingness on my part to view the world in ways that I had never done before. This skill hasn't come easily or instantly.
Of course, as a eunuch I think less about raw sex. But I do not think less about people. A beautiful woman is no less beautiful now than before. Testosterone not only affects brain centers that control sexual mechanics, it also affects a dozen or so "higher" centers in the brain that are involved in cognition and emotion. Now, with a brain freed from the tyranny of testosterone, I can, for the first time in my life, begin to see the world more the way women see it.
Cognitive research has shown, for example, that women are better than men at correctly reading facial expressions and non-verbal signals from others. Women make eye contact and smile more than men. So I now study faces with the intensity that women might. My previous heterosexual fixation on the secondary sexual characteristics of women (breast size, hip-to-waist ratio) no longer deflects my attention.
Since becoming a eunuch, if I take the time to look, I can see the profound beauty in women's eyes and the emotional nuances of their facial expressions. I see beyond the corporal exterior, far further, far deeper than before. I can now locate and decode smiles in eyes alone. And when I do detect those smiles, I smile back. Before I hardly bothered to look.
What came as a shock to me, and what accounts for my telling this story in OUT magazine, is that this newfound ability to make eye contact and see beauty in subtle, non-verbal, expression has opened the way for me to see beauty in the faces of males as well females. I was shocked by this realization. From the first time I went through puberty-which was several decades ago and ostensibly in the other direction-I'd never thought of myself as anything but a heterosexual male. The discovery that I was not obligatorily asexual as a eunuch, was a pleasant surprise. I could still be aroused; turned on, and turn on others. But the realization that, with castration, I had developed an expanded (bi)sexual capability took me by total surprise. And it sent me on a research rampage to try to find out about the sexual orientation of other eunuchs, past and present.
At times, such as during the 2nd and 3rd century A.D. in the Roman Empire, eunuchs were most often sex toys for men. But at other times and places, such as when eunuchs administered the dynasties of China and managed the government affairs of the Ottoman Empire, if they married, they married women.
A study of the narratives of modern eunuchs and eunuch wannabees (see www.eunuch.org) shows that among those interested in partnership, some seek males, others females. Thus neither history nor modern eunuchdom gives a clear answer about whether sexually active eunuchs were/are heterosexual or homosexual.
It took me a long time to realize that the lack of a single answer was an answer in itself. Being free of hormonal compulsion, a modern eunuch can elect whatever gender orientation he wishes. If men are from Mars and women from Venus, then eunuchs can tour the whole solar system!
A common myth about eunuchs is that we are servile, if not obsequious. Narratives on the www.eunuch.org website indicate that a small fraction of people, who are heavily into domination and submission, nurture the idea that castration converts males into the "ultimate" bottoms: meek, malleable, and inexorably submissive individuals. This hardly fits with history. Eunuchs in monarchical societies, where they were often the glue that held governments together, were trusted as political aides. Because they could not generate heirs, they had little motivation to overthrow the sovereign. However they had full access to the seat of power and became generals, treasurers, chamberlains, and diplomats. Many proved so trustworthy and wise that they rose to prominence within the imperial court and acquired great wealth, property, and their own slaves. The eunuchs mentioned in the Bible affirm their competency, for example, when Joseph went down to Egypt, the chief chamberlain to the Pharaoh was a eunuch.
Endocrinology gives a clear and simple answer to how docile or submissive eunuchs might be. My testosterone levels differ little from that of women. Thus one should not expect me to be any more (or less) subservient than, say, our average lesbian sisters.
As I have come to accept my altered gender status, I have tried to find a place for myself in the GLBT world. The fit is not obvious. One can add as many Ts and Qs to that string of letters as they like, but it is clear that the letter "e" is still not in there. I suppose I belong somewhere near the BT end of the spectrum. I am transgendered out of traditional manhood, but I am hardly a transsexual for I still have a full beard and on the street I still present as a male.
I have also found that the string of letters GLBT is misleading in that it implies equal representation for all letters. If the abbreviations were reflective of membership size in this queer conglomerate, it would look more like GLBt. A second problem with GLBT is that it is unpronounceable. It needs a vowel. I propose to solve that problem by squeezing myself into the middle of the pack, yielding the word GLeBt! I use this as a passive verb: "I used to be a male, but I've been glebt by my doctors out of manhood into no-man's land."
As with true trannies, I see myself as having experienced the world from more than one gendered perspective. Although I like my bi-genderism, acceptance of an "e" by the rest of GLBT may not be easy. A big problem is that the term "eunuch" in the modern world invariably connotes negative images of mutilation and humiliation. To most people eunuchs represent the worst brutality that one man can show another. And I have been told by not only straights, but lesbians and transexuals that I should stop using the term, since it is an insult.
The fact is that there have been very few periods in history when eunuchs have been openly recognized, least of all respected, in western culture. In the societies where the eunuchs were powerful and accomplished, they were recognized as a genuine third sex. And that recognition has never been afforded them in our European traditions.
Furthermore, as with women throughout most of history, eunuchs did not chronicle their own accomplishments or skills. But it is now obvious to me that they had far more talents and special aptitudes than most people supposed.
When I was still a male, I assumed that eunuchs got stuck with harem supervision simply because they were not going to cuckold the king. Now I see that that is a naïve and incomplete interpretation. Yes, eunuchs were not sexual competitors to potentates in a Darwinian sense. But it surely took more than being nonreproductive to maintain a harmonious harem. It took a deep understanding of what women wanted and needed.
Historically, eunuchs were very rarely caught in lethal conflict. Was that simply because they didn't have the balls to fight? Before I was a eunuch that is what I thought. But I can still be as pugnacious as I was as a male, so now I suspect that eunuchs back then earned these esteemed appointments because their enriched understanding of human feelings and foibles helped them resolve conflicts without physical battle. The simple fact is that the longest running, most stable, governments in history-from the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires at one end of Asia to the Chinese Dynasties at the other-were all managed by eunuchs.
The only time when eunuchs were openly appreciated in western civilization was during 18th century Europe when, as castrati, they were beloved for their angelic voices. The castrati were sopranos because they were castrated before puberty. As a eunuch I now realize that their operatic excellence involved more than short thin vocal cords. It took discipline and artistry only possible with enormous passion.
Coincidentally, since becoming a eunuch, I was invited to join a choir. I had never sung publicly before, neither solo nor in a group, nor had any interest in choral singing. But I accepted the invitation and have come to love singing in a choir. This love requires a deep emotional commitment to the group over my individuality; a full body commitment to sharing harmony and passion with others.
Medical literature mentions heightened emotionality as an undesirable side effect of castration. In our modern society being emotional, particularly for men, is seen more often than not as a weakness. I'll admit that I am more emotional now than I ever was as a male. But is that my weakness or society's? In other societies and even at other times within our own society, being emotional was equated with being both sensitive and passionate in a positive way.
It is too late for me to be a castrato. [Besides, I sing bass.] But it is not too late for me to use my broadened worldview and newfound passion to help myself and serve others. Although I am not about to organize a "Eunuch Pride" parade, I do believe that I have been privileged to see the world so differently.
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