Most people when they think of the origins of homophobia, they automatically point to religion. I agree that religion has spread homophobia, but I think the true origins of homophobia come from empire building. Why do I believe this?
First, think about what all of our mothers worry about first when the find out we are gay. It is generally very common that their first thought is that we cannot give them grandchildren.
Second, what is the most important thing to build an empire? If you said soldiers, then you are right. Without a large and largely expendable army, you cannot go out and conquer new territories. How do you build a large and expendable army? By having a large population.
Strictly homosexual men are a danger to the population because they are not contributing to population growth. If they are not producing offspring, then they are not adding new soldiers to the population. I will give you several examples of what I am talking about.
1) The Roman Empire—The Roman Empire not only did not accept homosexuality, but they also shunned pederasty. The Roman Empire needed soldiers to conquer the world, therefore, gay men would not be producing children. On the other hand, Greece which was composed of numerous city-states. Though the Athenians had an empire, it was a relatively small and short-lived empire. Ancient Greeks believed that homosexual male love was the ideal form of love because it was a love between to equals, whereas love between a man and a woman would always result in an unequal partnership, because they saw women as inferior. The Greeks also practiced pederasty, a mentorship between an older man and a younger man. For the Greeks homosexuality was acceptable because men were also expected to marry women and produce children. Even Alexander the Great had wives and at the same time had male lovers, particularly Hephaestion and possibly Bagoas.
2) Medieval Europe—During the empire and nation building phase of Medieval European history, Christianity became the state religions of the empires of Europe. They allied with Christianity because the Church could give a king or emperor legitimacy. Also, Christianity in itself spread like an empire, thus the more children Christians had, the more people in the religion. Therefore, homosexuality was condemned. During the Middle Ages, homosexuals were rounded up, and instead of being burned at the stake, they were bundled with the wood for the fires for the stake and set on fire. By the way, a bundle of sticks is called a faggot, one of the possible origins for the word faggot 
being a derogatory term for a homosexual man. But, if we look at the Celtic groups of pre-Medieval Europe, we would probably see homosexuality as being more accepting. Little is known about the Celts and their religion, except what the Roman wrote about them which is probably mostly inaccurate. We do know that the Vikings, had words for homosexuality and that they found it to be accepting. The Vikings are similar in their beliefs and religion to that of the Celts and therefore it is logical to conclude that most Celts were accepting of homosexuality.
3) The Aztec Empire—In the Americas, the Aztecs were not accepting of gay relationships. In fact, the penalty was often death. Again, they needed soldiers to conquer and subdue the nations surrounding them. In the Aztec Empire, only three groups of people went to Paradise in the afterlife: women who died in childbirth, warriors who died in battle, and those humans who were sacrificed. However, if we look at other groups in the Americas, those who did not build empires, especially those of North America, we see the acceptance 
of those who were homosexual. If a man’s or woman’s sexual identity was different from that of the heterosexual, they were allowed to take on that role and often performed special duties. With the conquest of Native Americans by British North America and later the United States and Canada, they were forced to assimilate with European values. One of those values was the rejection of homosexuality. By this point in history, the reason most often given was that it was against God’s natural order.
4) Nazi Germany—Nazi Germany was extremely homophobic and often rounded up homosexuals and sent them to concentration camps or death camps, where they were either worked to death, gassed, or lobotomized. Women who had the most children in Nazi Germany were given medals of valor for their service to their country. Homosexuals were not producing children and therefore were not contributing to the Third Reich. If we take a look at Germany before Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power, we would see the very accepting Weimar Republic. 
Berlin from 1919 to 1933 was one of the most accepting places for homosexuals in the world. Weimar culture was free, open, and experimental, something that the highly conservative, right-wing National Socialist (Nazis) hated. The Weimar Republic was content to rebuild Germany after World War I, but the Nazi wanted revenge for their losses in World War I. Hitler wanted to conquer Europe, bring about the Third Reich, and destroy all Jews, homosexuals, Slavic people, gypsies, etc.
If you know much about history, you know that nearly at least two out of four of these homophobic empires that I used as examples had exceptions to these rules. The Roman Empire had several homosexuals as emperors: Hadrian, Commodus, Caligula, and Tiberius. The Nazis also had several homosexuals who were at the top of the Nazi organization. Rumors have always existed that Hitler may have been homosexual and we know for sure that he was part Jewish. The Sturmabteilung (SA) was a Nazi organization that was composed of several homosexuals. The SA was eventually purged from the Nazi Party because some of its members were more or less open homosexuals, such as Ernst Röhm, the co-founder of the SA, and other SA leaders such as his deputy Edmund Heines. In 1931, the Münchener Post, a Social Democratic newspaper, obtained and published Röhm’s letters to a friend in which Röhm discussed his sexual affairs with men.
I will admit that this is not a perfect theory, but I hope it gives my readers something to think about and discuss in the comments. I plan to make “The Closet Professor Theorizes” a regular part of this blog. I hope you enjoy and will discuss these theories in the comment section.
Monthly Archives: July 2010
The Closet Professor Theorizes: Origins of Homophobia
Chinese Eunuchs
In China, male castration of a person who entered the caste of eunuchs during imperial times involved the removal of the whole genitalia, that is, the removal of the testes, penis, and scrotum. The removed organs were returned to the eunuch to be interred with him when he died so that, upon rebirth, he could become a whole man again. The penis, testicles and scrotum were euphemistically termed bǎo (寶) in Mandarin Chinese, which literally means ‘precious treasure’. These were preserved in alcohol and kept in a pottery jar by the eunuch. In China the practice of using castrated men as guardians of the emperor’s Inner court began over 2,000 years ago. Aside from the emperor, eunuchs were generally the only men allowed in the inner courtyards of the palace, where the women and harem lived.
Famous Chinese Eunuchs
Cheng Ho, or Zheng He, was born in Kunyang, Yunnan province, China, in 1371. He was captured and sent to the Chinese army in 1382 where he helped Chu Ti become Emperor Yonglo of the Ming Dynasty. In thanks, he was made Grand Imperial Eunuch and his name was changed to Zheng He. He headed a series of naval expeditions all over the Indian Ocean. Zheng had diplomatic, scientific, and commercial goals, while travelling farther than any other admiral in history at the time. He visited more than 35 countries during his voyages. Zheng took more than 100 ships and about 28,000 men in his Grand Fleet. The largest vessels were longer than all of Columbus’ ships put end to end. By the seventh and last voyage, Zheng had been to east Africa, the Persian Gulf, Egypt, and Ceylon. He set up diplomatic relations in all the countries he visited and received tribute. When in Ceylon, Zheng helped restore the legitimate ruler to the throne. In Indonesia, the fleet defeated a powerful Chinese pirate who was later brought back to China for execution. Zheng’s voyages not only established Chinese trade routes throughout Asia and Africa, but also established China as the dominant power and most technologically advanced culture in the known world. He died during a trip home from India and China banned all further expeditions.
Li Lianyang accumulated vast influence as the, favorite eunuch of the Empress Dowager Cixi, who climbed from a concubine third-grade to become ruler of China for 40 years in the.19th century. Li headed an Imperial staff of thousands of cooks, gardeners, laundrymen, cleaners, painters and other eunuchs, who were classified in a complex hierarchy of 48 separate grades. Though eunuchs were generally illiterate, Li Lianyang, could read enough to wield influence over officials.
Sun Yaoting was China’s last imperial eunuch died at 93 in 1996 in a Beijing temple after a life spanning the end of an dynasty and a Communist revolution. Only months after his family had him castrated in1911, the Manchu Dynasty, which had ruled China since the early 1660s was overthrown. Mr. Sun continued to serve Pu-Yi, for a decade. The parts removed, called the ‘precious,’ are prepared and kept in common pint jars, hermetically sealed, and placed on a high shelf. Should a eunuch be promoted he has to show the ‘precious’ to the chief eunuch or he cannot obtain his rank. When he dies, they are placed in the coffin and buried with him, because he wishes to be as complete as possible when departing into another world to allow reincarnation as a whole man. During the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Sun’s family destroyed his ‘precious’.
Ancient Egyptian Eunuchs
Ancient Egyptian history is both complex and fascinating. There are several reason why Egyptian history is so complex. At first glance you will see that Ancient Egyptian history can be divided into eight different periods: the Archaic Period, the Old Kingdom, the First Intermediate Period, the Middle Kingdom, the Second Intermediate Period, the New Kingdom, the Third Intermediate Period, the Late Period, and the Ptolemaic and Roman Periods. Each of these periods is quite distinct in their politics, religion (though the basics were the same, allegiances to gods waxed and waned), and the people. The Intermediate Periods were times of great chaos, when the history of Egypt became even more complex since chaos tends to mean that records are inaccurate or missing.
When people think of ancient Egypt two things that generally come to mind are the pyramids and hieroglyphics. Therefore, the other major difficulty in studying Egypt is their written language. At least three written languages were used during the eight time periods of ancient Egyptian history: hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek. Only Greek survived through history, but the Rosetta Stone allowed for the correlation between the three to be deciphered. Like most forms of writing, hieroglyphics originally began as pictures. The growth of cities and public administration created a need for record-keeping and accounting; the simplest way to record a transaction involved pictures. “Five cows,” for instance, can be represented with five marks and a picture of a cow. But, as you can imagine, this type of writing is enormously inefficient (millions of pictures) and sometimes confusing (“Is that a cow or a hippo?” Five hippos?”). 
So the Egyptians developed a shorthand out of their pictures, in which a picture of a single-syllable word could stand for that syllable whenever it occurs in a word. Let me give you an example in English. Suppose we were to come up with a hieroglyphic system in English similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. We have a single-syllable word, “cat,” which we represent with a picture of a cat. So when we write the word, “catalog,” we write the first syllable of the word with a picture of a cat. That’s how hieroglyphics work. Simple, right? No. There is a twist. The Egyptians never indicated vowel sounds in their writing, so the picture of a cat actually stands for the syllable “ct.” So the word “cut” would also be written by using a picture of a cat, and in the word “recite,” the last syllable would also be a picture of a cat. But check this out: the word “react,” since the last syllable consists only of the two consonants, “ct,” would also be a picture of a cat.
You can see now how difficult it must have been to decipher this mess. Even the Egyptians had problems. For instance, in English the words “recite,” “recut,” and “react” would be spelled exactly the same way in hieroglyphics (if you spelled the words in English without vowels, the three words would be spelled “rct,” “rct,” “rct”). So the Egyptians would add a picture at the end of the word to identify the word; “recut,” for instance, might be followed by a picture of a knife, “recite” might be followed by a picture of a mouth.
Because of this confusing way of writing, it is often difficult to know a great deal about Egyptian history. One of those problems is evident when you look at eunuchs in Ancient Egypt. Some historians suggest that eunuchs were unknown in Egypt and therefore, the Egyptian eunuch never existed. However, this is hard to believe since Egyptians were familiar with the three surgical modes of performing this operation: amputation of the penis alone, removal of the testicular apparatus, and total emasculation. The references to support this came either from the religious tradition, from the domain of fable, or from the subject of mutilation of cadavers for military or funerary purposes.
Horapollon lived in Egypt in the 5th century AD and is the author of the Hieroglyphica, one of the most curious works in Greco-Egyptian literature, arising out of the Hellenized atmosphere of Egypt at the end of antiquity. In this post-pharaonic work, Horapollon collects a series of hieroglyphic signs — which by that time had become unintelligible even to educated Egyptians — and attempts to establish for each of them the relationship between the image and its symbolic meaning. It is not until the Rosetta Stone was deciphered that these hieroglyphs could be read and understood. No matter how fantastical these attempts were in some cases, they are nonetheless of interest to Egyptologists, who do not fail to make use of them on occasion. Let us proceed like these specialists. Hieroglyphica contains an allusion to emasculation (castration) practiced on a living individual: “[How they portray a male who commits the crime of mutilating himself”]: “If they want to portray a male who commits the crime of mutilating himself, they draw a beaver: because the latter, when chased (by hunters), tears off its own testicles and leaves them behind as prey”. Which leads us to think of sexual mutilation as a rite of self-castration.
Diodorus of Sicily also alluded, twice, to the existence in Egypt of castration practised on living beings. In describing the Theban monument which he called the tomb of Osymandias the contemporary of Augustus confirms that 
“on the second wall prisoners defeated by the king were represented deprived of their hands and sexual parts, as if to say that they were not shown to be men by their courage, and that they remained inactive in the midst of dangers”. We can confirm that Diodorus never actually viewed a relief of that kind and that the description that he gives us — no doubt based on second-hand information — is based on an inaccurate interpretation of the well-known depiction of the calculation of the number of enemy cadavers by counting the phalluses and the hands. The composition in the Ramesseum is in ruins today, but fortunately one can find identical scenes elsewhere, notably at the temple of Ramses III in Medinet-Habu. Here one can see scribes taking the inventory of the cut hands and sectioned phalluses, piled up in heaps in front of the pharaoh. That these bloody trophies were in fact remains of cadavers and not amputations performed on living prisoners can be read even in the legends that comment on the reliefs, and even better in the following, more elaborate text of Meneptah, found at Karnak and not accompanied by any depiction. This inscription states that they are: “… killed persons from whom the phallus and prepuce has been removed …” Later we find: “Killed Libyans from whom the phallus-and-prepuce have been removed …”
Let us see if his second reference is more worthy of interest. 
This one cites castration as a corporal punishment provided by Egyptian legislators. His own words: “The laws concerning women were very severe. Anyone who was convicted of raping a free woman had to have his genitals cut off; because they considered that this crime included in itself three very great evils: insult, corruption of morals, and confusion of offspring.” This is a special case of that policy of repression which, by attacking the part of the body with which the crime was committed, ensured that the guilty party “would carry unto death an indelible mark that must have prevented others from breaking the law, by warning of this punishment”.
Obviously, the above castrations were done for a variety of reasons. Self-
castration was probably performed as part of a religious cult for one of the Egyptian gods. It was also not uncommon in ancient warfare to castrate or otherwise mutilate prisoners of war. The reason for this is to either make the soldiers lame so that they could no longer fight or in the case of castration to keep soldiers from producing future generations of soldiers that could wage war. The third instance, as a punishment for rape, is somewhat self explanatory from above. Often these men castrated as punishment would have become slaves.
However, it appears that eunuchs, like eunuchs in other areas of the ancient Middle East, performed bureaucratic duties or as men who guarded harems. Why it was necessary to castrate government bureaucrats, may never be known but if you have ever had to deal with bureaucracy, you might understand the desire to castrate bureaucrats, LOL.
Author Spotlight: Wilbur Smith
Wilbur Addison Smith (born January 9, 1933 in Broken Hill, Northern Rhodesia, now Kabwe, Zambia) is a best-selling novelist currently residing in London. Smith is probably the most famous author to write about an Egyptian eunuch, the main character in his four Egyptian novels. Set in the land of the ancient Pharaohs, this quartet vividly describes ancient Egypt and has a cast of unforgettable characters, especially Taita – a wise and formidably gifted eunuch slave.
River God
The Seventh Scroll
Warlock
The Quest
I am planning for author spotlights to be a regular feature of this blog. If any of you out there are avid readers and would like to make some suggestions, please feel free. I will also be more than happy to accept contributions from my readers of reviews of books that might be of interest to the readers of The Closet Professor.
The Rosetta Stone
Today, July 19, 1799, one of, if not the, most significant historical discoveries of all time was found. Rosetta Stone is a slab of black basalt now in the British Museum on which is inscribed an Egyptian decree of 197 BC honoring the king Ptolemy V Epiphanēs. The inscription is given in three versions, Greek and two forms of Egyptian: hieroglyphics (‘picture-writing’) and demotic, the simplified form of hieroglyphic in common use. The discovery of the stone in Egypt in 1799 made possible the eventual decipherment of hieroglyphics by the French scholar Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832).
Without the discovery of the Rosetta Stone and the subsequent deciphering of its text, much of what historians and archeologist know about ancient Egypt would still be lost and what we currently know would have continued to be guesswork. However, with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, scholars have been able to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics and can now read the world carved and painted on the walls of the tombs of the Ancient Egyptians.
Since we will be talking more about Ancient Egypt today, I thought it was only appropriate to commemorate this significant finding on its 211th anniversary.
Author Spotlight: Geoffrey Knights
As I was working on a post about eunuchs in Pharonic Egypt, I thought about this post I did for Cocks, Asses, and More a few weeks ago. I began to think about my knowledge of homosexuality in Ancient Egypt and about what I knew about Egyptian eunuchs. The result was: not much about homosexuality and only a little about eunuchs in Egypt. Despite Ancient Egypt being a pre-Christian culture and one of the world’s oldest civilizations, there is very little mention of sex, sexuality, or homosexuality. Why is that? Well, I began to think and do a little research. I remembered that I had read that not only were the Ancient Egyptians prudish, but also the Egyptologists who have written their history were prudish. I read a great deal, so it took me a little bit to remember where I had read this. Then I remembered that it was in Geoffrey Knights book, The Riddle of the Sands
Five. I think it is best to read the books in order. The first one, The Cross of Sin
Drive Shaft
: Jensen Rivers wasn’t looking for trouble. As the new kid on the block at Clyde’s Body Shop, all Jensen wanted was a job, a place where he could put his head down and ass up. Young and handsome, he was the kind of simple, honest guy who was happiest when he was working hard, with oil smeared across his chest and grease up to his elbows.
But Dean ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson plans on getting more than just Jensen’s hands dirty! Reckless and arrogant, drenched in sweat and dripping with a masculinity that cannot be tamed, Hutch challenges Jensen to a series of perilous night races. The prize: sexual domination! Night after night, wheels burn, passions flare and the no-holds-barred lust between two testosterone fuelled daredevils ignites. But losing a race is one thing. Losing your heart is something altogether more dangerous. Will Jensen risk everything to find the love trapped behind Hutch’s fearless façade? Will Hutch bury the secret tragedy of his past before he throws away his last chance at a future? Kickstart your need for speed, fire up your lust for life and buckle up for hottest thrill-ride of the year—Drive Shaft. (I couldn’t find a picture of the book cover to post, so I used a picture from my vast collection instead).Scott Sapphire and the Emerald Orchid: Meet Scott Sapphire—lover of French champagne, Belgian chocolate and dangerous men. He is suave. He is sexy. He is a man of the world—and a man that the world desperately wants to catch. For Scott Sapphire is the greatest jewel thief of our time. Dashing. Daring. And always neck-deep in trouble. When Scott’s latest heist lands him in possession of a map to a rare and precious orchid, it’ll take more than bedroom eyes and a charming smile to stay one step ahead of the world’s deadliest drug baron, as well as keep the CIA off Scott’s back and a handsome special agent out of his pants—or maybe not. From New York City to the Amazon jungle, from Rio de Janeiro to the French Riviera—and from the writer of the world’s Number #1 gay adventure series, Fathom’s Five—comes a brand new hero as irresistible as diamonds and pearls. Adventure has a new name! And that name is Scott Sapphire.
The third book in the works is the next in the Fathom’s Five Series. I can’t wait.
This was originally supposed to be a post about Homosexuality in Ancient Egypt, but I have gotten a little carried away talking about Geoff’s books. I hope that Geoff won’t mind. So since this one is sort of long, I’ve decided to do a part two about Homosexuality in Ancient Egypt. Stay tuned.
This post about books is a recommendation, not an advertisement.
The next post will be another Author Spotlight, then the hopefully the post I have been working on about eunuchs in Pharonic Egypt.
The Last Castrato
Today, anyone curious about the castrati’s unique voices can listen to a recording made in 1902 by the very last of the breed, Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922). Even though the operation was banned in early 19th century, Italian doctors continued to create castrati until 1870 for the Sistine Chapel, and Moreschi went under the knife at the age of seven. Although he was not on a par with demigods like Faranelli, Moreschi’s voice, said an Austrian musicologist who heard him perform live, “can only be compared to the clarity and purity of crystal.” Although Moreschi kept performing for the pope until 1913, his fame was assured eleven years earlier, when the American recording pioneer Fred Gaisberg had a few days free in Rome and paid a call on the Vatican Palace. Instead of a studio, Gaisberg set up his unwieldy and primitive gramophone apparatus in a salon surrounded by Raphaels and Titians. The 44-year-old Moreschi had only one chance to record and made a few nervous mistakes. “He is surprising, but never exquisite,” opines the author and critic Angus Heriot, while one modern British curator dismisses him as “Pavarotti on helium.” Still, his voice provides a unique slice of the past. In order to recreate the sound for the film Farinelli, Il Castrato, The Institute for Musical and Acoustic Research in Paris blended electronically the voices of a male countertenor and a female coloratura soprano; the combination emulates the dazzling range of the top castrati, whose voices could trill across three octaves. •
CASTRATI IN FICTION
They are becoming popular as a subject for novels; try the following:
Amis, Sir Kingsley: (Cape, 1976) “The Alteration“; a very clever portrayal of the future, assuming there had been no Reformation; so castrati were still acceptable in the Catholic country of England!! Multi-layered and faceted, it uses a little of Heriot’s book as a basis, so he told me; and that the book was meant for me, too.
Fernandez, Dominique: “Porporino“: (Grasset, 1974), in French and Italian; there IS an English version available; long out of print, but copies can (sometimes) be obtained via amazon; this book won the Prix Medicis and is a fictional account of the lives of two castrati; they met everybody who was anybody in the musical world of the latter part of the eighteenth century; the novel has a Gothic subplot. This author taught Patrick Barbier.
Rice. Anne: “Cry to Heaven” (Knopff, NY, 1982), reprinted in England; basically accurate; lavish and lush and heavily (homo)sexual; the basic premise is doubtful, that a castrato could be “made” at around 14 years of age; however, a good “blockbuster read” by the Queen of Vampire novelists !
“Long live the knife, the blessed knife!”
They were a strange breed. endowed, some would say with the “voices of angels”; men in size and appearance, but with feminine high voices, so people said. They earned vast sums of money; lived high, wide and handsome…and longer than the average male of the period.
They left behind them the music that they sang, the pupils they taught, the operatic arias they inspired.
“Long live the knife, the blessed knife!” screamed ecstatic female fans at opera houses as the craze for Italian castrati reached its peak in the 18th century — a cry that was supposedly echoed in the bedrooms of Europe’s most fashionable women.
The brainwave to create castrati had first occurred two centuries earlier in Rome, where the pope had banned women singing in churches or on the stage. 
Their voices became revered for the unnatural combination of pitch and power, with the high notes of a pre-pubescent boy wafting from the lungs of an adult; the result, contemporaries said, was magical, ethereal and strangely disembodied. But it was the sudden popularity of Italian opera throughout 1600s Europe that created the international surge in demand. Italian boys with promising voices would be taken to a back-street barber-surgeon, drugged with opium, and placed in a hot bath. The expert would snip the ducts leading to the testicles, which would wither over time. By the early 1700s, it is estimated that around 4,000 boys a year were getting the operation; the Santa Maria Nova hospital in Florence, for example, ran a production line under one Antonio Santarelli, gelding eight boys at once.
Only a lucky few hit the big time. But these top castrati had careers like modern rock stars, touring the opera houses of Europe from Madrid to Moscow and commanding fabulous fees. They were true divas, famous for their tantrums, 
their insufferable vanity, their emotional obsessions, their extravagant excesses, their bitchy in-feuding — and, surprisingly, their sexual prowess. Hysterical female admirers deluged them with love letters and fainted in the audience clutching wax figurines of their favorite performers.
This may seem to anticipate the safe, sexless allure of 1950s teen idols like Frankie Avalon. But congress with castrati was not at all physically impossible. The effects of castration on physical development were notoriously erratic, as the Ottoman eunuchs in the Seraglio of Constantinople knew. Much depended on the timing of the operation: Boys pruned before the age of ten or so very often grew up with feminine features, smooth, hairless bodies, incipient breasts, “infantile penis” and a complete lack of sex drive. (The only castrato ever to write an autobiography, Filippo Balatri, joked that he had never married because his wife, “after loving me for a little would have started screaming at me”). But those castrated after age ten, as puberty encroached, could continue to develop physically and often sustain erections. While most Italian boys went under the knife at age eight, the operation was performed as late as age twelve.
For Europe’s high society women,
the obvious benefit of built-in contraception made castrati ideal targets for discreet affairs. Soon popular songs and pamphlets began suggesting that castration actually enhanced a man’s sexual performance, as the lack of sensation ensured extra endurance; stories spread of the castrati as considerate lovers, whose attention was entirely focused on the woman. As one groupie eagerly put it, the best of the singers enjoyed “a spirit in no wise dulled, and a growth of hair that differs not from other men.” When the most handsome castrato of all, Farinelli, visited London in 1734, a poem written by an anonymous female admirer derided local men as “Bragging Boasters” whose enthusiasm “expires too fast, While F—–lli stands it to the last.”
English women seemed particularly susceptible to Italian eunuchs. Another castrato, Consolino, made clever use of his delicate, feminine features in London. He would arrive at trysts disguised in a dress then conduct a torrid affair right under the husband’s nose. The beautiful, 15-year-old Irish heiress Dorothy Maunsell eloped with castrato Giusto Tenducci in 1766, although he was hunted down and thrown into prison by her enraged father. Marriage with castrati was normally forbidden by the Church, but two singers in Germany did acquire special legal dispensation to remain in wedlock. Male opera fans, meanwhile, sought out castrati for their androgynous qualities. Travelers report how coquettish young castrati in Rome would tie their plump bosoms in alluring brassieres and offer “to serve… equally well as a woman or as a man.”
Even Casanova was tempted. (“Rome forces every man to become a pederast,” he sighed in his memoirs). 
His most confusing moment came when he met a particularly lovely teenage castrato named Bellino in an inn. Casanova was bewitched, going so far as to offer a gold doubloon to see the boy’s genitals. In an improbable twist, when Casanova grabbed Bellino in a fit of passion, he discovered a false penis: it turned out that the castrato was a girl, who historians have identified as Teresa Lanti. She had taken up the disguise to circumvent the ban on female singers in Italy. The pair became lovers, but Casanova dumped her in Venice; after bearing a son that may or may not have been his, Lanti “came out” as a female and went on to become a successful singer in more progressive opera houses of Europe, where women were allowed on stage.
The Ottoman Harem
The image of a harem conjures visions of opulent surroundings filled with beautiful, sensuous women whose sole duty was to entertain an aging yet still lustful sheik or Sultan. This image may have been based on the imperial harems of the 16th and 17th centuries of the Ottoman Empire. In this period of history, harems played an important role in the governing of the Ottoman Empire. This most renown period was known as the Reign of Women, the Kadinlar Sultanati. The involvement of the harem women, and more specifically, the Valide Sultan (Sultan’s Mother or Queen Mother) and the Sultan’s favorites (favored harem women), in state politics, diminished the power and position of the Sultan. As the Sultan was the head of the government (or Divan), this interference proved to be detrimental to the Ottoman state.
Historical Background
<img border="0" alt="Harem women
and Black Eunuch” align=”left” src=”http://www.allaboutturkey.com/pic/harem2.jpg” width=”223″ height=”263″>The harem was defined to be the women’s quarter in a Muslim household. The Imperial harem (also known as the Seraglio harem) contained the combined households of the Valide Sultan (Queen Mother), the Sultan’s favorites (hasekis), and the rest of his concubines (women whose main function was to entertain the Sultan in the bedchamber). It also contained all the Sultanas (daughters of the Sultan) households. Many of the harem women would never see the Sultan and became the servants necessary for the daily functioning of the harem.
The reasons for harem existence can be seen from Ottoman cultural history. Ottoman tradition relied on slave concubines along with legal marriage for reproduction. Slave concubines was the taking of slave women for sexual reproduction. It served to emphasize the patriarchal nature of power (power being “hereditary” through sons only). Slave concubines, unlike wives, had no recognized lineage. Wives were feared to have vested interests in their own family’s affairs, which would interfere with their loyalty to their husband, hence, concubines were preferred, if one could afford them. This led to the evolution of slave concubines as an equal form of reproduction that did not carry the risks of marriage, mainly that of the potential betrayal of a wife. The powers of the harem women were exercised through their roles within the family. Although they had no legitimate claim to power, as their favor grew with the Sultan, they acquired titles such as “Sultan Kadin” which solidified their notion of political power and legitimacy within the royal family was reflected with titles including “Sultan”.
During the 16th century, both male and female members of the imperial family used the title of “Sultan”. As the role of the royal favorite concubine (title: Sultan) eroded during the 17th century, the title designation also changed to “kadin” or “haseki,” which were names originally reserved for less prominent members of the royal family. Henceforth, only the mother of the reigning Sultan was addressed as a Sultan: the Valide Sultan. The retention of the title of Sultan for the mother indicated the power of the Valide Sultan. After all, men could take as many concubines and odalisques as they desired, but they only had one mother.
Many of the concubines and odalisques of the Imperial harem were reputed to be among the most beautiful of women in the Ottoman Empire. Young girls of extraordinary beauty were sent to the Sultan’s court, often as gifts from the governors. Numerous harem women were Caucasians, Georgians, and Abkhazians. They were usually bought from slave markets after being kidnapped or else sold by impoverished parents. Many Georgian and Caucasian families encouraged their daughters to enter concubinage through slavery, as that promised to be a life of luxury and comfort. All slaves that entered the harem were termed odalisques or “women of the court” – general servants in the harem. Odalisques were not usually presented to the Sultan. Those that were of extraordinary beauty and talent, were seen as potential concubines, and trained accordingly. They learned to dance, recite poetry, play musical instruments, and master the erotic arts. Only the most gifted odalisques were presented to the Sultan as his personal gedikli (maids-in-waiting). Generally, odalisques would be assigned as servants to the oda (or court) of a harem mistress. For example, the Mistress of the Robes, or the Keeper of Baths, or the Keeper of Jewels, etc. It was possible for these odalisques to rise through the ranks of the harem hierarchy and enjoy security through their power and position.
The most powerful women in the harem were the Valide Sultan and the Kadins. The Valide Sultan was responsible for the maintenance of order and peace inside the harem. Being a female elder in the Imperial family, the Valide was expected to serve as a guide and teacher to her son by educating him about the intricacies of state politics. Often, she was asked to intervene upon the Sultan’s decisions when the Mufti (head of the Muslim religion), or the Viziers (ministers) felt that the Sultan may have made an erroneous decision.
Kadin‘s were the Sultan’s favorite women. Tradition allowed only four principal Kadins but unlimited number of concubines. Kadins were equivalent in rank to that of a legal wife, and were given apartments, slaves, and eunuchs. For example, during the reign of Selim II (the Sot), his favorite, the bas kadin Nurbanu had an entourage of one hundred and fifty ladies-in-waiting. The amount of properties, clothing, jewelry, and allowances given, was all-proportional to the affection the Sultan held for them.
Odalisques were at the bottom of the harem hierarchy. They were considered to be general servants in the harem. They were not usually seen to be beautiful enough to become presented to the Sultan. Odalisques that were seen as potential candidates for concubinage were trained to become talented entertainers. The greatest honor a Sultan could bestow upon a male guest was to present him with an odalisque from his court who had not yet become his concubine. These women were greatly coveted as they were beautiful and talented, and what is more important, had links into the harem hierarchy. Concubines could be considered an equivalent to the modern version of a “one night stand”. They were odalisques that were presented to the Sultan and after that one night, they might never see the Sultan again unless the girl became pregnant with a male child. If she was successful in birthing a male child, then she would become an ikbal (favorite) to the Sultan. The female hierarchy followed the pattern of odalisques (virgins), concubines (“one night stands”), ikbals (favorites), and kadins (favorites “wives”).
Harem women formed only half of the harem hierarchy. Eunuchs were the integral other half of the harem. Eunuchs were considered to be less than men and thus unable to be “tempted” by the harem women and would remain solely loyal to the Sultan. Eunuchs were castrated men and hence possessed no threat to the sanctity of the harem.
According to Muslim tradition, no man could lay his eyes on another man’s harem, thus someone less than a man was required for the role of watchful guardianship over the harem women. Eunuchs tended to be male prisoners of war or slaves, castrated before puberty and condemned to a life of servitude.
White eunuchs were first provided from the conquered Christian areas of Caucasia, Georgia, and Armenia. They were also culled from Hungarian, Slovenian, and German prisoners of war. These white eunuchs were captured during the conflicts that arouse between the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan countries. Black eunuchs were captured from Egypt, Abyssinia and the Sudan. Black slaves were captured from the upper Nile and transported to markets on the Mediterranean Sea – Mecca, Medina, Beirut, Izmir and Istanbul. All eunuchs were castrated en route to the markets by Egyptian Christians or Jews, as Islam prohibited the practice of castration but not the usage of castrated slaves.
There were several different varieties of eunuchs:
Sandali, or clean-shaven: The parts are swept off by a single cut of a razor, a tube (tin or wooden) is set in the urethra, the wound is cauterized with boiling oil, and the patient is planted in a fresh dung-hill. His diet is milk, and if under puberty he often survives.
The eunuch whose penis is removed: He retains all the power of copulation and procreation without the wherewithal; and this, since the discovery of caoutchouc, has often been supplied.
The eunuch, or classical thlibias and semivir, who has been rendered sexless by the removing of the testicles…, or by their being bruised…, twisted, seared or bandaged.
Black eunuchs tended to be of the first category: Sandali, while white eunuchs were of the second or third categories, thus have part or their entire penis intact. Because of their lack of parts, black eunuchs served in the harem, while white eunuchs served in the government (and away from the women). At the height of the Ottoman Empire, as many as six to eight hundred eunuchs served within the Seraglio (palace). Most eunuchs arrived as gifts from governors of different provinces. At the end of their training as young eunuch pages, eunuchs were assigned to service. White eunuchs were placed under the patronage of various government officials or even into the service of the Sultan himself (like in Topkapi Palace). If they were black eunuchs, they were placed into the service of a harem personage, such as a Kadin, or a daughter or sister of the Sultan. They could also serve under the Kizlar Agha (master of the girls), the Chief Black Eunuch.
The Chief Black Eunuch (Kizlar Agha)
The Kizlar Agha was the third highest-ranking officer of the empire, after the Sultan and the Grand Vizier (Chief Minister). He was the commander of the baltaci corps (or halberdiers – part of the imperial army). His position was a pasha (general) of three tails (tails referring to peacock tails, and the most number of tails permitted being four and worn by the Sultan). He could approach the Sultan at any time, and functioned as the private messenger between the Sultan and the Grand Vizier. He was the most important link between the Sultan and the Valide Sultan (mother of the Sultan).
The Kizlar Agha led the new odalisque to the Sultan’s bedchamber, and was the only “man” who could enter the harem should there have been any nocturnal emergencies. His duties were to protect the women, to provide and purchase the necessary odalisques for the harem, to oversee the promotion of the women (usually after the death of a higher-ranking kadin) and eunuchs. He acted as a witness for the Sultan’s marriage, birth ceremonies, and arranged all the royal ceremonial events, such as circumcision parties, weddings, and fêtes. He also delivered sentence to harem women accused of crimes, taking the guilty women to the executioner to be placed into sacks and drowned in the Bosphorus which lay outside the Topkapi Palace.
The Chief White Eunuch (Kapi Agha)
The Chief White Eunuch was the head of the Inner Service (which is the palace bureaucracy) and the head of the Palace School (school for white eunuchs). He was also Gatekeeper-in-Chief, head of the infirmary, and master of ceremonies of the Seraglio. The Kapi Agha controlled all messages, petitions, and State documents addressed to the Sultan, and was allowed to speak to the Sultan in person. In 1591, Murad III transferred the powers from the white to the black eunuchs as there were too many embezzlements and various other nefarious crimes being attributed to the white eunuchs, among them being purported intimacy with the harem women. The Kapi Agha‘s loss of powers was seen through the decreasing of his ceremonial duties (which had various stipends entailed) and the decrease in his overall income. Originally, the Kapi Agha was the only eunuch allowed to speak to the Sultan alone, but as his importance decreased, the Valide Sultan and the Kizlar Agha were able to request private audience with the Sultan also. Because of their possible disloyalty, white eunuchs were assigned positions that did not bring them into contact with the harem women as many of them had incomplete castrations (still possessing of their penis). The total number of white eunuchs in the Seraglio at any given time was between 300 and 900.
In the late sixteen hundreds, the power of the black eunuchs grew. During the Kadinlar Sultanati, the eunuchs increased their political leverage by taking advantage of child Sultans or mentally incompetent ones. It was during this period of enthronement of child Sultans that caused political instability. The young teenage Sultans were “guided” by regencies formed by the Valide Sultan, the Grand Vizier and the Valides other supporters. The Kizlar Agha was the Valide Sultan‘s and the Kadin‘s intimate and value accomplice.
I Write Like…
I put the first chapter of my dissertation into “I Write Like” and this is what it said:
I have never read any of his books, have you? He is the author of the Godfather and other books about the mafia. I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Any thoughts?
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