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Eunuchs

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I find historical eunuchs really fascinating. Why have so many societies around the world had a special social class for eunuchs (Byzantium, Persia, China, etc)? And why were they so valued within government bureaucracies?
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>>2324686
Cuz bureaucracies tend to favor themselves and expand to quietly and slowly get more power for themselves.
Cut the possibility of inheriting bureaucratic positions, and you make bureaucracies more effective, and not nearly as bloated.
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>>2324686
because cucks
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>>2324686
>Why have so many societies around the world had a special social class for eunuchs?
Because they can be close to the royal family but not procreate with them.
>And why were they so valued within government bureaucracies?
Well, if we're talking about China, it's because the entire basis of the government was on being a giant bureaucratic nightmare, so this one is sort of a "what comes first, the eunuch or the bureaucrat?" thing. Not sure about the others.
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Eunuchs can't form independent power bases easily, and these cannot be multi-generational. Thus, they make excellent servants of the state as they depend entirely on the state for their position and power within it, and can't have children or family groupings that would function as alternate power networks. This is especially effective when combined with bringing them from groups that don't hold power at the center, such as the Byzantine general Narses from the Armenians or Chinese admiral Zheng He from the Hui.

The inability to mess with the king/emperor's wives/concubines is also a boon and enables them to be trusted in close proximity to them.
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>>2324686
> why were they so valued within government bureaucracies?
I'll take the Frankish Mayor of the palace title for example. This was a bureacratic leader who was supposed to aid the king, educate the heir and in general help the king in leading his country. Now this slowly title became hereditary, making the current mayor of the palace more likely to favor his own son in education instead of the king's son. Combine this with a few early deaths of kings and a few weaker kings and the de facto power of the kingdom lies in the hands of the mayor of the palace and not the king.
Had the mayor of the palace been a title granted only to eunuchs this couldn't have happened as easily, as they can't have childeren
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There's an interesting theory that eunuchs pop up in societies with very rigid gender and class divisions. In situations like that you need liminal figures who can safely straddle all these classes. Eunuchs could obviously safely interact with both men and women, which was very useful (think of the Ottoman harem guards). But they were also simultaneously slaves and social outcasts, but also wielded immense power - this meant that they could cross class divisions and interact with both a divine god-emperor, and also with lowly peasants if need be. In this way, they were literally the only people in a society who could directly oversee all the branches of the palace beurocracy
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>>2324686
>in the west
No penis, no children, no reason to hoard wealth and be corrupt, since you have nobody to leave it to. Thus your legacy can only be a successful state, and not a rich dynasty. Also without a penis you can't usurp the throne, so you can be trusted with power.

>in the east
No penis, can't get the sultan's wife pregnant. Harem keepers were black eunuchs, so even if the operation was botched, if the kid is half black you'd know to kill your woman and guards.
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File: Skoptsy_man_and_woman.jpg (236KB, 558x475px) Image search: [Google]
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The Skoptsy were a cult in Tsarist and Soviet Russia who believed that if you eliminated sexual lust you could be closer to God. Unlike the Cathars who believed that if you stopped procreating, you would alleviate suffering on this Earth, the Skoptsy believed that Adam and Eve were given genitalia and breasts as signs of their sin. To remove the testicles and breasts (both signifying half of the apples) was to cleanse one of sin.

Women underwent mainly mastectomies whilst men could go between the "lesser seal" (removal of testicles) or the "greater seal" (removal of both penis and testicles). They believed that if their following gained 144,000 (Rev. 14: 1, 4) that the messiah would return and establish a heavenly kingdom.

Their numbers were rather high but they were relentlessly persecuted by authorities as heresy and the fact that they tried to convince so many men and women to castrate themselves. This continued under Soviet Russia.

Mr. Bungle featured them in a song in the 90's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1r-kzV3nbQ
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Why did eunuchs never catch on in Europe outside of the Byzantine Empire?
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>>2324741
There have been a decent number of Christians throughout jistory who advocated castration. In ancient times there was the Valesian sect and the influential writer Origen, who was castrated.

Indeed, several quotes from Jesus in the gospels could potentially be interpreted as advocating castration:

>"For there are eunuchs who were born that way; others were made that way by men; and still others live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

>"And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."

In fact, when the Council of Nicaea was called with the intention of creating a single unified Christian doctrine, the very first thing they outlawed was self-castration. Bear in mind that this council did not even pass any laws regarding which books should be included in the bible because that wasn't deemed to be important enough. But the issue of self-castration evidently was!
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>>2324716
This. Eunuchs can go anywhere and do anything because they exist outside of all social conventions not designed explicitly to apply to them; social conventions presuppose that an individual must undertake either a male or a female social role but eunuchs occupy a space in between, in a loophole as it were.
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>>2324716
Does that mean trannies are the result of rigid gender divisions and class divisions in the First World? :^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^)
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>>2324765
Lack of strong government and large population pool.
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>>2324765
Eunuchs are tightly associated with complex imperial bureaucracy which western Europe lacked for the most part as it was composed primarily of feudal states.
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>>2324686
>No body odour

is this true???
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>>2324716
can girls be eunuchs if you cut something in them?
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>>2324943
Hormones are the main thing that causes body odor. You can look up accounts from transsexuals and every single one will mention that body odor is the first noticeable change after starting hormones.

>>2324971
Removing the ovaries will cause sterilization and also deprive the body of hormones, which is the same thing you see with male eunuchs.
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>>2325014
Maybe transsexuals notice it because they pay more attention to it than regular men do? They want to be women, or act like women, so emulate the women's natural beautification process.
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>>2324900
In a sense yeah, western people vehemently insist that a person's sexual orientation is innate.
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>>2324850
Self-castration was very close associated with various pseudo-Christian cults. Empire was vast and Rome was far away so it was to happen sooner of later.

Why did was it passed as one of first laws? Becouse council was called in the first place to end arianism. But Constantine I wanted ALL Christian to get along (note: he was nothing more than observer during council) so Bischops started with things that preety much evryone agreed one.

Why no Bible before 380s? For canon at time was nothing more than "books that we read in this church" (note: church by lower case "c"). But after this whole arianism and other heresies Pope had a great thought "Hey if we had one, pan-church canon, then there would not be so many heretics". And 73 books are in Bible to this day.
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I hate Mondays
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>>2324686
Because society wants to neuter and spade its slaves, otherwise there will be too many and we will revolt.
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did they had sex?
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>>2324686
where can i get the uncensored image (for science) ?
reverse image search shows nothing
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File: 1457154012971.jpg (74KB, 362x344px) Image search: [Google]
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>>2324686
did eunuchs really look like traps??
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File: Qing Eunuchs.png (1MB, 1042x794px) Image search: [Google]
Qing Eunuchs.png
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>>2325896
No.
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>>2325886
this
we need sauce
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>>2325896
Maybe when they were young, in Islamic dynasties monarchs commonly fucked some of their prettier eunuchs.
Thread posts: 29
Thread images: 5


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