Castration : An Abbreviated History of Western Manhood

318 Pages·2000·0.97 MB·English

by  Gary Taylor

C A S T R A T I O N
castration , n. [from an Indo-European root meaning
“cut” or “knife”] 1. agricultural technology—first developed in
Stone Age Eurasia, but found later in many Old and New World
civilizations—for improving selected domesticated animal and
human males by removing their testicles 2. social practice
(strongly associated with slavery) for preserving purity of breeds,
races, and dynasties 3. legal or pseudo-legal punishment (usually
for violations of local sexual customs) 4. contraceptive surgery,
producing sexually active but infertile males 5. religious sacrifice
(at first involving actual genital mutilation, later allegorized to
mere celibacy) that seeks to approach the divine by transcending
the biological imperatives of reproduction and the social
constraints of lineage 6. censorship of printed texts by excision
of offensive passages, thereby preventing the reproduction of
heretical religious (later, sexual) ideas 7. psychoanalytic concept
(developed by Sigmund Freud in the period 1908–1939) that
posits that all human children believe that females are males who
have had their genitalia completely cut off as a punishment for
their perverse desires 8. any action or behavior that makes a
male more like a female (physiologically or culturally) 9.
manipulation of the human genome by artificial circumvention
of heterosexual biological reproduction
CASTRATION

An Abbreviated History of Western Manhood

GARY TAYLOR

ROUTLEDGE
New York and London
Published in 2000 by
Routledge
29 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001

Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane
London EC4P 4EE

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group.

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.

Copyright © 2000 by Gary Taylor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Taylor, Gary, 1953–
Castration: An Abbreviated History of Western Manhood/Gary Taylor.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-92785-4
1. Castration complex. 2. Masculinity. 3. Men—Psychology. I. Title.
BF175.5.C37 T39 2000
155.3´32–dc2 00–029105
ISBN 0-203-90455-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-90459-1 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-92785-4 (Print Edition)
in dedication to
Celia R.Daileader
for asking unaskable questions
for opening the locked ward door
for teaching me how not to drown

CONTENTS

ix Timeline
1 What Does Manhood Mean?
21 Contest of Texts
Christianity, Freudianity, Humanism
33 Contest of Males
The Power of Eunuchs
49 Contest of Organs
Genital Plural
63 Contest of Gods
Dream Divination
85 Contest of Reproductions
The Rise of the Penis, the Fall of the Scrotum
111 Contest of Genders
Castrating Women
133 Contest of Races
Castrated White Men
145 Contest of Kinds
Confusing Categories
159 Contest of Signs
Branded and Domesticated Male Animals
185 Contest of Times
What Would Jesus Do?
211 The Future of Man
235 Appendix
Thomas Middleton and A Game at Chess
245 Acknowledgments
247 Notes
299 Index
Insets: Words (12), The Castration Plot in A Game at Chess (25),
Leave It to Beaver (47), Codpieces (59), Political Characters in
A Game at Chess (74), A Man’s Purse (106), The Female
Eunuch: Aristotle (114), The Female Eunuch: Germaine Greer
(118), Beards (150), Circumcision and Anti-Semitism (164),
The End of Castration? (214)
T
lMELINE

c. 20,000 B.C.E. Finger sacrifice
c. 7500 B.C.E. Domestication of sheep and goats
c. 6200 B.C.E. Domestication of cattle
c. 4500 B.C.E. Castrated cattle and sheep
c. 4000 B.C.E. First castrated humans? Uruk?
c. 1848 B.C.E. Mesopotamian deity Ishtar “makes eunuchs”
c. 1650 B.C.E. Mythical eunuch rescues Ishtar from the
underworld
c. 1200 B.C.E. Assyrian law punishes sodomy with castration
c. 750 B.C.E. Cybele cult already established in Phrygia
415 B.C.E. Self-castrated priests documented in Cybele cult
c. 28–33 Ministry of Jesus
c. 85 The Gospel according to Matthew
c. 209 Origen of Alexandria castrates himself
c. 240 Valesius founds Christian sect of compulsory
castration
313 Emperor Constantine legalizes Christianity
325 Council of Nicaea condemns self-castration
385 Pope Siricius condemns sexual intercourse of priests
with their wives
399 First eunuch consul (Eutropius)