Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 | Page 7

points out that it was recognized that spadones remained apt for coitus if the operation was performed after puberty, a fact appreciated by many Roman ladies, ad seouras libidinationes, as St. Jerome remarked, while Martial (lib. iv) said of a Roman lady who sought eunuchs: "Vult futui Gallia, non parere." (See also Millant, _Les Eunuques à Travers les Ages_, 1909, and articles by Lipa Bey and Zambaco, _Sexual-Probleme_, Oct. and Dec., 1911.)
In China, Matignon, formerly physician to the French legation in Pekin, tells us that eunuchs are by no means without sexual feeling, that they seek the company of women and, he believes, gratify their sexual desires by such methods as are left open to them, for the sexual organs are entirely removed. It would seem probable that, the earlier the age at which the operation is performed, the less marked are the sexual desires, for Matignon mentions that boys castrated before the age of 10 are regarded by the Chinese as peculiarly virginal and pure.[10] At Constantinople, where the eunuchs are of negro race, castration is usually complete and performed before puberty, in order to abolish sexual potency and desire as far as possible. Even when castration is effected in infancy, sexual desire is not necessarily rendered impossible. Thus Marie has recorded the case of an insane Egyptian eunuch whose penis and scrotum were removed in infancy; yet, he had frequent and intense sexual desire with ejaculation of mucus and believed that an invisible princess touched him and aroused voluptuous sensations. Although the body had a feminine appearance, the prostate was normal and the vesicul? seminales not atrophied.[11] It may be added that Lancaster[12] quotes the following remark, made by a resident for many years in the land, concerning Nubian eunuchs: "As far as I can judge, sex feeling exists unmodified by absence of the sexual organs. The eunuch differs from the man not in the absence of sexual passion, but only in the fact that he cannot fully gratify it. As far as he can approach a gratification of it he does so." In this connection it may be noted that (as quoted by Moll) J?ger attributes the preference of some women--noted in ancient Rome and in the East--for castrated men as due not only to the freedom from risk of impregnation in such intercourse, but also to the longer duration of erection in the castrated.
When castration is performed without removal of the penis it is said that potency remains for at least ten years afterward, and Disselhorst, who in his _Die accessorischen Geschlechtsdrüsen der Wirbelthiere_ takes the same view as has been here adopted, mentions that, according to Pelikan (_Das Skopzentum in Rüssland_), those castrated at puberty are fit for coitus long afterward. When castration is performed for surgical reasons at a later age it is still less likely to affect potency or to change the sexual feelings.[13] Guinard concludes that the sexual impulse after castration is relatively more persistent in man than in the lower animals, and is sometimes even heightened, being probably more dependent on external stimuli.[14]
Except in the East, castration is more often performed on women than on men, and then the evidence as to the influence of the removal of the ovaries on the sexual emotions shows varying results. It has been found that after castration sexual desire and sexual pleasure in coitus may either remain the same, be diminished or extinguished, or be increased. By some the diminution has been attributed to autosuggestion, the woman being convinced that she can no longer be like other women; the augmentation of desire and pleasure has been supposed to be due to the removal of the dread of impregnation. We have, of course, to take into account individual peculiarities, method of life, and the state of the health.
In France Jayle ("Effets physiologiques de la Castration chez la Femme," _Revue de Gynécologie_, 1897, pp. 403-57) found that, among 33 patients in whom ovariotomy had been performed, in 18 sexual desire remained the same, in 3 it was diminished, in 8 abolished, in 3 increased; while pleasure in coitus remained the same in 17, was diminished in 1, abolished in 4, and increased in 5, in 6 cases sexual intercourse was very painful. In two other groups of cases--one in which both ovaries and uterus were removed and another in which the uterus alone was removed--the results were not notably different.
In Germany Gl?veke (_Archiv für Gyn?kologie_, Bd. xxxv, 1889) found that desire remained in 6 cases, was diminished in 10, and disappeared in 11, while pleasure in intercourse remained in 8, was diminished in 10, and was lost in 8. Pfister, again (_Archiv für Gyn?kologie_, Bd. lvi, 1898), examined this point in 99 castrated women; he remarks that sexual desire and sexual pleasure in intercourse were usually