Note 115 — Chapter V · CUNNILINGUES
Reading edition
Nevertheless, Eunuchs who have been deprived of their testicles, but not of their mentula, are by no means wanting in lubricity: they can do the business without any danger for a woman, inasmuch as they cannot generate children. The Roman matrons were well aware of the fact: Martial, VI., 67:
“You ask me, Pannicus, why Gallia keeps so many Eunuchs; she loves to be enjoyed, but wants no children.”
Juvenal, VI., 365-67:
“There are women who like feeble eunuchs, and kisses that are ever harmless, and the absence, nay! the impossibility, of a beard, for they need use no abortive.”
St. Jerome, in the Life of Hilarion: “A steward with curled locks, castrated for the sake of longer pleasure and perfect safety....” To make more sure of their enjoyment, experienced dames did not allow the testicles of the Eunuchs to be cut off until the member had attained full proportions, apprehensive that it might remain puny and inactive if the operation were made earlier. They wanted their Eunuchs well furnished, capable of challenging Priapus himself. By such they liked to be worked, being sure of not becoming enceinte. Juvenal, VI., 367-77:
“With those however is love’s pleasure most exquisite, whose testicles, when they are lusty and fully matured, are delivered to the surgeons, the pubis being already black with hair. The organs are spared till they are full and ready; then at last, when they have reached two pounds in weight, Heliodorus cuts them, to the prejudice of the barber. The observed of all observers, stared at by all, see him enter the baths and challenge the god of vineyard and garden, castrated thus by his lady’s order. He may sleep now with his mistress; still beware, Josthumus, how you trust him with your Bromius, now fully developed and ready for the razor.”