Vocabulary Issue

[JesusA]

There will soon be a new edition of the Standards of Care book providing information for medical personnel on how best to serve members of this community. It will be an entirely new chapter and the first providing information about voluntary eunuchs. A small committee has been working on the eunuch chapter, but at a presentation on the state of the current draft at a conference in Buenos Aires this week, there was some push-back to our use of the word "EUNUCH." In the minds of the medical personnel present, there are too many stereotypes and too much misinformation about eunuchs for them to feel comfortable with our use of the word. I'd like to open it up to discussion about possible other words that might be used. Or, is "eunuch" the best term in English?

The current handbook is available in 12 languages and the new edition will probably be translated into about that many languages for world-wide use. Suggested words in languages other than English would also be appreciated.

[Dekeldoh (imported)]

The only other possible English word I can think of is "castrate." But I agree that "eunuch" is the best term in English. My endocrinologist was quick to note down "Eunuchism" on my health records when I saw her, even though I never brought up the word myself. What exactly are the stereotypes the medical personnel mentioned, and what does the draft say?

[daifu-orchid (imported)]

Yes, words are important. How people are described has more than a little to do with how they act and are treated.

I believe medical people speak of orchiectomy, rather than castration; perhaps we more usually use castration for animals. But we seem to lack a word for the the castrated human, something like bullock, wether, steer, capon. I would not like the experts to "borrow" an animal word for us.

So, it seems that as we do not speak of a eunuch sheep, rooster, etc., the word is ours, complete with its literary and social baggage. Ancient texts used the term "eunuch" respectably and it seems intentionally. It has been said that "Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all." (1)

Other languages? I believe Chinese uses 宦官 huàn ɡuān (noun), 太监 tàijiàn (noun), 奄 Yǎn (noun). Visiting an exhibition in Beijing I heard a guide use 宦官, for Qing palace eunuchs, which a moment later he rendered in English as "palace officials". No, I do not want to be confused with a government administrator!

Yes, "eunuch" is clear, short, established. The rest does nothing but confuse, -and perhaps amuse.

(1) WSC

[Arab Nights (imported)]

(1) wsc ???????????????

[cutnbulls2ox (imported)]

I think some of us men don t mind and actually enjoy having animal terms applied to us. Since we do share a brotherhood of being males and having very similar balls among so many animals, I think its very fitting and a compliment to be labeled along with various animals that are intact or castrated. Lots of us played sports under different animal team names which were taken as compliments and the admired features of the team s animal name or mascots.

Gelding, ox, steer, emasculated, eunuch, castrated, castrato, neutered, unmanned, de sexed, and endless similar terms can be applied to men who are castrated or who have damaged, or non functioning testicles. But all of them usually do have baggage in some people s minds or fail to apply to virile men on testosterone replacement and various other complications. Maybe similar terms in other languages don t have as much negative baggage and past history for english speaking people as our own terms do ?

The term castration is pretty similar in most western languages with minor changes to them.

It is a real brain teaser to think of what label or term best applies to the various degrees of castration and remaining sexual interest and abilities or lack of them in this diverse group of males and ex males.

[Rafaella (imported)]

A complicated subject in that each word has it's own associations. I tend to associate the word eunuch with harems and the men and boys castrated to serve the women there. My girlfriend refers to me either as her personal eunuch since I look after some of her sexual needs or as her gelding or gelded colt, a former stallion deprived of his testicles and masculinity and now compliant and obedient. My doctor tends to use the rather neutral term castrate.

[erikboy (imported)]

Medical people typically use different words. Despite eunuch is quite ok word, it is too loaded with other meanings. Plus stereotypes. I can think of "neutered male" if female had her ovaries removed she would become a "neutered female". Very neutral word I think.

[justine77 (imported)]

I think this definitely an area where we don't have the right words. When I was a new eunuch and had no interest in a physical relationship neuter or desexed would have been fairly accurate. Now that I'm sexually active neither of those terms sounds right. Am I deballed, nutted, unmanned, cut, emasculated, yes to all of them but not terms I would normally use. Gelding to me implies submissive which I'm not, castrate sounds medical so for want of anything better I usually refer to myself as a feminized eunuch. Other people tend to see me as a castrated tgirl but strictly speaking I'm not psychologically feminine enough for that. So all in all a very complicated subject and for many of us there probably isn't an exact expression.

[minuteman (imported)]

(1) wsc ???????????????

Winston Spencer Churchill, I'm guessing...

I think as far as the general population is concerned, words like castrate, castration and gelding all have connotations of violence and/or non-consent.

Eunuch is not a very elegant word, nor is it easy to pronounce without guidance (when he was a child, my b-i-l asked "What's an 'err-nooch'?"), but as D-O says it is very specific to human males and refers to a state of being, rather than the process of getting there.

Medical terms elide the violent connotations as no-one (presumably) wants to be subject to a surgical procedure which is otherwise associated with abuse, retribution or punishment.

It's curious that languages have words specifically to describe the removal of the testicles/genitalia, with no equivalents (I'll stand corrected) for other extremities...

[TopManFL (imported)]

I've been thinking about this since the thread was started by @Jesus. Although I don't have the exact word that would be better, my mind keeps coming back to the concept of a retronym:

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The Google Machine defines retronym as:

ret* ro* nym

/ˈretrōnim/

noun

a new term created from an existing word in order to distinguish it from the meaning that has emerged through progress or technological development (e.g., cloth diaper is a retronym necessitated by the fact that diaper now more commonly refers to a disposable diaper).

---

Other examples of retronyms include:

"land line", before cell phones, land lines were just called phones --

"regular coffee", before decaf, regular coffee was just called coffee --

"tap water", before bottled water, tap water was just called water --

manual typewriter", before electric typewriters and word processors manual typewriters were just called typewriters --

"plain m&m's", before peanut and other varieties of m&m's, plain m&m's were just called m&m's. --

"hard wired", before WiFi, Bluetooth and other wireless connections all computer and AV components connected together and there was no need to distinguish a wireless connection from a hard wired connection.

"naked", (this maybe one of the oldest retronyms), before clothes there was no need to describe a state of not wearing clothes.

---

So, when it comes to castrated men and needing a standard name, perhaps the answer is a retronym for men who are not castrated?

Medical Doctors have already used a retronym in a very similar situation to solve the problem.

Before there was circumcision all men's penises were just penises. As soon as the first circumcision was preformed a retronym came into the vocabulary to describe the older state of being and the word "uncircumcised" was created. Even though many men use the word "intact" to describe a man who was not circumcised, the medical community uses "uncircumcised".

The word "remarkable" has a meaning in medicine. It means something should be noted. If a test shows nothing out of the ordinary it's considered unremarkable.

If a patient is examined in the United States and is not circumcised, that is remarkable in his chart as being "uncircumcised". Compare that to the appendix. If a patient still has his appendix, doctors don't make a remark in the chart that the patient is "unappendectomied".

So, maybe the answer to @Jesus 's OP is to find a retronym that describes a man whose testicles have not been removed?

[cutnbulls2ox (imported)]

How about balled and unballed or nutted or unnutted ? Cut nut or uncut nut.

[Brycenosak (imported)]

Any name borrowed from animals indicates ' with out consent' in the average person. Having never heard a bull begging to have his balls cut off? Eunuch is the name for a castrated male of the human species. It is a very old word and most dictionarys use the description 'formally' for some office such as a guard in a harem. In the vet trade only the dog seems to have entire or intact male as opposed to an altered male. Or " he has been neutered'. Humans are far more complex as we are inclined to over label things to avoid misinterpretation and misunderstanding. I am firstly a eunuch, a castrated human male. I present as a male. (Look like a guy) My hospital notes always described me as male with the remark 'bilateral orchidectomy post vasectomy'. So that rules out other reasons for castration, cancer, accident etc. So perhaps my version of a eunuch could be 'eunuch male'. I dont mind that. Though I havnt yet put that when filling out forms

[Losethem (imported)]

There will soon be a new edition of the Standards of Care book providing information for medical personnel on how best to serve members of this community. It will be an entirely new chapter and the first providing information about voluntary eunuchs. A small committee has been working on the eunuch chapter, but at a presentation on the state of the current draft at a conference in Buenos Aires this week, there was some push-back to our use of the word "EUNUCH." In the minds of the medical personnel present, there are too many stereotypes and too much misinformation about eunuchs for them to feel comfortable with our use of the word. I'd like to open it up to discussion about possible other words that might be used. Or, is "eunuch" the best term in English?

The current handbook is available in 12 languages and the new edition will probably be translated into about that many languages for world-wide use. Suggested words in languages other than English would also be appreciated.

Why are they pushing back? Eunuch. DEFINITELY eunuch!

Their push back would be like our community deciding we didn't like to use the words female or male to describe their cis-gender reality, but instead start calling women woondoggles and men wondiggles because we feel more comfortable with that.

Our community uses the word eunuch, that should settle it, I'd think.

[Brycenosak (imported)]

Gonaded or ungonaded, teste-full or teste-less?

[daifu-orchid (imported)]

Gonaded or ungonaded, teste-full or teste-less?

Anyone want to try a test-tickle?

[cutnbulls2ox (imported)]

Basically some people seem to go through life looking for any chance to be able to act offended. Other people go through life trying to get along with other people and not get offended at any and every slight chance they see to claim offense. Most of us fall somewhere between those extremes.

The question is what percentage of people can you offend that are unavoidable no matter what you do ?

What percentage of offended people will cause you to alter your own behavior as being too offensive ?

That s how I d look at any name they could possibly choose. And how valid is any claimed offense and how valid is that person s right to even be offended if they are not a eunuch themselves ?

[Arab Nights (imported)]

A side note to confirm your basic statement. I was at one of those Fred Pryor self-improvement semiinars. At break I went up with a question. My sense of humor, which I have a hard time stiffling, tends to leave at the same time some people laughing their ass off and some offended. I asked the presenter if I should just stiffle it in groups. A lady hanging around piped up that she gave motivational speeches for women and swears some women leave the house in the morning just looking for something to be offended about. In my opinion, same goes for some men.

[Brycenosak (imported)]

As usual, you and Cutnbulls2ox are bang on. Unfortunately we live in a PC, culturally aware/ sensitive world gone mad. People make careers from it. Humans are so diverse and we are hellbent on putting labels, catagorising everything. As a relatively young country, culturally, there is a huge industry in trying to not offend. Virtually any largish project needs a few maori cultural liason people. Money is paid out to local iwi (tribes) as to not offend the taniwha, a mythical serpent who lives in the local river. I have the dubious distinction of being self employed for 35 years. So if a client pisses me off, they get told in a very direct fashion. then its their choice. Sorry I digress. To quote my dear old Mum, " offense can only be taken", 'People who describe themselves as sensitive are usually sensitive to their own needs'. Good one guys, great topic!

[Paolo]

If word count/time isn't too large of an issue for this presentation, a short paragraph on the cultural misconceptions of eunuchs in history could be in order. For example:

"When one hears the word eunuch, an image of a fat, effeminate human with a taste for _______ and ________ readily comes to mind. Perhaps the stereotype of the large harem guard with a sword. Such is no longer, nor has it always been, the case."

Perhaps: "Eunuchs are, and have always been, a very diverse 'genre' (word? subset?) of the human race."

[zeebster (imported)]

Personally, I think that it should be left as "Eunuch". It's meaning is almost universally known as opposed to all the new gender definitions that are showing up. I keep having to Google the new ones I see to find out what interests/identities are involved. Secondly, I think this PC stuff is crap and hopefully it seems to me that we are starting to get away from that stuff. The medical profession, and as a Retired Paramedic I've been around them a lot, can be pretty stuffy and/or pretentious at times. Last, for the most part the only time you see exact medical language used in the hospitals is if they are dictating information or Doctors talking to each other.

Can't we just keep it simple?

[T van Keel]

Although the term "eunuch" might be a good way to describe most of us, I personally don't like that word and once my genitals are removed I wouldn't like to be called eunuch. It's simply because my brain connects eunuch extremely strong with harem guards, and that's simply a definition that absolutely doesn't work for me. I am not a harem guard and will never be one.

That's just to describe I'm not too happy with the term eunuch, but currently I also don't have an good option.

[Dave (imported)]

I can't think of a word other than "eunuch" that works in all circumstances.

[JessicaH (imported)]

It's funny that women have their ovaries removed all the time and no one ever thought there needed to be a term to call them. Does there need to be a noun for a male with no balls?

[T van Keel]

It's funny that women have their ovaries removed all the time and no one ever thought there needed to be a term to call them. Does there need to be a noun for a male with no balls?

That's true!

[cutnbulls2ox (imported)]

I think to most men they consider it more of a big deal to lose their balls and then go through all the emasculating and impotence affects of it than most women losing their ovaries do.

Nulloed humans do tend to become more feminine and not more masculine from losing either sex s gonads. So the change is far more dramatic in a man s body, mind, and sexual abilities than losing ovaries are for most women.most women getting ovaries removed are older and done with child bearing and the younger stage of enjoying lots of sex for the pleasures of it. Females seem to lose interest in sex more than most males after aging and women don t need to " perform " with getting a dick erect to enjoy sexual intercourse the way men need to do to enjoy virile penetrating sex as a top man. Women s bodies don t change as noticably as a castrated man s body after their ovaries are removed or quit working.

Women s life cycle also does include menopause for most women. Few women s ovaries keep functioning as much and remain fertile into older ages the way most men s balls usually do. That is a huge difference in what men and women expect and give up when their gonads are removed. So men can avoid emasculation longer and retain fertility and sexual functions longer in many cases.

Same thing is true in most livestock animals. Few female animals in livestock production get their ovaries removed. Most male livestock do get castrated very young and in overwhelming numbers routinely. That created all kinds of terms for castrated and uncastrated males for many different animals raised in agriculture and routinely sold as fertile or infertile males for breeding or non breeding. Female livestock are always sold and assumed to be fertile and intact, except in rare circumstances. So livestock terms for castrated females were not used or needed. .