Naughty Castrati

By The Beautiful Kind

Did you know that castrati could be sexual beings and fuck? I didn't!

Last week I featured a man who opted to chemically castrate himself, so that got me thinking about castration throughout the ages.

The literal definition of castrate is "to remove the testes of a man."

For the Italian opera craze in the 1600's, they didn't really do that. They drugged boys with opium and put them in hot baths to loosen their lil' nuts, and then an "expert" snipped their ducts. (Remind anyone of circumcision?) This prevented them from going through a normal puberty and kept their voices sky high. Can you imagine parents willingly castrating their sons in the hope that they will be the next big opera star?

Quite a gamble, since only 1% of the 4000 gelded kiddos became successful opera singers. The rest remained unknown, and really fucking bitter.

The altered opera stars were total diva bitches - their hormones were messed up and they were famous for their Whitney Houston freakouts. Composers were at their mercy, and women were at their feet.

Noblewomen were so enamored by their ethereal voices and built-in birth control - not to mention their staying power in the bedroom - that they followed them around like groupies. Many could get hard and even ejaculate, but shot blanks. Rather like a modern day vasectomy, only for castrati it was vital to snip them between the ages 6-12; sterilizing a man after puberty does nothing for the vocal cords or quelling masculine traits. So for best results, it was recommended to do it before age 10.

Not only did the procedure wreak havoc on their hormones, but it messed with their bodies as well - they often had elongated limbs, baby faces, and man boobs. The one pictured in this post was Luigi Marchesi, who was said to be the most handsome castrato in history. Maria Cosway, a woman romantically linked to Thomas Jefferson when he lived in Paris, abandoned her husband and children in order to follow Marchesi around like a starstruck kitten, and one of his rivals attempted to poison him. This is the stuff of grocery store tabloids, people!

Damn, I didn't even get into eunuchs, or "bed keepers" - the palace and harem guards.

PS: Prince or Michael Jackson - modern day castrati? Your thoughts?

My source for most of the information in this post was found in this extremely interesting article by The Smart Set. You can even hear a recording of one of the last living castratis, Alessandro Moreschi. Don't you think he looks like Michael Cera? He should play him in a movie!