Klarinet Archive - Posting 000156.txt from 1995/04

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.EDU>
Subj: A question of considerable delicacy
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 1995 18:21:00 -0400

Ahem! Blush. Er.... I have a question of some delicacy that I
am restrained from placing on a musical listing of greater breadth.
Besides there are doctors on this list and maybe they can give me
a private answer if a public one is too, er..., uh, .... delicate.
This is not a clarinet issue. It is not even too much about a musical
issue.

I saw "Farinelli" which is about a castrato. I know exactly what a
castrato is; i.e., a singing man who, in his youth and before his
voice changed, was castrated so as to permit the voice to remain
unchanged though the body matured physically. The result was a
great deal more than a counter-tenor. It was a male soprano of
unusual power. There is nothing like it today and, for the movie,
the character of the voice had to be created through electronic means
(which are described on a French www posting).

In the movie, Farinelli is sexually active. The impression given is
that he is able to perform sexually with a woman, but cannot, of
course, impregnate her since he has no testes and, therefore, no
sperm. And with this lies my question: could a castrated man perform
sexually; i.e., is it possible to have both an erection and the
consequent orgasm (spermless, of course) even though castrated? In
effect, is the sexual drive continued even in the absence of
testicles? Or is seminal fluid capable of being generated in the
absence of the sperm that it is intended to carry?

====================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
(leeson@-----.edu)
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