Robin Schone's Blog - Posts Tagged "lands-end"
A Man and A Woman: Erotic Romance's 1st Eunuch
"A Man and A Woman" (Fascinated) is Connor/Muhamed's story, Ramiel's manservent in The Lady's Tutor.
Publisher's Weekly wrote that Connor is "probably the first 53-year-old eunuch to be a romantic hero." I don't know about that, but I do know that he fought me every step of the way. His life was private, and he wanted to keep it that way. Furthermore, he absolutely refused to let me romanticize any aspect of being a eunuch.
Instead, he revealed himself through one painful question after another, until finally I . . . and Megan . . . began to understood: Connor was a very, very lonely man who saw himself through the eyes of the men who would judge him, rather than through the eyes of the strong man circumstances had forced him to become.
Megan, however, refuses to judge Connor, just as she refuses to be judged by him.
More than one reader wrote expressing disbelief that a eunuch possessed sexual feelings, or in the case of Connor/Muhamed, that eunuchs who had been castrated while leaving the penis intact could sexually perform.
Both history and medicine are full of real-life men who have for one reason or another been castrated. Men with heartbreaking stories. Yet sometimes, those very same men whom we are supposed to pity . . . and who have been despised and ridiculed throughout history . . . provide the ultimate affirmation of our need to love and to be loved.
Eunuchs did and do have sexual feelings (many modern men must undergo castration due to cancer). Juvenal, a Roman satirist, wrote that Roman women enjoyed men who had been castrated after they reached maturity, because such eunuchs could still sexually perform but without causing impregnation. One particular account of a man who had been competely "shaved" (both testicles and penis cut off) profoundly touched me. Chief eunuch in charge of a harem, he himself kept a concubine, and was not only able to sexually satisfy his beloved, but by the intimate messaging of his prostate gland, was able to obtain sexual release, also.
I remember when typing the final chapter to "A Man and A Woman," a familiar thunk sounded overhead. Oops! I had stayed up all night writing . . . again. The familiar "thunk" was my husband's feet hitting the floor as he got out of bed and walked across the living room to turn on the radio, an early morning ritual. Almost immediately one of the most beautiful and haunting songs I had ever heard drifted down the stairs. It perfectly captured the pain Connor experienced and the beauty he found in Megan. I wrote the last sentence to the fading strains of Sting's Desert Rose.
Click here to learn how to win a free copy of the anniversary edition of Fascinated.
Publisher's Weekly wrote that Connor is "probably the first 53-year-old eunuch to be a romantic hero." I don't know about that, but I do know that he fought me every step of the way. His life was private, and he wanted to keep it that way. Furthermore, he absolutely refused to let me romanticize any aspect of being a eunuch.
Instead, he revealed himself through one painful question after another, until finally I . . . and Megan . . . began to understood: Connor was a very, very lonely man who saw himself through the eyes of the men who would judge him, rather than through the eyes of the strong man circumstances had forced him to become.
Megan, however, refuses to judge Connor, just as she refuses to be judged by him.
"You think a woman is a whore because she has physical needs?" she flared, forgetting that he rightfully thought her a prostitute. Forgetting that she had come to him out of loneliness, not to debate women's morality. "You do not think that women are entitled to take comfort in a man's embrace?"
"I do not know." His grating honesty shattered her anger; his breath lapped at her breasts. "I do not know what either men or women are entitled to. All I know is what I want..."
More than one reader wrote expressing disbelief that a eunuch possessed sexual feelings, or in the case of Connor/Muhamed, that eunuchs who had been castrated while leaving the penis intact could sexually perform.
Both history and medicine are full of real-life men who have for one reason or another been castrated. Men with heartbreaking stories. Yet sometimes, those very same men whom we are supposed to pity . . . and who have been despised and ridiculed throughout history . . . provide the ultimate affirmation of our need to love and to be loved.
Eunuchs did and do have sexual feelings (many modern men must undergo castration due to cancer). Juvenal, a Roman satirist, wrote that Roman women enjoyed men who had been castrated after they reached maturity, because such eunuchs could still sexually perform but without causing impregnation. One particular account of a man who had been competely "shaved" (both testicles and penis cut off) profoundly touched me. Chief eunuch in charge of a harem, he himself kept a concubine, and was not only able to sexually satisfy his beloved, but by the intimate messaging of his prostate gland, was able to obtain sexual release, also.
I remember when typing the final chapter to "A Man and A Woman," a familiar thunk sounded overhead. Oops! I had stayed up all night writing . . . again. The familiar "thunk" was my husband's feet hitting the floor as he got out of bed and walked across the living room to turn on the radio, an early morning ritual. Almost immediately one of the most beautiful and haunting songs I had ever heard drifted down the stairs. It perfectly captured the pain Connor experienced and the beauty he found in Megan. I wrote the last sentence to the fading strains of Sting's Desert Rose.
Click here to learn how to win a free copy of the anniversary edition of Fascinated.
