Yes you would, in any society that had them as a recognized distinct class of humans. There are actually more chemically and physically castrated men in America today than there were in any ancient society (probably around a quarter of a million^1), but they are not a “race” of people in our society, so you don’t know what they’re supposed to look like, so you don’t “see” them and mentally classify them into that “race.” You probably wouldn’t be able to spot one on the street tomorrow if Zheng He stuck out his foot and tripped you into Farinelli as a joke, even after reading this. I don’t even think I could, it’s just not how our brains are socialized in our society.

Eunuchs can be split into two groups, pre-pubescent and post-pubescent castrated, so before and after puberty. Obviously pre-puberty is going to have more physical differences, but there is some consistency. So here’s what eunuchs looked/look like:

They were usually fat, with fat in womanly areas like hips and breasts instead of more male fat patterns like the beer-belly, and they had pale, bloodless and prematurely wrinkled faces, as well as hunched backs from osteoporosis. These markers happen for all eunuchs, both pre and post-pubescent castrated. On the plus, they never went bald even if they had the right genes for it, as male pattern baldness is triggered by testosterone. There was actually an American study done in the 1930s on castrated institutionalized mental patients, where a doctor for funzies decided to shoot some of them up with testosterone to see what happened. Some started balding, some did not, when the testosterone was stopped the balding stopped. So obviously not an ethical study from the top to the bottom, but proving something history already knew about eunuchs…

We now with our science know that the hormonal profile of a eunuch is most similar to a postmenopausal woman, but the funny thing is the Romans knew that too without the science, because a very popular insult to eunuchs was to say they looked (and sounded) like old women. Consider Claudian’s epic 4th century rant against Eutropius, who was the first eunuch consul of the Western Roman Empire, wherein he puts words in Eutropius’ mouth calling him a “widow:”

Then Ptolemy, tired of Eutropius' long service to his lusts, gives him to Arinthaeus; — gives, for he is no longer worth keeping nor old enough to be bought. How the scorned minion wept at his departure, with what grief did he lament that divorce! "Was this thy fidelity, Ptolemy? [...] Leav'st thou Eutropius a widow, cruel wretch, forgetful of such wonderful nights of love?

And then calls him old and wrinkly:

And now his skin had grown loose with age; his face, more wrinkled than a raisin, had fallen in by reason of the lines in his cheeks. Less deep the furrows cloven in the cornfield by the plough, the folds wrought in the sails by the wind.

These insults worked well in 399 because everyone knew that’s what eunuchs looked like. For Favorinus of Arelate, 2nd century eunuch orator, comments about his sexlessness were also considered fair game.

But by the 20th century, in even the same area of the world, this cultural knowledge was totally forgotten. In 1902 when Fred Gaisberg of the Gramophone company went to Rome to record the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, it’s clear in his journals he was fooled by his typical eunuchoid appearance into thinking he was an old man in his 60s, when Prof. Moreschi was only 44 at the time!

For behavior, they were stereotyped as sensitive and weepy, as well as being conniving and evil. Increased weepiness is one change that men who are castrated for prostate cancer do report experiencing, so there may be something to that one, but the conniving/evil stereotype is just because they were often in positions of power. Hormones do a lot but they don’t make you evil.

Height (unnaturally tall) was something that the 18th century commentary really liked to get on for the castrati, especially in caricature, but this is not commented on so much in ancient societies. Perhaps, due to lower nutritional quality as they were slaves, eunuchs in ancient societies didn’t reach remarkable height like the comparatively coddled castrati boys did, or perhaps because not all eunuchs were pre-pubescently castrated then, and it only happens in that case, so it didn’t become a universal marker of a eunuch. Either way, tall and fat was the 18th century physical marker of choice for castrati, so much so that a 1791 treatise against opera and castrati has to begrudgingly admit that Marchesi (who was widely considered a handsome, charming devil) was not as ugly as other eunuchs, but still too tall to “pass:”

He is tall rather than short, but not excessively so, nor exactly unbecoming. His head is quite elongated and small in proportion to his chest, or the trunk on which it rests. The whole chest is proportioned well enough- that is, the thorax and belly are well-formed, and do not at all show that they are those of a mutilated man. The lower extremities, namely the haunches and legs, are quite long in proportions to the trunk; and their forms are well composed, pleasing, and not excessive. [...] Perhaps for that reason [all other castrati being so ugly], Marchesi is said to be handsome- not too deformed like all the others, in other words; or at least not too deformed. ^2

For eunuchs without a penis (which would be some ancient eunuchs, all Chinese eunuchs, and some eunuchs in Middle Eastern areas) they sometimes had trouble with continence, leading them to smell like urine, which, as you can imagine, was something ripe for unkind commentary.

The voice! We cannot of course forget the voice. Reactions to the voice vary based on how eunuchs were valued in society, the Romans and the Chinese characterized it as shrill and unpleasant, but the Byzantines and the European fans of the castrati thought it was sweet and angelic. Either way, it’s a distinctive childlike treble voice for pre-pubescent eunuchs.

1. “Embracing a Eunuch Identity by Richard Joel Wassersug or if you feel like something more academic try: “Eunuch as a gender identity after castration”, or “The sexuality and social performance of androgen-deprived (castrated) men throughout history: Implications for modern day cancer patients”.

2. From this very excellent thesis Has some more quotes from men and women about how Marchesi was sooo handsome, even the enemies of opera cannot deny his handsome.

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