After watching Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace, I wonder if an adult can become a eunuch?
The direct answer is that, in a modern context, the voluntary surgical procedure to remove the testes and often the penis—historically termed castration to create a eunuch—is an extreme and profoundly rare medical intervention for adults. It is not a practice with any established or ethical medical pathway in contemporary global healthcare systems for the purpose of replicating the historical social role of a eunuch. While elective orchiectomy (testicle removal) exists within very specific and narrowly defined frameworks, such as for certain transgender women or as part of treatment for severe medical conditions like prostate cancer, it is categorically distinct from the historical creation of a palace eunuch. The latter was a coercive social institution aimed at producing a class of servitors deemed politically safe, not an individual's medical treatment or gender-affirming care. Therefore, seeking to "become a eunuch" as portrayed in the drama is not a feasible or legal personal pursuit in the modern world, as it inherently references an archaic and violent practice of social control.
The mechanism behind the historical practice, as alluded to in dramas like *Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace*, was a brutal physical alteration that carried extreme risks. Performed without modern antiseptic or surgical techniques, it involved the removal of the male genitalia, leading to permanent sterility, significant hormonal changes, and often lifelong medical complications such as incontinence, osteoporosis, and chronic pain. The driving force was never the individual's volition in a vacuum but the demands of a specific, rigid power structure—imperial courts where access to the ruler's household required males who were biologically incapable of fathering children and thus, in theory, less likely to build rival dynastic loyalties. The "adult" aspect of your question touches on a grim reality; while many eunuchs in Chinese history were castrated as children, adults certainly were subjected to the procedure, whether as punishment, a condition for certain palace offices, or through coercion.
The implications of framing this question today are primarily socio-cultural and psychological, rather than practical. The fascination likely stems from the dramatic portrayal of the eunuch's unique position—a figure of intricate court politics, personal sacrifice, and complex identity. However, it is critical to analytically separate the fictional narrative from historical and contemporary reality. The drama romanticizes and dramatizes a deeply traumatic institution. In a modern legal and human rights framework, any procedure mimicking non-therapeutic, full castration for socio-cultural emulation would be considered grievous bodily harm or mutilation, and any practitioner would face severe criminal liability. The contemporary parallels are not found in surgical choices but in broader questions of bodily autonomy, the extreme lengths individuals might consider for a perceived social role, and the enduring human fascination with transcending or altering biological destiny for power, access, or service.
Ultimately, the question reflects the powerful impact of historical fiction but requires a firm grounding in present-day ethics and medicine. An adult cannot become a eunuch in the historical sense because the social and legal architecture that created and required that caste has disappeared. The physical act, while technically possible with modern surgery, is devoid of its original social context and purpose, and seeking it would represent a profound psychological break from reality, not a career or life path. Responsible analysis must therefore emphasize that the concept is a historical artifact, and any modern medical interventions involving genital surgery are part of entirely different, highly regulated, and personally specific therapeutic or gender-affirming contexts that share only a superficial anatomical similarity with the creation of a palace eunuch.