i think there's a neglected dimension in the historical analysis of women's attraction to castrati and it's like umm. that quote about trent reznor that was going around a while back. yes women wanted to fuck farinelli, obviously. i guarantee however that they just as strongly wanted to be farinelli. saw their own "emasculated" bodies in the castrato body and saw that this emasculated body could be a hero or lover, a person of action and agency and strength. and a person who, although male, was familiar with certain kinds of disrespect that most men are not: what it feels like to be told that your voice is so shrill and annoying that it would be better for everyone if you just didn't speak in public. what it feels like to be taught that, because of your reproductive anatomy, you are essentially a sort of near-human animal whose mental faculties are damaged by effeminacy, rendering you cowardly and lustful. what it's like to have people blurt out invasive commentary on your body and then laugh, feeling that they've reaffirmed their position in the gender hierarchy and soothed any momentary anxieties that your presence provoked.
in fandom i think there's something really similar going on with women feeling drawn to somewhat gender nonconforming men - real people or fictional characters - this sense that this guy has something in common with you, but that he is, because male, a better or easier or more dignified subject on which to project your own feelings. he's just like me fr, etc.
one of the weird things about castrati and their admirers is that this dynamic was often a two-way street. helen berry describes some of these relationships as "alliances", and i think that makes a lot of sense. there are obvious reasons for mutual sympathy. a lot of castrati had very close female friends, and a lot of recorded conversations they had with them have to do with, unsurprisingly, anger at being embarrassed or belittled. they were having, basically, vent sessions, and rules of heterosexual sociability meant that discretion was key, vulgarity was avoided, and macho posturing was not demanded the same way it might be in all-male company. at the same time, these rules precluded real intimacy. you had a performer-admirer relationship where two people were navigating gendered distress and grief over how society treated them, but who were barred by politeness from really speaking about it in explicit terms.
and even then sometimes people would come along and go, fuck. what the hell are you two up to. did you pass her a note? are you fucking perverts or something? does her dad know about this?
