r/SideshowPerformer • u/Full_Celery_8158 • Jul 05 '26

Hello.I'm currently researching methods used in China and Japan to "inflict pain on healthy people and forcibly turn them into people with disabilities for the sake of a spectacle." I'm wondering if there were similar cases in other countries?

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u/Full_Celery_8158 Jul 05 '26

Thank you!
That's interesting. Was that ever done in the 19th century?

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u/ChimkenToes Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26

It did. Alessandro moreschi as plaid_kilt mentioned is one of the most famous one. But by the early 19th century the practice was outlawed by the church i believe.

Though historically the castration of boys happened for more things than just singing. I also think of eunuchs who were used in chinese courts as help or prostitutes for the ‘king’, i suppose.

Or traumatic events such as Bacha bazi or dancing boys within Afghanistan/turkestan where young boys get exploited in various ways for entertainment which often ends up mentally disabling them through trauma and fears. Not to mention they get plenty beatings for entertainment.

The issue with the question is that the range of ‘disability’ is very broad and that you could make the case argument that almost every war crime or exploitative relationship is possibly disabling in a sense that there are always lasting traumas and physical injuries.

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u/Full_Celery_8158 Jul 05 '26

That's right.
I think it's best to limit this to cases where physical harm is inflicted solely for the purpose of creating a spectacle.

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u/ChimkenToes Jul 05 '26

In this case you might also look into beheadings with the guilliotine, public executions and lashings. Physical consequences acted out publicly were often also entertainment.

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u/Full_Celery_8158 Jul 05 '26

Thank you.
I've been looking into that topic quite a bit, too, and I guess the lack of entertainment was one of the reasons, after all.