Forum: movies.stackexchange.com
Tags: <game-of-thrones>
Title: Why would an Unsullied go to a brothel?
Question: In  Game of Thrones  S05E01 "The Wars to Come", one of the Unsullied is shown to be visiting a brothel. Missandei has also mentioned that she has heard that "more than one Unsullied has been known to visit Meereen's brothels."   I have the same question as Missandei's to Grey Worm: Why would an Unsullied go to a brothel? (Aren't they castrated, and would derive no pleasure from the services offered by brothels?)

Answers:
sents: text: To seek pleasures other than sexual (which is sometimes the case also for not castrated men).
text: The below fragment from A Wiki of Ice and Fire is about the Unsullied you mention (in the book he is called Stalwart Shield).
text: Note that this a Wiki about the books, not the TV series, so it may contain spoilers.
text: Stalwart Shield would occasionally go to a brothel in Meereen where he would pay women just to lie with him and hold him.
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/19042/Chanandler Bong
score: 31
sents: text: Daario Naharis mentioned that his mother was a whore, and I suppose some of The Unsullieds have similar background as they grew up in a brothel.
text: Having a woman hold them and sing for them, stroke their hair may remind them of the feeling of having a mother.
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/20448/user20448
score: 17
sents: text: No, in the books it is clear that The Unsullied have "neither root nor stem."
text: But they are still people.
text: They are still men.
text: They may still long for human - and female -contact and may fantasize sexually even if they have no sex organs.
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/20445/Ygritte Snow
score: 6
sents: text: There is more than one form of castration: there are testicular and penile.
text: The Unsullied are not castrated totally.
text: This even comes up in the show when Daenerys asks her handmaiden if it’s the root and the trunk, or just the root.
text: She replies, “I do not know.”
text: But in the books, there’s a mention of it as some point which makes it clear that it’s just the testicles.
text: This was thought to have a focusing effect on the discipline of the soldiers.
text: And while it does affect sexuality, it doesn't do so totally.
text: In other words, a person who was had their testicles removed could very well be more or less sexually normal.
text: They can still achieve erections and will ejaculate (just without any sperm).
text: There are some famous US cases of rape offenders being castrated in this way, then being released and surprising everyone by committing rapes again.
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/20439/msv
score: 4
sents: text: Answers to this question have been suggested have been given a few centuries before A Song of Ice and Fire was written: Cleopatra: Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure
text: In aught an eunuch has: '
text: tis well for thee, That, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts May not fly forth of Egypt.
text: Hast thou affections?
text: Mardian:
text: Yes, gracious madam.
text: Cleopatra: Indeed!
text: Mardian: Not in deed, madam
text: ; for I can do nothing
text: But what indeed is honest to be done: Yet
text: have I fierce affections, and think What Venus did with Mars.
text: So, while they cannot service their affections in deed, they may service them indeed.
text: (And indeed, in deed, since George R. R. Martin allows his characters a sex-life less focused solely on penis-vagina penetration than Shakespeare did Mardian).
text: (That's assuming that Mardian was even lacking in a penis as well as just testicles.
text: In the days when castrati still sung, they had an advantage in illicit affairs in that not having testicles is a very reliable form of contraception).
answer_details: author: movies.stackexchange.com/users/20474/Jon Hanna
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
He would occasionally go to a brothel in Mereen where he would pay women just to lay with him and to hold him.
Stalwart Shield would occasionally go to a brothel in Meereen where he  would pay women just to lie with him and hold him.