this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2025
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He settled down with a eunuch too, never had kids, asked to be buried in the cemetery next to his eunuch helper
Pretty good deal, sweep streets and have a queer life under communism
Didn't know the emperor had such a close friend! (/s)
They were roommates!
NGL, even under communism that has to be one hell of a conversation starter.
“Yeah, I was the emperor, let me tell you all about the secrets of the old system.”
Imagine being the handler for some re-educated CIA freak, you could get some wild information.
He settled down with his actual wife though? He married Li Shuxian who met Puyi after escaping concubinage.
Yeah iirc he married a nurse he met when he was visiting the woman he (accidentally) ran over on his bike in the hospital everyday
I'm not discounting that perhaps he had a eunuch partner also but I don't think I've ever read about it if so, perhaps @kristina@hexbear.net is getting Puyi mixed up with the Empress Dowager Cixi? who definitely did have a eunuch lover
That would be Li Shuxian, whose testimony of him is basically that he was totally besotted with her. There is certainly a queer angle to puyi. His tutor/advisor Reginald Johnston and his first consort Wanrong both paint him as someone rather uninterested in sex, and someone for whom romantic interest in women did not come naturally, and I think someone else in his orbit once wrote that his only sexual interest was in anal. But it is possible that given that basically his sole human contact for years besides Reginald Johnston were eunuchs and Li Shuxian was the first person whom he engaged in a relationship for love (Publicly at least) that he was just a very late bloomer and Li Shuxian was the first woman he actually liked.
That's possible 🤔 the changing of imperial names constantly gets me confused