freelance

[onceinawhile]

Help! I just read a sentence, which is the reflection of a eunuch and which seems confusing to me. When someone asked him whether he was a freelance, he thought:
___
A freelance? He supposed he did: at least it was unencumbered by the plums that other men had gobbling at their groins.

 

[panjandrum]

It might help if you try interpreting the sentence with these analogies:
lance = penis
plums = testicles

 

[Thomas Tompion]

Help! I just read a sentence, which is the reflection of a eunuch and which seems confusing to me. When someone asked him whether he was a freelance, he thought:
___
A freelance? He supposed he did: at least it was unencumbered by the plums that other men had gobbling at their groins.

I suppose there are many jokes about eunuchs. Here we have an obvious pun between the lance (in the sense Panj. suggests) unencumbered by the plums, and freelance in the sense of not being employed by someone in the exercise of ones professional functions. What might be the professional functions of a eunuch, is one of the ideas at the heart of the joke.

 

[cheshire]

I don't understand what "gobbling at their groins" means. Does "gobble" hear mean "swallow"?

 

[Thomas Tompion]

I don't understand what "gobbling at their groins" means. Does "gobble" hear mean "swallow"?

It means eating, I imagine - I don't think most people's testicles make a noise like a turkey. The image isn't very clear, Cheshire.