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Greek Gods, Goddesses, and Their Sexuality

Introduction

Athena: Goddess of Wisdom

Others say the Fates prophesied that any son Zeus had by his first queen and wife, Metis, would be more powerful than him and overthrow him as he did his own father. She was already pregnant, so he swallowed her, obviously. Nine months later, we have Athena.

Either way, Athena had the fortune of never undergoing puberty, and one wonders how that affects her hormone levels. All that estrogen production must have gone to making neurotransmitters. Yes? No? I dunno, I'm not a biology student.

Speaking of maiden goddesses, Athena also swore eternal virginity, but not as a child. Because she never was a child. Zeus had a splitting headache one day, and a helpful chap (some say Prometheus, others Hephaestus) finished the job with a hammer and spike on his forehead. Lo and behold, Athena sprung fully grown from his head! Some say she was simply born from thought itself. Jesus Christ, parthenogenesis certainly runs in the family. It's probably all the incest.

Sexuality: Asexual

(due to biology)

"The body is merely transport."

Homosexual themes blatantly exist in Greek mythology and culture, but the ancients did not define same-sex relations as "homosexual." Relationships were not designated according to gender but the position each member took: dominant vs. submissive, masculine vs. feminine, higher vs. lower class, etc. Today, however, we will attempt to identify the sexualities of the Greek deities according to modern definitions.

Zeus: King of the Gods

Many of Zeus' lovers are royalty (Europa), related to men who'd rather not see their daughters in relations with Zeus (Aegina), literally hard-to-get (Danae), sworn to be virgins (Callisto), and other challenging "targets." By seducing them, Zeus proves his power and dominance, a prime example of the Greeks' emphasis of a power imbalance in sexual relations.

As Ganymede is Zeus' only recorded male lover compared to the plethora of females, I believe Zeus is mostly straight. (Only mostly because he'd need to be attracted to men on some level in order to be able to have sex with them.) However, it's not necessarily women but the prospect of proving his dominance and manliness that attracts him, though I doubt he would be opposed to having a lay with some eager nymphs.

Artemis: Goddess of the Hunt

Sexuality: Straight (mostly)

Apollo: God of Music

Zeus, his bitches, and Ganymede

Hestia: Goddess of the Hearth

The Lord of the Skies loves women. Some sources document him as having 115 named female lovers. He also abducted a young Trojan prince, Ganymede, to be his "cupbearer." Many scholars assume their relation was sexual. It probably was.

Poseidon: Lord of the Seas

And when I say "we," I really mean just me. Why not just use "I"? Because I'm trying to be engaging and shit, but you know what? I'm not a professor. Screw it. Moving on.

I believe Artemis is asexual. In no myths does she indicate any sexual interest in either man or woman. She has no interest in sex itself. No story provides any proof that Artemis' relationship with her female companions was beyond platonic.

The Goddess of the Hunt is unlike her father Zeus. As a child, she made Zeus vow to let her remain an unmarried maiden forever, accompanied by a pack of girls who also swore eternal virginity. Some think this means she is a lesbian.

But first, warning: content is extremely biased, irreverent, and somewhat controversial, but only if you're as nuts about Greek mythology as I am.

Oh, Apollo. What do I say about Apollo? He likes women. He likes men. Almost every romance he's ever had has ended tragically. Daphne? Would rather be a tree. Hyacinthus? Head bashed in by Apollo's discus. Coronis? Cheated, burned to ashes. Cyparissus? Also turned into a tree. Cassandra? Rejected him, cursed, murdered by a crazy axe-wife. TO BE LOVED BY APOLLO IS THE KISS OF DEATH.

Anyway, the point is Apollo isn't really picky about genitalia. I originally thought he was bisexual, but when I said I thought this because (as God of Light, Truth, Music, Prophecy, Poetry, Healing, etc.) he's pretty wise and clear-sighted and more into inner beauty, a friend said it's more likely he's pansexual, because he wouldn't really care about original and current parts, either.

That is not to say she is aromantic. Artemis supposedly loved a hunter named Orion, whose death was incited by Apollo, Artemis' twin brother, who feared for her virginity. And personally, I wouldn't be surprised to see her sympathize with romantics, if not empathize.

Hestia is the third Olympian virgin and very neglected in the canon, but if she had been more selfish, we'd hear a lot more about her. She was courted by both Poseidon and Apollo, who were willing to fight for her. She could've been Queen of the Seas! Or wife to the epitome of male beauty! But Hestia refused to let there be war over her so she swore on Zeus' head to remain a maiden forever. And...that's it for her love life.

Sexuality: Asexual

(but not aromantic)

Artemis needs no man

I'm gonna be honest, there isn't much to say about Poseidon. He's pretty straight-up straight. He proposed to Hestia: chick. He married Amphitrite: chick. He hit up Aphrodite: chick. He...did something horse-related with Demeter: chick. The point is this: LOTS AND LOTS OF CHICKS. Except this one dude, Nerites, which I think may be similar to the Zeus with Ganymede thing.

Dionysus: God of Wine

You know what else he fathered? PEGASUS. As in the flying horse. How, you may ask? By fornicating with Medusa in Athena's temple. Yes, that Medusa. Athena's the one who turned her into a Gorgon. When Perseus cut Medusa's head off, Pegasus sprouted from her neck, and tada! Flying horse!

In conclusion: we still don't know shit. Her vow of chastity wasn't because of lack of interest but out of love for peace. Could be straight. Could be lesbian. Could be bi, pan, ace... Wow, we actually know absolutely nothing about Hestia. She would make a fantastic spy.

Could've been her. ORCAS.

Sexuality: Straight

(with a horse fetish)

Let's not talk about the horses.

Sexuality: honest to gods don't know

Disney lied. About everything.

But I use "pansexual" with discretion because a) "pan" means "all" and that includes non-humanoids (centaurs, harpies), which Apollo probably isn't attracted to, and b) there's a god named Pan (the satyr of satyrs), and Apollo probably isn't attracted to him either. So.

??????

Mission: failed

Sexuality: Pansexual

(but not Pan-sexual)

Now, let's begin: he married Princess Ariadne and either a) made a constellation for her or b) made her immortal, depending on the version. So they were pretty tight. He had a horde of wild women, the Maenads, and they got up to pretty crazy drunken (and drugged?) shenanigans together. He loved a satyr, Ampelos.

Spoiler: they all die

Eyyyy, it's Sean Bean! He didn't die in this one!

I love dichotomy, so here's Apollo's polar opposite, the God of Wine, Ritual Madness, and Ecstasy (so, the Patron God of College Students, basically). Some say he was raised as a girl to hide him from his stepmother Hera's wrath, so that probably plays somewhat into things...

About the Author

Okay, fine, I'll explain the horse-thing. It's his sacred animal, and he's known as the tamer of horses. Some say he's the father of horses. Not sure how that happened. There was a rock involved, apparently. So Demeter is trying to hide from him by changing into a mare and camouflaging in a herd, but c'mon, you're not going to fool a guy who's that familiar with horses. And Poseidon turned into a stallion and...yeah.

And of course this one: he asked a man, Prosymnus, to guide him through the Underworld, and Prosy requested sex as a reward. But he died before Dionysus returned, so to fulfill his promise, Dionysus carved a phallus, stuck it in Prosy's grave, and sat on it. Yeah. I'm done now.

I mean, there WAS this one time when she got a bit drunk and passed out, and this utter sleaze named Priapus tried to rape her, but a donkey brayed and woke her just in time, so donkeys became her sacred animal. But it totally doesn't count because attempted rape isn't cool, man. (Note: do not Google Image Priapus unless you're prepared to see his "generous endowment.")

Sexuality: Pansexual

(and probably Pan-sexual

Orgy!

Oh, look, they're kid satyrs!

President Hades is a ginormous geek when it comes to Greek mythology. She's been reading Greek mythology books (Hamilton's Mythology, D'Aulaires', The Iliad and The Odyssey) for fun since she was little. She is only an amateur scholar and in no way claims to be a professional expert. She has never taken a formal Classical Mythology course (though she would like to) and unfortunately cannot read mythological texts in their original Ancient Greek. Yes, she does have better things to do than make Prezis about Greek deities being horny, but her priorities aren't always as they should be. She deeply suspects that this presentation will come back to haunt her someday.

Aphrodite: Goddess of Love

She was also invoked by lesbians, to win the love of other women. (Goddess of Love, not Heterosexual Love.) Most notable of her invokers was Sappho, a famous female poet known for her love of other women. Also, Sappho's birthplace, the island Lesbos, is often linked to Aphrodite and is the source of the demonym "lesbian."

Dionysus is a hard act to follow, but we're talking sexuality: Aphrodite's got this down. She married a man, Hephaestus, though admittedly not by choice. However, she did have plenty of male lovers, both immortal and mortal. Most famous is Ares, and others include Hermes, Dionysus, Adonis, Anchises, etc.

Hera: Queen of the Gods

While there is no evidence that Aphrodite ever took a female lover, it seems safe to say she was a supporter of non-heterosexual love. And it would admittedly seem in-character for Aphrodite to have had a few female liaisons, if only out of curiosity, but there is no canonical evidence for such a conjecture

Sexuality: Straight

(and straight ally)

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard

Hermes: The Messenger God

Conclusion

Now, Hera married a guy, so she must be straight, right? Well...Zeus tricked/forced/coerced her into marriage, so not much choice there. He really wanted to marry her, but she was quite iffy about it, so he, being the God of Lightning, created a storm and turned himself into a cuckoo that flew to Hera for protection. Hera let the bird into her room, he transformed back, and then he either seduced or raped her.

Hephaestus: God of the Forge

Hades: Lord of the Underworld

Poor Hephaestus. His wife cheats on him with his own brother. Well, ex-wife, I should say: he divorces Aphrodite after the infamous net-catches-her-and-Ares-in-the-act scene. The Greeks did allow for divorce, so if any marriage was going to break up, look no further.

The good news is he remarries! Yay! And they have four kiddies together, which never happened with Aphrodite because she was too busy boning Ares! Who'd he get married to? Why, to Aglaia, one of...his wife's...personal handmaidens. Oh. Awks. Someone's out of a job.

If I have a favorite god, it's only fair I have a favorite goddess. Why Hera, you may ask? She's crazy! you may exclaim. Um...no. Her husband constantly cheats on her for thousands of years and has more illegitimate children than anyone can count. Of course she's going to be pissed. If she vented her anger on Zeus instead of the mistresses and stepkids, she'd be more popular, but the one time she stood up to Zeus he ended up chaining her wrists to the sky and letting her dangle there for ages. (Also, Homer was a misogynist. It's all his fault, nyah.)

Like many other gods, Hermes also has a long list of women he has debauched. He got with Aphrodite, but that was with Zeus' help and holding her sandle hostage (Hermes+Aphrodite = Hermaphroditos, the world's first hermaphrodite). He fooled around with the Oreiades, or Mountain nymphs (Hermes+Oreiades = more Oreiades). With Penelopeia (not Penelope), he fathered the god Pan (Hermes+nymph = immortal satyr, makes sense).

Any lovers? She's the Goddess of Marriage, so no. For all we know, she could be anything, really. However, her honeymoon lasted 300 years, and it wouldn't have lasted 300 hours if she wasn't attracted to Zeus. And she wouldn't have had six children with Zeus if she wasn't attracted to him on some level... Right? And if we go with the theory that he seduced her to marry her, that would definitely require some attraction on her part.

Zeus, Apollo, and other gods have male relations, and this is fine. The goddesses, though, never have female relations. They're married to men, involved with men, or uninterested in anybody. Gods can participate in homosexual acts because they're dominant and it's implied they are educating their boy-lovers, not just sexually. Goddesses cannot, because such acts would distract them from tending to the household, hunting, strategizing. They would be distracted from caring for the needs of men.

Maybe you agree with me. Maybe you disagree. Maybe Artemis actually is a lesbian and Dionysus is really straight. Who knows. But let's assume I actually made sense throughout this entire presentation. The ancient Greek aristocracy widely practiced pederasty, or same-sex relations between grown men and adolescent boys, where the adult, the "dom," also educated and provided a role model for the younger. But few such relations are documented between women. Their destiny was to marry men and bear children. This is reflected in their mythology.

IT'S A TRAP SHE'S GONNA TAKE EVERYTHING IN THE DIVORCE

But okay, let's assume Hermes did have a fling with all three. I don' think it's quite like Zeus' power play, because Hermes doesn't seem to get a kick out of seducing the hard-to-get. But I also don't think it's like Apollo's pansexuality, because the closest we get to Hermes feeling feels for any of the three guys is Old Phil saying, "My own opinion is [Hermes loved Amphion]", which...doesn't really cut it for me. It seems more the case of Hermes, God of All Things Cunning and Miscellaneous, wanting to learn more about the art of seduction outside of just women.

Sexuality: Straight

(or Zeus-sexual?)

Demeter: Goddess of the Harvest

HBIC. That is all

Ares: God of War

Sexuality: Straight

(but adventurous)

Wanna see my caduceus?

In case you couldn't tell by my username, he's my favorite Greek deity. He only ever has three lovers: Persephone, Minthe, and Leuce. Hades is obviously attracted to Persephone. He kidnapped her so he could marry her. Why? Some say Eros, the God of Love, shot an arrow of desire into his heart and made him fall in love with her. But I don't think even a divine arrow can just create attraction out of nothing. There has to be something already there--say, attraction to a certain gender.

And that's pretty much it for Hades' love life. He gets married, and he's done fooling around. Which is by no means a bad thing. You don't see that very often in Greek mythology, especially not with the Olympians. Aaaand I'm gonna stop now before I launch into a huge spiel about other reasons I absolutely adore Hades.

The rest of the Olympians get pretty tame here on out, and yes, I say this as we are about to discuss the God of War. But Ares is straightforward (Ha! Straight! Get it?) in his tastes. He hearts goddesses (Aphrodite, Eos, and according to the Romans, Athena/Minerva). He hearts nymphs (Harmonia, Cyrene, Sterope). He hearts queens and princesses (Althaia, Ilia, Otrere). He hearts girls, m'kay?

Anyway, he's obviously into women and only women. And he got around quite a bit, considering he's the "ugliest" god. (Guess those girls were looking for personality, not looks. KUDOS.) Again, there is no record of him ever being involved with a man. No questionably-pretty-apprentice fantasies, thank you very much. So...end of the story.

He also has three supposed male lovers. One, Amphion, was gifted a lyre and headband because, according to Philostratus the Elder, Hermes was "overcome by love for him." Er...rather shaky reasoning, but fine. Another, Krokos, was accidentally killed by Hermes while they were playing discus, which sounds suspiciously similar to Apollo and Hyacinthus, so I'm not sure what to make of this story, except that the Greeks recycled myths. The third was the demigod Perseus--yes, Medusa-slaying Perseus--apparently because Hermes gifted him weapons and equipment for his quest. So clearly, giving someone presents means "I wanna bone you."

Sexuality: Straight

Persephone: Queen of the Dead

We know who really wears the himation in this 'ship

Sexuality: Straight

No alimony for you

Aphrodite, you cray-cray.

Some say that Minthe and Leuce, two nymphs of the Underworld, were affairs. Others postulate that Minthe happened before his marriage, and they're extremely vague about Leuce's timeline in general. Either way, Persephone turned Minthe into a mint plant for boasting that Hades would leave Persephone for her (or that he'd kick Persephone out and return to Minthe, depending on the version) and Leuce into the poplar tree.

Hermes, Hephaestus, Ares, and Apollo, besides being the immortal and Olympian sons of Zeus who all like girls to some degree, have one thing in common: they were all former suitors of Persephone, Goddess of Spring. Her mother Demeter was the most overprotective mother of all time, though, and rejected them all and squirreled her daughter away in Sicily. Specifically, Enna. Yes, they do get that specific. It's all in the details.

Like mother, like daughter, yeah? Except that Demeter never married, and she had a lot more kids, and she flat-out hated Hades, otherwise yeah! She had an affair with Zeus (though some say this was before he married Hera, in which case it would be a fling, which I think is the case because Hera didn't seem to persecute Demeter and Persephone like the does with Zeus' other mistresses and bastards, though that might be because Demeter is her sister), and voila, Persephone.

So there you have it. Greek Gods, Goddesses, and Their Sexuality. Aside from that unintended, last-minute rant just now, I hope you enjoyed reading this presentation as much as I enjoyed making it.

So if you noticed that the gods had more varied sexuality than the goddesses, this is probably the reason behind it all. And that's only according to our modern standards of sexuality. As mentioned in the introduction, the Greeks had no real concept of homosexuality. There was a dom and a sub. There was a giver and a receiver. There was a superior and an inferior. And the gods are always the first, while the goddesses only escape from the second if they have liaisons with mortal lovers. Sometimes.

Anyhoo, no female lovers to speak of. And you know what? I like that it was perfectly acceptable for Demeter to never marry but still have sex and be respected. That isn't something you would see every day in ancient Greece. For the women, at least.

Sexuality: Straight

Screw gender expectations. I do who I want

Also, she was really into Adonis, who was so gorgeous she fought with Aphrodite for him. Other sources say Zeus seduced Persephone (His daughter! No shame!) and they had a son named Zagreus, who eventually became Dionysus (it involves eating a heart #Khaleesi), though others believe this "Zeus Chthonios" is actually an epithet for Hades (translation: Zeus of the Underworld). Additionally, Persephone was Orpheus' biggest fangirl. When he came to the Underworld to fetch his deceased bride, he sang so beautifully that Persephone convinced Hades to return her to him. She was essentially the teenaged girl of the Pantheon. But she was also a pretty badass queen. Anyway, back to the point.

Sexuality: Straight

#Hades #leatherpants #OMG

Whatever the case, he's probably the dominant one in whatever relationship. He is a MANLY MAN. You know the male symbol, with the circle and diagonal arrow? That's based off of his sword and shield, just like the female symbol is based off Aphrodite's mirror. MANLY MAN.

Could said relationship include another guy instead of a girl? Maybe. But there's no canonical evidence of him being into males. Yes, he would probably be testosterone-fueld after battles, and yes, warriors and soldiers have historically proven to be inclined toward rape, man or woman, as a way to further prove masculinity. There isn't evidence he's done such, but might he have? Sure. But he might also not have.

Sexuality: Straight

I heart boobies

There was that horse-thing with Poseidon that resulted in two foals--I mean children--okay, fine, it was one of each, now moving on--but it wasn't consensual, so nix that. Demeter also had twins by Iasion, but he got struck by a jealous Zeus' lightning bolt. And there was Mekon, who was transformed into a poppy flower. Hmm. Demeter's flings all seem to end suspiciously...

Then Hades, Lord of the Underworld, abducted Persephone to be his queen, one thing led to another, and we got the four seasons. (If you must know, the "one thing led to another" part involves Demeter having a fit, an unexpected winter, and negotiations over pomegranate seeds.) So Persephone married a guy, but he kinda kidnapped her so who knows how she felt about it (I'd be pissed), BUT some (read: romantics, which I am) believe Persephone also fell in love with Hades.

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