I have always loved how the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes explained variations in human sexuality.
The closest ancestor of mankind was a race of powerful "double-humans." The double-humans possessed two of every human feature, but most importantly they possessed a complete soul. They varied in that they were either a double man, a double woman, or half man and half woman. Zeus feared the power of these unified humans, as they were capable of climbing Olympus and attacking the gods. So he split them in two and created mankind as we know it. Thus we are forever fated to seek the missing half of our soul and body, be it a male or female half.
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- Recent university grad, somewhere in the gray area of early- and mid-20s.
4 comments:
I never heard this story, but I think it's a beautiful picture. Thanks for teaching me something new.
I do wonder how bisexuals fit into this picture.
Actually, as a point of fact, that story comes from Plato's Symposium -- a dialog. Plato gives the story to the Aristophanes character, but it is unclear why Aristophanes is in the dialog at all due to the famous antipathy between Aristophanes and Plato's beloved teacher Socrates; Plato, a cantankerous bastard if you ask me, may have found the story so absurd that its telling would be embarrassing to Aristophanes, but we all realize how beautiful and true it is.
More importantly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YO9FpWX57E. It's an incredibly beautiful illustration of the myth from the film from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a movie that is required watching for fags, dykes, tops, trannies, bottoms, punks, tattoo sporters, fairys, weirdos, long-hair wearers, outsiders, priders, sluts, shamers, queens, closet cases, kings, freaks, rockers, monsters, creepers, perverts, prudes, square-scarers, and EVERY SINGLE lover looking for their other half.
Thanks for the clarification LHOOQ. The history book I read the story in attributed it to Aristophanes directly.
I have not seen the film, though I have heard of it.
wow i never this dude - thanks for letting us know.
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