Is dionysus gay
The Queerness of Dionysos
by Sannion
Dionysos is a queer God. It’s certainly not all that there is to him – in reality, when I think about Dionysos it’s usually stuff like his wildness, his connection to the land, the dead, animals, masks, dancing, drunkenness, madness, spiritual intoxication, liberation, transformation, fertility and sensuality that enter to mind. But queerness is a big part of who he is, and it runs through all of the other stuff as well.
And by queer I don’t just mean that he’s got a thing for handsome young boys, of which there were certainly plenty:
“Beardless Ampelos, they say was the youth of a nymph and a satyr and loved by Bacchus on Ismarian hills. He trusted him with a vine hanging from the leaves of an elm; it is now named for the boy. The reckless youth fell picking gaudy grapes on a branch. Liber lifted the lost young man to the stars.” – Ovid, Fasti 3.407ff
“Dionysos was loved by Chiron, from whom he learned chants and dances, the bacchic rites and initiations.” – Ptolemy Chennos, as quoted in Photius’ Bibliotheka 190
“Plato, in Adonis, says that an oracle was given to Cinyras concerning his son Adonis which read: ‘O Cinyras, king of the C
This is my story about what queer spirituality means to me and how I found my individuality as a gay gentleman through initiation by Greek tragedy.
During my second year at university I took part in a show of Euripides’ Bacchae, an ancient Greek tragedy that tells the story of a king called Pentheus (played by myself). Pentheus rules the ancient Greek city of Thebes and is alarmed by all the women being taken in by the exotic and scandalous new rites of the god Dionysus. He sets out to put a stop to the god’s activities in his city, but cannot disguise his own fascination with the cult. Eventually Dionysus (taking the establish of one of his own priests), is captured and brought before the king. He persuades Pentheus to come with him and go to witness the ceremonies. However, the rites are women only, so Dionysus dresses Pentheus as a woman and leads him to the ritual. There, Dionysus drives the women mad and in their frenzy they tear Pentheus limb from limb. The most horrifying part however, is that the woman who unknowingly takes the lead role in the bloody murder is Pentheus’ own mother.
Many of you may see the initiatory themes that seem to run through this play; social transgr
Gary Devore
When I started writing Pantheon, I knew I wanted to give identical time to a variety of sexual expressions. The ancient world operated under different sexual constructions than we do today, and most of the gods of myth had queer encounters:
In contemporary Western population, we base our division of sexual categories on the axis of identical versus other. Our central division rests on the genders of the people involved… The ancient earth, both Greek and Roman, did not base its classification on gender, but on a completely unlike axis, that of active versus passive… Simply place, there was no such emic, cultural abstraction as “homosexuality” in the ancient world. The fact that a man had sex with other men did not determine his sexual category. Equally, it must be emphasized, there was no such concept as “heterosexuality.” The application of these terms to the ancient world is anachronistic…
– The Teratogenic Grid, by Holt N. Parker
Therefore, when importing the gods of the ancient world into the modern era, their actions and attractions often seem downright bisexual to our modern constructs.
In Pantheon, the clearest i
Queer Mythological Characters
This list of queer mythological characters and deities from around the world, encompassing homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender identities, and gender-fluidity, only scratches the surface of the rich history of queer narratives.
In the context of cis-heteronormativity, such ancient characters are eye-catching in their non-conforming expressions of gender and sexuality. However, it is vital to note that what we identify as queerness is often symbolic of qualities such as stabilize and harmony, or conversely, dominance and trickery.
Yet, despite their allegorical significance, lgbtq+ mythological characters reflect the intricacies of identity and desire, holding up a torch to the boundless parameters of experience and existence. Ultimately, they attach us to a joint humanity reflected throughout ancient belief systems, serving as a reminder of the enduring presence of queerness across cultures.
1. Dionysus and Ampelos, Greco-Roman
Greco-Roman mythology is prolific in its explicitly queer mythological characters. There are countless examples of same-sex relationships and lgbtq+ individuals. The story of Ampelos and Dionysus is a pa
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