Was hercules gay
The Straightwashing of Hercules and How Marvel Keeps Failing LGBTQ Readers
The mythological demigod Hercules is bisexual. How you feel about that fact doesn't change the fact; the myths of antiquity have told us that Hercules loved women and men alike. Lustfulness is at the core of his character, and Hercules' appetites aren't limited by gender.
Like many ancient myths, and like much of history, Hercules' stories have been bowdlerized by those who think gay relationships are sinful. Audiences introduced to the traits through the Disney cartoon, the Kevin Sorbo TV show, the Dwayne Johnson movie, or the Marvel comics have good reason to think the personality is heterosexual, because that's all they've ever seen. But that doesn't create it true. Hercules is bisexual. To deny that fact is to participate in the erasure of same-sex relationships on the grounds of a tight and prescriptive morality.
Erasure used to be Marvel's official line on same-sex relationships; they were mature content, inappropriate for an all-ages audience. But this was standard operating procedure throughout the entertainment industry, such was the perce
The many lovers of a legend
University of Cambridge Museums · Hercules
Transcript
Hello, my identify is Luis, and I am a tour instruction for the Bridging Binaries tours at the Cambridge Museum of Classical Archaeology, where this enormous sculpture of Hercules is displayed. The statue is a plaster cast from the original marble sculpture start in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, built early in the third century.
An inscription in the base indicates it was carved by Glykon, an Athenian sculptor. Sculptures were used to spread Roman ideology, and to associate Gods and Mythical Heroes with their rulers.
Therefore, it could be argued that this sculpture also symbolizes the strength and masculinity of the Roman Emperor Caracalla. Hercules is probably the most famous hero from Greco-Roman mythology.
Stories of his achievements are still being told, more than two thousand years after they were first spoken. He is best established for completing the twelve labours of Hercules, which included: slaying the Nemea Lion (whose skin can be seen under his left arm) and stealing the golden apples of Hera (which are depicted in his *right hand).
This statue is known as ‘Her
Hercules and Hylas
By Joe Palmer
Last week there was a lot of internet buzz when at the memorial for Hercules in Hercules: Fall Of An Avenger #1 it was heavily inferred that Hercules (and later confirmed by the writer) had at one time hooked up with Northstar, following through on the hero’s love of young men so often stripped from average recounts of Greek myths. While it’s pointless to upload the panels now after other blogs and news sites have (you can look here), Hercules had plenty of other eromenoi, as the Greeks called male lovers, to discuss about.
Where to begin?
Wikipedia seems a good place but numerous links in some of its articles are sometimes distracting.If you’re love me, I sometimes detect myself clicking on links to new entries before having read the one I looked up. Instead, the World History of Male Love website seems a better place. It’s articles are concise and well-written, and there’s the bonus of learning about stories of male like in other cultures.
Plutarch, the ancient Greek writer among other things, wrote that Hercules had more eromenoi than the god Apollo, an apparently impressive feat since Apollo was reputedly quite
Hercules "is a lie"
Regarding the whole "Greek myth is filled with homosexuality/bisexuality" there's actually some problems with that, namely that most of that comes not from the early myths, but from later versions that were filtered through Athenian culture. A great example is the partnership between Achilles and Patroclus in The Iliad. There is absolutely nothing in The Iliad to propose the two of them were more than fine friends. The notion that the two of them were lovers comes from Athenian interpretations of the text, written hundreds of years afterwards. All those modern takes on The Iliad which claim they're being true to the original text by making them gay? They're false, and are essentially functional off the writings of Ancient Greek slash shippers (if anyone wants to talk about this in more detail I'll gladly do so; it's a personal pet peeve of mine).
The same thing happens with Heracles. Most of the stories that make him gay or bi are later ones, recorded in, wait for it, Athens (the Athenians had a thing for older man/young boy sex, and could not visualize a close relationship between a man and a boy in which sex was not a major component). They'
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