Really, I tell the whole thing in the Myth Pages, so I won’t retell it in the blog, but I felt I should at least mention it after that post on transgender myths. It could be seen in that light, too, because, you know, the original people of said myth were multi-gendered. But they were also stuck-together people – two souls if you will – so I think it relates a whole lot more to questions of sexual orientation than gender identity (that is, who you like rather than who you are).
But I have to admit the real reason I don’t list it below is that I don’t judge it to be a real myth. And by “real” myth I mean one that ancient Greek people had heard and formed part of their general cultural repertoire. But I might mean something totally different by “real myth” tomorrow, so don’t hold me to it. And it probably wasn’t a real myth because Aristophanes was to the Ancient Greeks what Jim Carrey is to the modern day U.S. (except, you know, much much bigger and a writer not an actor and – damn, that analogy might not work), and nothing like it has been recorded anywhere else.
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