Departures from Cis/Heteronormativity and the Applicability of Such Terms in the Written Records of Ancient Greece

Student paper for credit in HIST 2210, LC
Written by: L. Fetigan

Suppose I were to present you, the reader, with the following statement: “Sexual attraction and gender identity are binary systems, i.e., people exist either on one side or the other, with nothing in between. People are either heterosexual or homosexual, men or women.” Perhaps you would agree with the statement (if that is the case, then for the sake of civility and the allowance of free thought, I will allow you to stay, but know that you are on thin ice. -- I’m kidding! Sort of. Not really.). Perhaps you would disagree, recognizing the spectrum upon which gender and sexuality reside. Regardless of where your allegiance falls, your understanding of the statement, and therefore the terms used, (hopefully) never faltered. One’s ability to understand the underlying meanings of certain concepts can be explained, in part, by the etic/emic dichotomy; an anthropological system of describing human behavior and knowledge which stems from the linguistic concepts of phonemics and phonetics (Pike, 1967). In the most basic sense, phonemes are differences in sound which alter a word’s meaning (eg. still vs. skill), whereas phonetics are all of the possible variations in sound. Obviously, there is a lot more to phonology than I care to delve into, but the above definitions will be sufficient enough for our purposes. Much like how a certain phoneme can only exist in one language (although this is not to say that multiple languages cannot have similar phonemes), emic properties are only applicable within one culture or society (Parker, 2001). Phonetics, on the other hand, is universal and applicable to all languages; therefore, etic properties are generalized concepts that can be observed across cultures. For example, let’s look at the Zulu word sangoma, referring to a practitioner of Ngoma, a specific branch of traditional African medicine (Janzen, 1995). As a western practitioner of medicine, can Dr. Bonnie Henry be accurately described as a sangoma? If you answered no, then congratulations! You’re correct! Alas, I have no prizes to give, but take satisfaction in knowing that your reading comprehension is superior. Although a sangoma and a western medical doctor may overlap in certain functions within their respective societies, to refer to either as anything but their emic names would not be an accurate description.

After reading the title of this entry, you may be wondering what this long-winded introduction has to do with ancient sexuality and gender. Gender and sexuality are social constructions, or social categories if you will, and while studying any social construction, it is of the utmost importance to remember that these categories are emic, and should be treated as such. Therefore, when we apply modern emic terms such as homosexual, transgender, heteronormativity, etc. to ancient Greek society, they don’t truly encompass the nuances of ancient sexuality and gender. When closed-minded people argue that homosexuality is a recent construct, they fail to acknowledge the fact that heterosexuality is a recent construct as well. So, to the people that deny the existence of “homosexuals in ancient Greece”, keep in mind that there were no “heterosexuals in ancient Greece” either. Rather, the Greeks distinguished sexuality based on the preference for either an active or a passive role. In the case of two men, this could be described as the one who penetrates versus the one who is penetrated (Percy, 1996). Seeing as this introduction keeps getting longer, I might as well take a moment to explain the terms used in the title: heteronormativity and cisnormativity. These terms refer to the assumption or expectation of people to be heterosexual and/or cisgender (Warner, 1991). Based on these assumptions, things like birth sex, gender, and sexuality are assumed to be in alignment, which is obviously not the case for everyone.

Now that we’ve discussed the applicability of certain terms to an ancient context, let’s dive into the second part of my research, namely, the instances in Greek literature and material artifacts where we can see a departure from the “cis/heteronormative” standards that we have unjustly imposed on ancient peoples. Living in a time such as this, where we have seen a surge in the acceptance of various sexual and gender identities, it seems almost irresponsible that we, as academics and historians, often don’t take the time to include these topics in our studies of the past. For the sake of time, I will only discuss a few sources, but I invite you to take the time to do your own research on the topic if you find it even remotely as fascinating as I do. My main goal that I will continue to work towards is to find out what certain written and material records can tell us about the sexuality/gender systems in place during the height of Greek society.

The first source I would like to discuss, while not technically having been written in Greek, is Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Written in the early first century A.D., this epic poem is Ovid’s interpretation of the history of the world as he knew it. I know you are all probably confused as to why I’m talking about a piece of Latin literature, but like most of the content in this poem, the particular story that I would like to focus on is based on Greek myths which were incorporated into the poetry of Nicander of Colophon, a second century B.C. poet and physician. In Book IX of Metamorphoses, Ovid tells the story of Iphys, a boy who happened to have been born a girl. Iphis’ mother, Telethusa, concealed her son’s birth gender from her husband and raised Iphis as a boy. However, once Iphis grew up and fell in love with a girl named Ianthe, it became clear that Telethusa’s plan had some flaws. The night before the two were supposed to be wed, Telethusa took Iphis to the temple of Isis, where she pleaded with the Egyptian goddess for help. Isis, taking pity upon the poor boy, turned him into a biological male (Ovid, 8 AD/2008). It is important to note that this story is not an isolated occurrence; “metamorphoses” is a recurring theme throughout many ancient bodies of literature. Although Iphis eventually transitions into a biological male, Ovid takes the time to describe them/him in a manner that blurs the lines of gender. For example, the name Iphis itself is gender-neutral, and the narrator makes a point in describing Iphis’ face in the following manner: “...as for the face, whether you gave it to a girl or to a boy, both would be beautiful” (Begum-Lees, 2020, p. 108). This could perhaps be seen as an attempt on Ovid’s part to distinguish between what his society categorizes as gender identity and biological sex. A similar story from Metamorphoses in which we see a departure from binary gender is that of Hermaphroditus. In this tale, a water nymph named Salmacis attempts to seduce the unnamed son of Aphrodite and Hermes. When she calls upon the gods to ensure that the boy will stay by her side for all of eternity, the two beings fuse into one of ambiguous proportions. This is where Ovid ultimately names this new being Hermaphroditus, drawing to attention the apparent feminine and masculine qualities that they possess by combining the names of the boy's parents (Ovid, 8 AD/2008). The description of Hermaphroditus is one that lacks certain distinctions. They are described as being unlike a man, unlike a woman, definitely not both, but certainly not neither. This ambiguity almost seems to imply the insignificance of the gender binary. However, appearance alone is not what the Greeks considered to be indicative of gender. Along with the ways in which a person chooses to physically present themselves, and of course biological sex, Greek society distinguished gender based on a person’s character. More often than not, this took the form of attributing courage and pride to masculinity, whether or not the person themselves was biologically male or female (Penrose, 2020).

My second source is Plato’s Symposium, originally written in the fourth century B.C.E., in which a group or prominent Athenian men engage in a dialogue on Love. While gender diversity in the context of love can be found throughout this work, there is one instance in particular that I would like to focus on. When Aristophanes, an Athenian playwright, talks about love, he does so by telling his own creation myth, and how it pertains to human sexuality. In his myth, the most primitive of people existed as ‘circlemen’; they consisted as two bodies which were fused together into a sphere. There was also a great amount of diversity between the circlemen. Some were made of two male bodies fused together, some of two female bodies, and some of one male and one female body. When the primitive circlemen staged an attack on Mount Olympus, Zeus struck them down, splitting them in half. From that point on, people have existed as halves of the original circlemen, trying desperately to find their other half and became whole once more. Men who descended from male-male circlemen required the love of another man, while women descended from female-female circle(wo)men required the love of another woman. Descendants of neutral circlemen came to encompass our modern, emic category of heterosexual (Plato, 385-370 BCE/2001). The significance of this section in Plato’s work is far too great to discuss to the fullest extent in this paper, but I’ll include a short explanation. For Plato to include those who love members of their own sex in a creation myth could imply that he regards them as being on an equal level within society and that it is natural to not conform to heteronormative standards (although, keep in mind the emic properties of such a categorization).

To restate what I mentioned earlier, the cis/heteronormativity that is rooted in academia has hindered our ability to make accurate interpretations of the social concepts of the past, and therefore, ancient societies themselves. This isn’t necessarily done out of malicious intent, but it is a product of centuries of prejudice. An accurate account of any society without the acknowledgment of gender and sexuality, a fundamental aspect of the human condition, would be incomplete and of no use. Further, a better understanding of gender/sexual diversity in the past may lead us to a much broader understanding of these themes as they pertain to the present. While the above points must be taken into consideration when studying ancient culture, one must also remember the dichotomy of emic and etic categories, as well as consider how these may affect the validity of one’s research.

References

Begum-Lees, R. (2020). Que(e)r(y)ing Iphis’ Transformation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In A. Surtees & J. Dyer (Eds.), Exploring gender diversity in the ancient world (pp. 106-117). Edinburgh University Press.

Janzen, J. M. (1995). Self Presentation and Common Culture Structures in Ngoma Rituals of Southern Africa. Journal of Religion in Africa, 25(2), 141-162.

Ovid. (2008). Metamorphoses (A.D. Melville, Trans.). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 8 AD)

Parker, H. N. (2001). The Myth of The Heterosexual: Anthropology and Sexuality for Classicists. Arethusa, 34(3), 313-362.

Penrose, W. D. Jr. (2020). Gender Diversity in Classical Greek Thought. In A. Surtees & J. Dyer (Eds.), Exploring gender diversity in the ancient world (pp. 29-42). Edinburgh University Press.

Percy, W. A. (1996). Pederasty and pedagogy in archaic Greece. University of Illinois Press.

Pike, K. L. (1967). Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behaviour (2nd ed.). Mouton Publishers.

Plato (2001). Symposium (S. Benardete, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published ca. 385-370 BCE)

Warner, M. (1991). Fear of a Queer Planet. University of Minnesota Press.