Module 4.3 Notes PDF

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Roger Travis...

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CAMS 1103 Module 4 February 2, 2020 Notes on Aphrodite Sex is different for everyone  We call her the goddess of love, but she’s actually the goddess of sex. To understand Aphrodite, we have to understand: o The way that sex myth works across cultures o The way that Ancient Greek sex worked  Sex is practices in particular ways in particular cultures o Two Ancient Greek practices, which we would call homoerotic but which differ in important ways from homosexuality, illustrate this point o Sappho’s Prayer to Aphrodite comes from her circle of young women, who worship Aphrodite  They were also married, and some of Sappho’s songs are wedding-songs for them o In Athens, ta paidika, was a practice in which older men chased younger men and had sex with them, then gave them presents  Today, this would be considered child abuse, rape, etc.  In the circles in which it was approved (including Socrates, Plato, and their friends) it was considered an educational relationship  In the circles in which it was disapproved, it was seen as shameful to the passive partner ( eromenos) but not nearly as shameful to the active one (erastes)  There was no expectation that participants would not also engage in erotic practices with women Aphrodite the Syncretic  The simultaneous universality and particularity of Aphrodite makes her the most syncretic of mythic figures (meaning “the harmonizing of different traditions”) o Since everyone has sex, everyone recognizes that the sex-goddess must be the same across cultures o But since everyone has sex differently, there’s a ton of conflicting material to resolve  The callipygian (“having a beautiful bottom”) o One of the most famous images of Aphrodite, the beautiful naked woman, originates in an artistic syncretism  An ancient, naked, pudgy figure combines with a clothed royal one to form a naked royal figure  The Eastern connection o Important parts of Aphrodite’s myth come from Near-Eastern traditions associated with goddesses like Cybele and Ishtar-Astarte o The figure of Adonis, whose name is the same as the Jewish Adonai (meaning “lord”) links Greek myth to Near-Eastern myth

CAMS 1103 Module 4 February 2, 2020 o Aphrodite’s sea-born origin shows that she is thought to have arrived from the East The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite  About the power that women have in sex o Zeus tries to even the score with Aphrodite by making her fall into lust, the same way she’s always doing to him o In the end, it just proves how powerful Aphrodite is  Anchises is anxious about what happens to those who sleep with a goddess o This anxiety reflects the truth-value that men think that they are most powerful during sex, but the weakest and most vulnerable directly afterward  Men are always anxious that they don’t know how to satisfy women  Women have much more power through Aphrodite than it would seem o Unfortunately, the power depends on masculine desire o At least it provides a counterpoint to the terrible misogyny of much of Greek myth

Aphrodite Video Supplement  Clip from a movie: o About sexuality, truth-values about how men feel about sex and the power that they have/don’t have in sexual situations  Men have “anxieties” about sex that women can exploit o What this woman desires in masculine sexuality says something about feminine sexuality  Truth-value: real men are inadequate to women’s desires o Joe is AI, a simulated man; a fantasy of what a man could be, but never is  He worships Patricia as a goddess, gives her all of the attention...