TODAY…

Queering
• MYTH OF PROCRUSTES

•Mythologies
DAVID & JONATHAN

• DYONISUS / BACCHUS

LGBTQI+ themes in Graeco-Roman

tales and biblical narratives
 Procrustes
Procrustes ("the stretcher [who hammers out the
metal]"), also known as Prokoptas or Damastes
("subduer")
Don't these iron beds
"Procrustean" (especially of a framework or system) resemble the two rigid
enforcing uniformity or conformity without regard to
natural variation or individuality. boxes, male or female,
"a fixed Procrustean rule”" that our culture arranges
to contain entire lives?
Patriarchal, heteronormative and cisgendered
culture as a Procrustean bed
LGBTQI+ themes in the Bible
 DAVID & JONATHAN

When David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of

Jonathan was bound up to the soul of David and Jonathan
loved David as he loved his own soul

And Saul took him that day and would let him go home no
more to his father’s house. Then Jonathan and David made a
covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. And
Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him and
gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword and to
his bow and to his girdle."

1 Samuel 18: 1-4

Jonathan Greeting David, after David killed

Jonathan and
Goliath” by David embrace.
Gottfried Bernhard Goez,
David and Jonathan window, detail from St. Mark’s Portobello, Edinburgh, Scotland,
Manuscript
1708-1774 illustration, circa 1300
 DAVID & JONATHAN

How the mighty have fallen in battle!

Jonathan lies slain on your heights.

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;

you were very dear to me.

Your love for me was wonderful,

more wonderful than that of women.

2 Samuel 1: 25-27
GILGAMESH & ENKIDU
Achilles & Patroclus
 Dionysus/ Bacchus
• God of drunkenness and the madness,
disguise and masquerade, play and
theatre, god of fertility, death and
rebirth, sex and love, ecstasy…

• God of the CONTRADICTION.

•
• Described as girly-looking, "womanly" or
"the stranger of female form"

• Very popular among women (Maenads),

gender liquid people, slaves, foreigners.

• HOLDING THE PARADOX/ Beraking

social/gender boundaries/ Blurring
distinctions between the opposites
 DIONYSIAN RITES AS TRAININGS IN BREAKING SOCIAL
CONVENTIONS AND BOUNDARIES (GENDER, SOCIAL STATUS
AND ETHNIC ORIGIN) THROUGH THE EXPERIENCE OF ECSTASY

Greek ekstasis ‘standing outside

oneself’

HOLD THE PARADOX OF BEING A BIT OF WOMAN BUT ALSO MEN AND
BOTH A HUMAN AND AN ANIMAL

The rites of Dionysus customarily put women

in the clothes of men as much as they dress
men as women
Bacchus in an androgynous form. Roman, Imperial. 2nd
century A.D.
BEYOND THE BINARY
From Antiquity to the Middle Ages
TODAY…

1. INANNA/ ISHTAR 2. ELAGABALUS 3. QUEERNESS AND

CHRISTIANITY
Inanna, Sumerian goddess
Though I am a woman I am a noble young man…
The people of Sumer parade before you.
When I take my stand at the rear of battle, verily I am the
[…]
woman who comes and draws near.
The male prostitutes comb their hair before you.
When I sit in the ale-house, I am a woman (but) verily I am an
They decorate
exuberant man the napes of their necks with coloured
scarfs.
When I am present at a place of quarreling, verily I am a woman,
[…]
a perfect pillar.
The
Whenwomen adorn
I sit by the doortheir
of theright side
tavern, with
verily I ammen’s clothing.
a prostitute who
[…]
knows the penis. The friend of a man, the girl-friend of a
woman..
The men adorn their left side with women’s clothing.
[…]
(Old Babylonian text, second millennium BCE)
 Elagabalus, trans Roman emperor?

• Emperor of Rome from AD 218-222

• The emperor reportedly wore makeup

and wigs, preferred to be called a lady
and not a lord,
• supposedly offered half the Roman
Empire to any physician who could
provide him with a vagina.
• For this reason, the emperor is seen by
some writers as an
early transgender figure and one of the
first on record as seeking sex
reassignment surgery
 ?

According to the Historia Augusta,

Elagabalus…
•“did nothing but send out agents to search for those
who were “well hung” (bene vasati) and bring them to
the palace in order that he might enjoy their vigor”

•He eventually fell in love with a young man called

Zoticus. Zoticus had not only "a body that was beautiful
all over because of his athletic training", but also an
outsize penis. He was brought to Rome and introduced
to Elagabalus
•
•”When Zoticus greeted him with the usual salutation,
"Hail, My Lord emperor!", Elagabalus bent his neck so
as to assume a ravishing feminine posture, and
answered without any hesitation, "Do not call me Lord:
I am a Lady."
The Roses of Heliogabalus, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1888
QUEER CHRISTIANI •Christian images of a feminized Christ
TIES •Adam androgyne & Jesus hermaphrodite
“The Sarcophagus of Two 5th century mosaic of Latomou
Brothers” (c. 325) “Cristo docente,” 4th century. Monastery St David of
Thessaloniki
So God created man in his own image... male and female he made him
(Genesis
1:27)
Safo de
Lesbos