During my research into all the gods and goddesses you could choose for your own love deity, many wonderful “mythical” people popped up. It would be rude not to introduce them to you. Maybe you want a friend on your altar that is easier for you to identify with than a single straight white man. A god in one civilization is a myth in a different time and place. In their day, these folks were just as popular and just as “real” as Yahweh, Allah, and Jesus are today. And some of them were just as likely to take offense.
The fact that we call Hera, Zeus, and Aphrodite “mythological” shows how well the early Christian church succeeded at ousting its predecessors. It certainly helped that none of those previous “pagan” religions claimed that there was only one deity. There was always room for another. As we know, that inclusiveness didn't work both ways, and that's why Christian saints are included in our list of deities. Because, well, a bunch of them used to be full-fledged deities in a different religion.
You see, the biggest difficulty in converting the masses to a monotheistic religion was convincing folks to give up the gods and goddesses that their families and towns had venerated for centuries. The goddess responsible for getting your grandparents together at a Juno Februata festival—which resulted in every family member you know being born—was not to be thrown over for a male god that didn't even want you celebrating Juno's (left) day. Most townsfolk agreed.
So the holidays and deities had to be replaced by something and someone recognizable. Like breaking a habit, it's easier done by replacing it with something than just trying to quit. Thus, Christianity started producing lists of saints in the 5th century. Many of their histories were vague, and some had a variety of stories, but many had familiar sounding names and other similarities to their namesakes. Their names, images, and altar icons contained veiled references to their pagan personas.
Take St. Aphra (also spelled Afra, pictured right), for instance. She's a patron saint of reformed prostitutes, having been one in the Temple of Venus by some accounts. Or was she actually a Sacred Prostitute in a temple to Aphrodite as her name hints? In either case, she harbored a Catholic bishop who, in turn, converted her and her household to Christianity. She reformed her wicked ways and then got burned at the stake for housing the bishop. At least she won't be burned again in the Christian hell, right? There's no report of what happened to the bishop.
The advantage of non-Christian divine patrons is that they can still have sex lives, which is important to some of us. Prostitute goddesses don't have to be repentant; gays don't have to hide or be ashamed; and cross-dressers and transgender folk have special value just for being who they are.
For instance, cross-dressing is big in rituals across the globe. Dionysius' female followers, the Maenads, wore men's clothing. In some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, grooms still dress as women to avoid interference by jealous spirits. Ghede, or Ghede Nibo, a Voodoo lord of sex and death, wants all his followers to cross-dress in ritual circles. He, like Dionysius, encourages them to get lewd and outrageous, and to have fun.
If you think you're too much of a he-man to dress in lingerie, consider that Thor (left) wasn't. Yes, the ancient Germanic god of thunder himself dressed as quite the fair maiden in order to trick The King of the Giants into giving him his hammer back. (Yeah, tell me that's not a phallic reference.) He was pretending to be the king's future bride, but apparently he didn't pass too well. However, Loki, his trickster friend (also in maiden drag), covered for him, explaining that “she” (that is, Thor) ate like a Thunder God—and drank three casks of mead as well!—because she was so excited about getting married to that marvelous king that she hadn't been able to eat for eight days. Now that's a case of wedding jitters!
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Interesting
Interesting how in our culture it's nearly impossible for a woman to "cross-dress", at least in a noticeable way. I think it's because the female form holds more symbolic resonance in our meme-stream (so to speak... damn that sounds pretentious). What do you think it is? I've had this conversation before, we never really came to a conclusion...
Good point, Mye. It actually
Good point, Mye. It actually occurred to me while I was writing this. Seldom do archetypal stories, including those of deities, have the female cross-dressing, and today it doesn't seem to be a big deal for women to cross-dress as for men to.
When a man cross-dresses in the archetypal stories, he is putting himself out in a way that "demeans" him in the eyes of most cultures. He is saying something like "I will debase myself to get what I want" as Thor did to recover his hammer, or he's being punished as was Heracles when he dressed and lived as a woman slave. In both stories, the hero ends up better off for having "done time" as a woman. Following this logic, for a woman, passing dressed as a man could be seen as reward enough in itself, and that is not a typical part of such stories.
Today, women have a wider variety of clothing and wardrobe style options available to them. Women wear both pants and dresses or skirts with regularity and without "cross-dressing". As soon as a man puts on a kilt - and even though it's de rigueur at some formal events in the British Isles, and Prince Charles no doubt has a closet full of them - the first descriptor we apply to that man is "the one wearing the kilt." Sometimes we even neglect to mention his (different from our own) race first.
And, truth be told, men are culturally more limited than women - and queers, artists and other non-mainstream folks - are in many ways. It looks like they're in charge, but they have more rules of behavior to live up to, and strict limitations on acceptable dress (no kilts unless you're making a statement!). So any kind of other-dressing is more noticeable and highly suspect!
P.S. What does "the female form holds more symbolic resonance" mean?
I think there are more
I think there are more accounts of mortal women and cross-dressing, and it is seen as an odd thing for them, too. Atalanta was very much a tomboy, so much so that she was terrified of marriage. In Ovid, there is a story about a girl who is successfully raised as a boy. She feels absolutely terrified that she cannot properly honor the marriage-bed on her wedding night due to lack of a penis, so she goes to the Temple of Aphrodite and is immediately given one. Cue the hymn to Hymenaios!
(Also, Dionysius is theophoric name given to mortals to honor Dionysos.)