RE-AIR: Queering the Classical World w/ Yentl Love (the Queer Classicist)

This episode originally aired in June 2023. Liv speaks with PhD student Yentl Love about queerness in the ancient world and Greek mythology, about classical reception in Lil Nas X, and so much more. Follow Yentl (the Queer Classicist) on Twitter https://twitter.com/QueerClassicist, and learn more on her site https://www.thequeerclassicist.com/. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content! http://www.patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com/groups.

• 1:05Liv Albert?

  Hi, hello there. This is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host, Liv, here with another wonderful conversation episodes because gods, I love conversation episodes. Today I have got returning guest Yentl Love. Yentl joined me on the podcast all the way back in 2021. Like, I honestly think she was one of the earliest guests I had, and true to Yentl's expertise and online persona back then. And now, she is back to talk about queerness in ancient myth. But now she's even fancier. So Yentl is teaching a course on queer theory in classics soon, and so join me to talk all about that. We talked about queer theory, that is, the study of queerness broadly, but particularly how it applies to study in the ancient world, and like, what that means for modern people

• 1:50Liv Albert?

  and those in the ancient world. It was generally all fascinating, but we also talked about Lil Nas X, because yeah, like, he's deeply relevant when it comes to this topic. No spoilers as to how and why, though. I'm gonna let Yentl talk about that because I've never been so enthralled listening to someone talk about a music video. Honestly, just wait. We had so much fun with this chat and it's really just generally so interesting, but also beneficial. Like, it's important to talk about queerness, gender, and sexuality in the ancient world because it really connects to the modern world. And so I am thrilled to not only have a returning guest, but someone whose knowledge has just grown so much since the last time

• 2:31Liv Albert?

  that she was on. And we all get to learn so much more. And how fucking fun is that?

• 2:52Liv Albert?

  Conversations: Queering the Classical World with Yentl Love, the Queer Classicist.

• 3:13Liv Albert?

  This is so exciting to have you back. It's wild because you were like one of my really earliest conversations. And I think it's been like two years, which is so bananas. Yeah. So it's so nice to have you back talking about queer things. But otherwise, I just kind of want to chat with you about like, everything that you do, because I think just all the whole realm of like, studying like, queerness and relationship to, in relation to the classical world is fascinating. Um, so now you kind of, well, let's remind my listeners that you were here last time to talk about, I think it was just generally queerness as well, but then we also talked about, Was it like Harry Styles as Dionne Niss?

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Harry Styles, yeah, exactly.

• 3:55Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:57Liv Albert?

  Which I, I absolutely love. And I, at the time, I did not know really anything about him. And then last year I listened to so much Harry Styles that like,

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:08Liv Albert?

  it, it went too far. Um, but then, you know, this time you suggested talking about Lil Nas X, which is also fascinating. But yeah, I kind of just want to hear literally everything and anything when it comes to what you study and talk about. And now what you're going to be teaching about, because it's all amazing.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I'm starting teaching about like queer theory and queerness in the ancient world. So it's very relevant.

• 4:32Liv Albert?

  I know. I was so excited to, to have you want to come back because like, that's, yeah, it's, it's always something I want to talk about, but I don't know enough myself. So having guests on to like, just tell me everything is so perfect. So like, maybe like, do you want to talk a little bit about like, kind of the queer theory broadly? Like, kind of how it applies, you know, to being a world and what you study?

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So queer theory is, um, basically just a form of kind of literary theory. And the idea is that it branched off from like lesbian and gay theory. Because the practitioners thought that obviously lesbian and gay theory is very, very valuable. But your sexuality is such a small part of the kind of broader spectrum of who you are. That to just focus on your sexuality, kind of misses out a lot of the other identities which come together and provide like privilege and things like that.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  So for example, myself as a white queer person is going to have a massively different experience, or a white cis queer person, a massively different experience than a trans lesbian person of color, even though we fall under the same LGBT umbrella. And so these other identities have a really big impact on who we are as a person. And so queer theory came about as kind of this intersectional approach to.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Primarily studying sexuality, but also it became not just a way to think about alternative sexualities, but to think about focusing on power and who has the power in a society and what is considered normal and then who is quote unquote the outsider. So when it comes to sexuality, you know, things like heterosexuality is considered kind of the norm and it has been for hundreds, thousands of years. And so from that aspect, queer theory then looks at like, oh, okay, so these other sexualities are considered to be not normal

• 6:48Speaker 01

  or kind of deviant. But then one of the really valuable things about queer theory is that you can then bring in other, um, other like aspects of study that also focus on the disempowered people and the kind of minority experiences. So in classics, that can be bringing in things like black classicism to look at classics through this kind of black scholarship and this, like in Lil Nas X, how, how does the use of ancient history, what does that mean? Like considering the fact that he is a black artist, let's look at this through this kind

• 7:30Speaker 01

  of lens and what does that specifically mean in the, like the use of classics? That can be all kinds of things, like looking at both like race in antiquity, but also the kind of reclaiming of figures in antiquity, like the whole debate of over Cleopatra's race, ethnicity, that comes up a lot. And then also like the work of like incredible black classics researchers all across the world that are doing like really amazing work. People like, I think her name's Emily Greenwood. And so it brings in black studies and classics in this really interesting way.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Also studies of disability in antiquity, you know, you can look at figures like Hephaestus, the god through the lens of disability. And yeah, it's just, it opens up a very interesting kind of intersectional approach to studying people who were considered not normal, in quotes, by kind of general society, people who were on the outside and who didn't have that kind of

• 8:42Speaker 01

  like intrinsic power that society gave them.

• 8:45Liv Albert?

  Um. Mm hmm.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  And that kind of brings us well into like another kind of really important thing about queer theory and one of the reasons why I personally think it's so valuable is because whenever you say you're like talking about like the queer experience in it, the ancient world, you're always gonna get people that are like, oh, but you know, gay is a modern term and you're just like putting modern ideas on the ancient world. Like, I think that's one of the most common kind of like pushbacks.

• 9:14Liv Albert?

  Oh, it is, yes.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  For sure. Yeah, I'm sure that comes up in your comments about, oh, different podcasts.

• 9:21Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's not new to you. Um, so, yeah, and so one of the with queer theory, because you're you're looking at kind of experiences and so you can say, oh, the like lived experiences of these people wasn't considered normal by society. So that doesn't have to mean that, oh, it was exactly the same. They would consider themselves a gay person. You're not saying that. You're saying that these experiences were not the considered the normal or the right or the proper kind of lived experiences for a person in antiquity.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  And yeah, so when we're using queer theory, we try to say things like homoeroticism or same-sex attraction.

• 10:15Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  And. When I was first coming into classics, I found that really annoying. So I was like, why are you like shying away from just saying, oh, this is, this is like a gay person. Um, yeah, I found that really, it really frustrated me. But what I've come to kind of like learn throughout it, and I completely also, I completely, completely get that people are frustrated. That people say this person experienced same-sex attraction. Instead of just saying this person was probably gay, I get why that is annoying, especially when you're like looking for reflections of yourself in the past, as we all do.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Completely get that, but I think one of the like potentially easiest ways to understand why it kind of makes a difference is. For example, now, like, I really like a sweet breakfast. I'm a sweet breakfast kind of person. If I see someone eating a savory breakfast, I don't then immediately read, like, put them in my head with the label savory breakfast eater. And I don't say, oh, like this person, you won't ever, like, you won't ever imagine, but they eat a savory breakfast. Couldn't believe it. I saw them eating a savory breakfast because we in the modern world don't consider that an identity.

• 11:39Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  And so like in the same kind of way, in the ancient world, things weren't, didn't necessarily, our, our identities don't necessarily match up with what ancient identities were. In another culture, maybe what type of breakfast you eat will become a defining identity. And then people in the future, looking back, might say, oh, it looks like this person enjoyed a sweet breakfast from now and again. But it still wouldn't be correct to, to put that kind of label.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Which is why we use these terms like same sex attraction and homo eroticism, which you absolutely can see all the way through history.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  And yeah, so that's just a slight like, and I know I do appreciate that it can feel like you're just kind of scared to say these people were probably gay. But it's just all because of that, because identities don't necessarily match up through cultures and through time. But experiences do and attraction does, so.

• 12:42Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's really interesting. I love that kind of explanation. And and I think it's like, I mean, yeah, as much as people can be frustrated by that, explaining it is really helpful and like gets that across of the why that that is, you know, a a good way of phrasing it like myself. And, you know, obviously I'm in a different situation. I'm not in academia, I'm not studying and I am working like my my work is meant to be for literally everybody. So I've not, I don't go too deep into like phrases and, you know, all these different like terms. But for me, I've taken to saying things like, you know, this this person

• 13:21Liv Albert?

  was probably or was maybe what we would now call gay and stuff, which I think is like, it's like, it's not as obviously specific and and detailed as as using those terms. But it is kind of like another way of doing that where you're like, I'm not putting that on them because they would not have seen it.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:39Liv Albert?

  But like in order for modern people to understand, you know, it's kind of like that. But I I'm interested how that like, or what kind of terminology you would use. Like, one of the things that I really like to talk about is um the, you know, the the mythology that exists around trans people in the ancient world. And so like, is there a kind of phrasing in that respect when you're when you're talking about, you know, those myths that we might see now as resembling trans stories?

• 14:06Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that with that, just that.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Like, for example, when I've been uh writing papers about like these early kind of conceptions of like Aphrodite or Venus that you see on Cyprus, where you get this statue that is kind of shaped like a woman, has like breasts and kind of feminine hair and feminine clothes, but that has a beard and often like a dick, a penis, I don't know what you would say on the show.

• 14:41Liv Albert?

  Whatever you want.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Uh, it's the beauty of podcasting.

• 14:45Liv Albert?

  Exactly.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  And was thought of as both male and female at the same time. You get this guy called um Macrobius, who's uh ancient Roman in like four hundred C E or A D, depending on what you want, who's writing about this. And figures like that, I think the term non-binary is incredibly useful. And obviously it has, even in the modern day, people that are non-binary, there's a a massive kind of spectrum of, you know, the pronouns they might use, the way that they outwardly present themselves, the experiences that they have. Non-binary even now doesn't have like a set definition or a set kind of experience.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  It's it's still this broad uh spectrum of experiences that we put under the label of non-binary. And I think in that way, I personally will use non-binary in my writings because it's just in the way that this isn't what the ancient world might have put in the category of male or female, like these two separate um categories. But then even that in itself is kind of a flawed way to look at it, because our male, female binary that we have now is kind of this direct result of Western colonialist views. And what we consider male and female now.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  As two separate defined identities, we can't, just like we can't say, oh, there were necessarily these sexual identities in the ancient world. We don't know that our understanding of gender or our thoughts on gender match perfectly with the ancient world. We don't know whether that's the case or not. And you know, there are a lot of these figures in antiquity that don't seem to fall in either category. So I would say, personally, I use non-binary when I'm talking about things that don't seem to be presenting in the kind of traditional masculine or feminine fashion.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  And then there are, I think, actually, what you said about how you would describe how

• 17:12Speaker 01

  people in the ancient world, who we might today call lesbian or whichever. I think that kind of works quite well because you get like, for example, the Roman emperor. Give me one sec because I'm just gonna make sure I'm saying this right because there are so many syllables.

• 17:31Liv Albert?

  Oh, God, yeah.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the Roman emperor Elagabalus.

• 17:35Liv Albert?

  That was the one I was gonna guess when you said so many syllables.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Exactly. I'm always like, which, which ones come first?

• 17:45Speaker 01

  But yeah, when we have like records of him and obviously the records are potentially written by people who are trying to suggest that Elagabalus wasn't a great emperor and are trying to like slander him a bit. So we don't know like necessarily how absolutely accurate all of these are. But when they say things like, oh, um, they wanted to be known by a female name, um, they like acted like a wife to.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Other figures and they even there's one record that said suggests that they offered a massive amount of money to anyone who would give them a vagina.

• 18:29Liv Albert?

  Wow.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  So, things like that, I would say suggests that that emperor may have felt what we would call transgender, may have been transgender. But, yeah, so I think that, yeah, like you said, that's a really good way of kind of talking about these things, that these experiences, how we might understand them today is through this lens. I mean, because even like,

• 18:59Speaker 01

  like what ancient people considered to be marriage is very different to what we in the modern world, in modern society would consider to be marriage and marriage as a concept is very different in different parts of the world. Like, we do have these abstract concepts and we, you know, put them on to ancient world, the ancient world and put them on to different aspects of society as best we can to kind of say, hey, this is, this might be a helpful way to understand this and this might be mirrored in this practice, but at the end of the day, none of it is perfect, none of it matches on.

• 19:36Liv Albert?

  Um.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  But, yeah.

• 19:40Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's very, I didn't know, I mean, I'm just so deep into Greece, um, that like I didn't even know about a like a, a like, I'm not gonna try to say their name. Um, that emperor, I didn't know about that emperor. I know that I knew the name, but like, I didn't even know the reference point. Like, as soon as you said a bunch of syllables, I was like, is it that one? But I didn't know anything about them.

• 20:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:01Liv Albert?

  So, but that's really interesting. And like, I always come back to, there's so many myths, like a lot of times, you know, in, in somebody like Ovid with these transformations, um, that like we can read a, a, as resembling transgender identities in, you know, in the modern world.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 20:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and and I I always like to talk about them, like not least they're interesting, but also, you know, they're they're, I think, really helpful for people who identify that way now to like see themselves in the ancient world. And so especially where I'm coming from, where like it's very much for a general audience, you know, it is so nice to have those kind of phrases where where I can say like, I think, you know, this person is what we would now see as trans. It's nice because it's like, it's very accessible and you get to use that same word that people identify with now and just sort of becomes beneficial in that respect.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, and especially like, you know, when we have this author, this Roman author Lucian who writes this, it's called The Dialogues of the Cortezans. It's basically, it's not supposed to be factual, it's supposed to be like funny, but he's writing between of this kind of story and it's between two women and one of them is saying to the other like, oh, I've heard you're like sleeping with this woman now, like, tell me all about it. I want to hear all the gossip about it. And we hear this story that she that they're telling each other of this character who's called Magilla.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  But later says, no, call me Magillos, takes off this wig, has a shorn like bald head and says, I'm a man.

• 21:38Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  And this girl says, like, what do you mean? Do you mean like, did it, did a god intervene? Like, what are you like a eunuch? And uh, Magillos says, no, like, I was born like you, but I'm a man. And very clearly and says like, oh, you'll see, like, I can pleasure you just like any man would. And but it's very like adamant that, no, like, he might have been been introduced as Magilla, which is a female name and he, but he is Magillos, he's a man.

• 22:12Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  And I don't really know how else someone could interpret that. You know.

• 22:20Liv Albert?

  That's pretty straightforward.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and people say, you know, oh, but you know, this is a comedy. This is, you know, but even if it's a comedy, even if Lucian is like laughing at this character, even if this is some like transphobic joke, that doesn't mean that for a transphobic joke to happen, trans people need to have existed like. So regardless of whether Lucian is like making fun of McGillis, that doesn't undermine McGillis's existence. Like he still exists as a character that Lucian has written.

• 22:52Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's like, where would he have gotten the idea? Like, it it's like the same with all the myths are like that, which I love because the myths are a lot less straightforward. So I love that there are these like very straightforward examples from real people like that's wonderful. I always forget that Rome can kind of give us that stuff when Greece can't always. Um, but like the myths are, you know, are kind of, they have a similar vein, which is just sort of this idea that like, obviously these stories existed in some form. And so, yeah, what whether or not the person writing them or telling the stories, you know, approved or or like believed whatever the the story like they're still telling the story and thus

• 23:35Liv Albert?

  a a person we can see as trans now still existed like regardless. So.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 23:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Yeah, the argument that Lucian was making fun of them and thus like it's not real is like bananas.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah.

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• 26:35Liv Albert?

  Well, since we're on this and like I kind of want to jump around and talk about everything, but you brought up the statues of Aphrodite. And so, yeah, one of the other things that you kind of suggested we talk about was like trans Aphrodite, and that's something that I have not looked into much, but like have always kind of known stories of. And so I would love to hear more about these ideas of like a trans Aphrodite.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I love this idea and this concept of like a trans Aphrodite. I think it's one of the most like, one of my favorite kind of interpretations of a god or goddess from antiquity. And actually, Bethany Hughes wrote in her book Venus and Aphrodite, which is an amazing, amazing book, where she writes about how the kind of like birth story of Venus or Aphrodite is that you have this Titan, like OG god Uranus, and his son

• 27:39Speaker 01

  cuts his dick off and throws it into the sea. And then from this cut off dick.

• 27:46Liv Albert?

  I call it castration foam. That's been my

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Okay, nice.

• 27:49Liv Albert?

  I've kind of coined that term.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that. I love it. From the castration foam, up comes Aphrodite. And so biologically Aphrodite just is 100% male. There has been no female influence in her creation. She's 100% come out of a dick. And so Bethany Hughes talks about this and says that it's, it could be this early recognition of a non-binary nature of sex and desire, which I think is a really interesting starting point, just. Just yeah, that she comes out of this kind of mythology in a really interesting uh way.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, like I said, in it's in Cyprus that you see these kind of sculptures of the goddess in like a traditional female form and dress, but then wearing a really thick beard. And you also alongside these kind of depictions of the goddess in these sanctuaries across Cyprus, you see these non-binary figures who appear to have been potentially what we would call like transgender priests. So these figures don't fall into a typical car- category of male or female. And they're all kind of coming together in this worship of Aphrodite in this specific region.

• 29:17Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm. And I'll just say too, for the listeners, like Cyprus is also mythologically where she was born.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:24Liv Albert?

  Which I think also says a lot about that, like where that castration foam erupted was said to be off the coast of Cy- Cyprus.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And yeah, Aristophanes, this playwright, talks about Aphrodite. And says that, oh, she was brought to Athens from Cyprus. And that on Cyprus, people worshipped Aphrodite, Aphrodites. So that's an Aphrodite in both like female and male form. And that she had these massive like celebrations where people cross-dressed in her honor. Um, so, yeah, like all the way through, in loads of different sources, we find it all coming back to Cyprus. And then there being this kind of fluidity of the kind of gendered appearance

• 30:15Speaker 01

  and associations with the goddess, which I think is just so, yeah, it's just so interesting.

• 30:20Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  As I said before, this guy Macrobius, this Roman writer, who then talked about this again, about this statue of Venus that, you know, had a beard, was dressed as a woman, but then was exposing the fact that she had this dick. And they conceive of her as not just female, but also male. And he lists off a whole bunch of different authors, so also Aristophanes again, and he's this guy Laevius. And Philochus is another one. And he has them all in a list, basically just like providing more evidence to the fact that, oh, like Philochus also says that

• 31:04Speaker 01

  men sacrificed to her wearing women's dress and women in men's because she's held to be both male and female. Um, so yeah, so reading that, there does seem to be this association and it is, it isn't found all over ancient Greece, like it is just, it seems to be very specifically located to Cyprus. But it's just a really fascinating kind of like mini celebration in the kind of broader scheme of celebrations of this goddess of, who's, you know, effectively of, you know, love, beauty, sex, she's like this pinnacle of like, at the time,

• 31:47Speaker 01

  what it meant to be this desirable woman. And then you get this just really interesting, like kind of um, focus in on this non-binary approach to, as Bettany Hughes said, this non-binary nature of sex and desire. And yeah, that's expressed through sculptures that it looks like what the priests might have worn and identified with and all of these like worshippers. And yeah, it just, it's just a really interesting kind of case study into the fact that ancient history wasn't just cisgender binary, this is male, this is female.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  But there's just this like massive colorful spectrum of experiences and.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really cool.

• 32:38Liv Albert?

  Well, and it makes me think too about the fact that she is tied to the story of hermafridus, which is like this idea of an intersex person. And it feels like, I mean, that it's interesting that that that story is sort of, I don't know the regionality of that. I'm forgetting where I know a lot of it probably comes from Ovid, but I'm trying to think of like anything early, earlier sources. But it's interesting that like, she has this nature tied to Cyprus, but even in the broader kind of sense, she still has these kind of, you know, fluidity of gender stories, or this, this story of a person who is just inherently both, you know, biologically. And, and that's sort of

• 33:20Liv Albert?

  interesting in itself, or like, sort of a connection to like, the broader Greek world having these stories that tie in with Aphrodite. And even the like, the Eros of it all too, because there's all these different kinds of stories about what level of like, relation Eros has to Aphrodite. Like, there's the idea of that kind of primordial Eros, but then also the Eros that is more directly born. Like, sometimes it's like he's born alongside her too. Like, I feel like Hesiod is the one, or he also talks about the primordial Eros, but then he also has this Eros that is born like, almost with Aphrodite from that foam. And that kind of feels like a similar thing where it's

• 34:02Liv Albert?

  like, we still have these kind of, like, unlike the rest of the gods, which kind of have their sort of one-off thing that they're the god of, and there's only one, and they're gendered and whatever. Like, love is the thing. Love and desire and sexuality is the thing that gets, even in the most sort of conservative tellings, you still get a female goddess and a male goddess of those things. And then if you do look into it beyond that, and, and are looking at it more for that kind of Non-binary fluidity nature, like you will, you can sort of see how the, the two of them kind of act in tandem as this kind of like team so that there are,

• 34:44Liv Albert?

  you know, there is like a broader spectrum when it comes to really specifically sexuality and love and desire and everything.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. No, I completely agree with that.

• 34:57Liv Albert?

  Yeah. Um, do you know, I'm curious, like, especially because of where Cyprus is, like so far east. You know, there, there are all these ties from, with Aphrodite to goddesses of the east. Like, for some reason, Astarte is the only one I can think of right now. But I, oh, and, and like Inanna and Ishtar. There was a connection to Aphrodite. I'm questioning everything now. But, but basically, do you know if those, if those eastern forms that kind of lend themselves to Aphrodite historically, like whether they had any kind of trans nature as well?

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, like they completely do. Like, so we've got like in Phoenicia, we have like Astarte and then like in, uh, different areas of the Near East, it's, it's Ishtar. And then from Ishtar, you can go even further back to ancient Sumeria to Inanna. And I think it's Ishtar, but also it might crop up in some of the worship of Inanna as well. But they have, we have these texts that talk about, oh, like how amazing their goddesses are. And they say, oh, and your ability to turn men to women.

• 36:04Liv Albert?

  Hmm.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  And there are these things that pop up about, um,

• 36:12Speaker 01

  different like priests and priestesses where these ancient goddesses were seen to have the ability to take someone who had, you know, been identified male at birth. And then through the worship of this goddess was then transformed into something else. Um, whether they were then considered to be like a woman or whether it was just like no longer a man. Um, but yeah, we see this ability in these kind of this Near Eastern goddess worship with uh, Ishtar and Inanna, who it seems like they can transcend the normal, like boundaries of gender. And they have the ability to

• 36:58Speaker 01

  enable their worshippers to kind of transcend this.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  Typical binary, um which is actually like a big part of when you're looking for evidence of especially kind of like transgender experiences, it often comes through uh divine intervention.

• 37:19Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Like it's very much seen like, okay, this, that's why I think the example with Lucian and Megilla or Megilos is a really interesting example because that's one of the only ones where there isn't any kind of god involved.

• 37:34Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  You know, all the way throughout like Ovid's metamorphoses with the characters like Ephes and Canius and people. Um, they are all, they all change gender through the intervention of a god or goddess. Um, and yeah, it's very much seen like this is the ability of the divine to do this.

• 38:01Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Um, and so, yeah, that's quite an interesting connection. I think that the divine have, yeah, that it's seen as something that can be, I wouldn't say necessarily a gift, but it's seen as like the, to change gender often requires a god involved in these stories, which isn't to say, of course, that like that was the experience of lived people in ancient times, but just with the literature that we see, a lot of the literature attributes that to the gods being above nature and above the kind of limits of

• 38:46Speaker 01

  people and culture and all of this kind of thing, the gods act outside of that and so they can change things that people might not be able to.

• 38:55Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, I've always kind of seen it through those stories specifically and like, and I do think mostly of the same ones you mentioned, like Ephes and Canus, but. Like, the idea, um, Canis is a little bit diff- different and weird because it's, there's like a trauma involved.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:12Liv Albert?

  Um, but Iphis is a good example where it, it's almost like the god was just kind of able to, to give them like what they wanted, you know, and sort of like fix what was seen as a problem. And it's kind of nice, you know, it's kind of like, i- it's almost, and I, you know, it's impossible to say what people's lived experiences were, like you said, but, but it's kind of nice for, to imagine that it was seen like that, where, where like a person who, you know, felt like they were born in the wrong body, you know, could have this example of like, oh, well, you know, like at least somebody like me got changed by the god to be who they felt that they were, or things like that. It's kind of like, it's just kind of nice.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:56Liv Albert?

  You know?

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I think you can really like, because the whole point of like ancient stories, they're supposed to be entertaining. You're supposed to like,

• 40:06Speaker 01

  enjoy reading them, right? So, I think there isn't anything wrong with like trying to find affirmations and find like good bits in them. So like even this, uh, story of Canis, it like, as you said, am I saying that right? I haven't said that in so long.

• 40:21Liv Albert?

  I, I was trying to remember, it, well, it's both. And I think heinous is when they're a woman and then Canius is when they're transformed into a man. So that's why, I know, I questioned it too when I said it. I know. I have, I've read Ovid, but not that story. It's actually on my list of like, I'm probably going to cover it around the time when this episode is coming out.

• 40:41Liv Albert?

  But yeah, but I think you had it right.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  But, okay, so like even in, uh, this depiction of Canius, as you said, it's, the transformation comes from trauma. It's not a nice position that we find. The, this kind of change in gender, we don't find that happening out of a, for a good reason. But, at the end of the passage about, like at the end of this kind of story, we see this, uh, Big fight between the centaurs and the lappets and Canius is in that fight. And some centaurs are like chatting shit like, oh, like you were, you're not even a real man. You were born a woman, like you're not a proper man. And then Canius like completely beats the shit out of them, like wrecks them all.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  And then at the end, there's this kind of affirming like, oh, see like, he's a real guy. He did everything that you could do like, and the characters then really support Canius and attack this kind of transphobic centaur. Which is like a mad sentence. So like.

• 41:46Liv Albert?

  Transphobic centaur is a whole vibe.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. So like, even in a story that begins with a massive amount of trauma and like pain. You can still kind of take away these potentially like affirming aspects. And I think that's like, an important thing to remember that like, stories are meant. Like you're meant to enjoy these stories. They're not just things. I don't think the classics should ever like remain just things to like. Study and these kind of like dusty texts that you just have to think really critically about. Like at the end of the day, these were stories designed to entertain people.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  And I think it's important that they kind of remain like that, like. They should, otherwise the whole field is just gonna die if people don't feel like they can actually enjoy and relate to. And I mean, as you can see with all of the retellings that are happening at the moment. Like I know that's like big about how many different kind of like stories we're seeing coming out there. And I just think it's so valuable. I'm like, yeah, we should all be like reading all of these different myths and all of these stories by these ancient authors. They're crazy entertaining. Some of them are unbelievably like awful, but in the best kind of way. Like if, I don't know, have you ever read any like of Juvenal's work?

• 43:14Liv Albert?

  No.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Um, when, I'm sure you'll eventually like cover Juvenal's satire, like, oh my days, that. It's stuff that is like shocking to joke about now, but it's still like massively entertaining to read.

• 43:29Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Um, and yeah, so I think that.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  There is something really valuable about finding the joy and the affirmation in these ancient myths and stories. And we shouldn't forget that these are stories. They're designed to be told and to be read and to be interpreted in whatever way you want, because these are fictional stories. Like, things like of it and things like that. And yeah, I think a lot of the time, especially, and like, as someone in the field, maybe at times I'm part of the problem, but I think we can put this very kind of like clinical, like,

• 44:12Speaker 01

  you know, we just analyze all of this stuff and forget that like its primary purpose is like it's a form of entertainment. So, yeah.

• 44:21Liv Albert?

  I mean, I say this all the time, but like I started the podcast specifically because I'd, like I studied ancient Greece and and mythology and then like, didn't do anything with it for a while. And then I was like bored and sad one day and I was reading random things and came across the like, the um, the story of Pasiphae conceiving the Minotaur. And I just remember looking at it again and being like, this is wild. Why do you like? More people need to tell stories of Greek myths while emphasizing the fact that this is wild with like versus, yeah, how they're so often covered. Where it's like, this is just the story from the ancient world. They were so brilliant and interesting, aren't they perfect?

• 45:01Liv Albert?

  And meanwhile, you're like, the woman who had a constructed fake cow created so that she could fuck a bull, like, we need to talk about it as well. Yeah, exactly. Or like, uh, you know, I mean, Lucian is a good example. The only Lucian I've read is the True History, which is one of the funniest, most absurd things that I've ever read in my life.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:24Liv Albert?

  It's just like nonsense. And I love the idea that ancient writers were just like, writing nonsense because they felt like it and they thought it was funny. Like, that's amazing. And it's not talked about enough. Yeah.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 45:37Liv Albert?

  On the other side of it, one of the things I thought of while you were talking about all of these kinds of stories and sources and things is like, one of the things that comes to me so often when I'm trying to tell queer stories from the ancient world is that like, one, there are basically no explicit stories of women having sexual relationships, which I find fascinating and have my own like silly theories on that are not based in me having read anything, but, but also every time there are stories of men having sexual relationships and romantic relationships with other men, they like always end badly. Like, it's always a god with a mortal man and that mortal man always dies, or like,

• 46:20Liv Albert?

  if they're not a god, then it's just like the Achilles and Patroclus of it all. And so I'm curious, like, if you've kind of looked at that or like what your thoughts are on how inherently tragic like 95% of those stories are.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think a lot of it comes from the idea that there was a right and a wrong way to have relationships between men. And so it kind of links back to this like idea of pederasty. And that's like often like quite like a red flag idea, like people get very like het up about it. But the idea was that in the ancient world, people were attracted to youth. And that's basically like the whole thing. They thought like a lot that people were ready for sex and relationships a lot younger than we might think. So like, but it's not just, and I think this is where people

• 47:19Speaker 01

  it can potentially be like a dangerous thing because people talk about how, oh, in pederasty, there's normally this older man that is called, now give me one sec because sometimes I mix up the

• 47:33Liv Albert?

  I had this conversation with somebody like two days ago. Yeah.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, the arastes is the older man, the arominos is the younger man. And so the arominos, the younger male, often is going to be around 15.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Ish, between like fourteen, sixteen, like before you can properly grow a beard. And then the Erastes is, you know, thirty, a lot older. So obviously not in modern standards, not an okay relationship, like very bad, but also young girls were getting married at the same age.

• 48:13Liv Albert?

  I was just gonna say that, because I feel like that is not

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:16Liv Albert?

  Mentioned enough in reference to it.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 48:19Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  I think that is so important to

• 48:22Liv Albert?

  Yes.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Compare, because people then demonize this one relationship, which I absolutely think that it should be. I in no way think that this is at all okay, but it was also happening between men and girls as well.

• 48:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  So this isn't just like a, oh, the gays, the gays were doing it this way. This is everyone of whichever, you know, sexuality, whatever preference these people may have had. They were all older men were having sex with young people. That's how it was across the board. And that was what was acceptable. But in a lot of these stories, what you see is two, these kind of tragic stories between men. It's often men that are a similar age or that seem to be a similar age.

• 49:16Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  That definitely don't necessarily fall into the Erastes, Eramenos um categories, which is why like we have these records in the ancient world of people debating with Achilles and Patroclus. Okay, who was the Erastes? Who was the Eramenos? You know, they're, they're really trying to like nail it down because that is how a relationship with two men was supposed to work. One was supposed to be older, one was supposed to be younger in order for it to be like socially acceptable. So to me, I think that is why a lot of these relationships, you know, you can see it between like Heracles and Hylas, or as you said, like.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Apollo with so many different men.

• 50:04Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Um, all of the gods, like just with all of these different guys. And it always ends tragically. You never get like a happy ride off into the sunset moment.

• 50:15Liv Albert?

  You know what, though? Sorry, I, cause I, that's so true, except Zeus and Ganymede do kind of come across as if it's a good thing. And that's specifically like the age gap.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:28Liv Albert?

  So it's, yeah, that's interesting. It's like, that's one of the only ones.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  That is actually true. Yeah, that's actually really interesting because Ganymede is a young Trojan prince. Like that is the whole thing that his youth is kind of emphasized.

• 50:42Liv Albert?

  And he doesn't die and everyone else dies.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, that is really interesting. But like in a lot of these other ones where people do die, it seems to be that they're like kind of closer in age or that their ages aren't and their roles within the relationship aren't clearly marked out. And so potentially, I mean, this is like my interpretation, but I think that potentially these relationships aren't condoned by society. And so they have to end badly because, you know, society isn't ready for them to end well. Um,

• 51:25Speaker 01

  you know, it kind of like arguably just falls back into the kind of like bury your gays trope. Cause we even see on like TV now. Um, but yeah, I think that because they weren't necessarily completely like socially acceptable, because they didn't fall into this pattern that they were supposed to, they weren't allowed to end well. Um, yeah.

• 51:52Liv Albert?

  Yeah, that's really interesting. I, so. Around the time when this conversation will air, I also had one, which I only recorded two days ago, so it's like in my head and I'm trying to think of when they're all coming out. But I talked to somebody about specifically Achilles and Patroclus, like primarily in relation to to modern reception, but we talked a lot about that kind of Arominus and Erastides situation, which is so interesting with them. And one thing that occurred to me in that conversation is also that like

• 52:24Liv Albert?

  they, I mean, they don't fit it and they die tragically, like you were saying. But what's interesting about them is like the people who then debate that so heavily in later texts, like the thing, the big thing that is sort of like glaring when we know it is that like when that story was being told, like the Iliad, when it was existing in its first iterations is probably, at least based on our evidence for sure, before the the relationships of Erastides and Arominus and Pterasty broadly like became popular. So it's kind of extra interesting on this like other level. It doesn't really explain.

• 53:06Liv Albert?

  I mean, I think that they both had to die because that's just like the way the Iliad had to go and it's kind of unrelated to their romantic relationship in a way that like, yeah, Apollo and Hyacinth, this it's it's more related to like what you're talking about. But it is really interesting to kind of imagine them having all these debates and they're like so mad trying to figure out like

• 53:23Liv Albert?

  it's like dudes, like this was before that was a thing. Like you can't understand it, which is why you're so annoyed trying to figure it out.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

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• 54:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, but for them to be, you know, this amazing work of literature, but you can't possibly have like a relationship between two men that doesn't fall into this like Erastides or Aromenoff paradigm so quick. Like, how does it work? How can we make it fit? Yeah.

• 54:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah, it's so interesting. Oh, I love it. I mean, also, it's all dark, but like.

• 54:57Liv Albert?

  But, okay, so that, one of the things I said earlier, and I would love to know if there, if I'm wrong about this, but like, the lack of two women who have romantic and sexual relationships in ancient Greece, I find, or mythology specifically, but I'm like, if there's any from history too, amazing, I want to hear it, but like, other than Sappho. But like, it's interesting to me because it like, my little theory that again, like, I have not read anything about whether people have talked about this or debated it or what have you, but like, my little theory is basically that like, it's only a matter of who recorded the stories that we now have. And they probably, especially because of their kind of obsession with penetration that comes along with the Pederasty.

• 55:43Liv Albert?

  That they basically just like, if they were considering whether women were having sexual relationships with each other, they didn't see whatever women did to each other as sexual. And so they just like, it's like it kind of went under the radar. And I like to imagine that in a really good way of like, women were kind of able to be more sexual with each other than they, you know, than we might think purely because nobody saw it as sex and so they didn't get into any trouble and like, but then it also meant that it never made it into, you know, myths or anything. Like, the closest we have, obviously, is like. Stuff you can kind of imagine based on Artemis, but it's it's certainly never explicit.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, basically, all of this is kind of like really framed around male pleasure. Like, you know, one of the kind of things that people draw most often with Artemis is her encounter with Callisto, right? And, you know, Jupiter or Zeus disguises himself as Artemis in order to assault Callisto. Because that's the only way he could get close is by pretending to be Artemis. And so you can like draw from that, oh, well, then it would make sense if Artemis and Callisto would potentially sometimes have like sex or have they were in some form of like relationship.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  There was some attraction because that is how Zeus, Jupiter had to disguise himself. But even that is framed through male pleasure. Like, it's a it's an awful scene because of what we know is happening. Like, it's obviously like incredibly tragic, but that's how people might like get that kind of like infer those things about the character of Artemis. Yeah, even one of the places where you kind of see depictions of what might be uh women like having sex with each other,

• 57:42Speaker 01

  double-ended dildos, things like that is on these this like pottery that was normally used in symposiums. But again, like these kind of like banquets between men where men are drunk and then have these like, oh, look at these women like having sex with each other. It's then like not really about women. It's all again like viewed through the lens of men like, oh, this is like what, you know, they might have then found attractive to have seen. So, yeah, like you said, it's I think it's all to do with like where are the sources coming from? We don't actually hear apart from people like Sappho. And, you know, we know there were other people uh like Nosis, another like female poet

• 58:25Speaker 01

  who said to kind of have done the same thing, but mainly like Sappho is kind of the big one.

• 58:30Liv Albert?

  And even still, people debate her. They debate whether or not she actually was like writing for somebody else about a woman or if she actually loved him. It's like, oh, my god.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Oh, was she imagining? How would I feel if I was a man? Like, is that? Just literally trying to write out any, any kind of like same-sex attraction, anything.

• 58:50Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Um, but, yeah, ridiculous. Um, the only other kind of thing that we do have is people like Juvenal that I mentioned before, uh, talking quite negatively about like certain women that he thought were like too masculine and are they'll even like have sex with other women. Yeah. So he like talks quite negatively about, you know, like the tri-bass, which like in Latin, like comes from like the word to rub. And this idea of like these women that are like, oh, they're so like awful. They're even like having sex with other women now and they like look so ugly and they look so manly. And again,

• 59:34Speaker 01

  like this is all coming from like a very, very male view who is like, oh, are these women going to be threats to me? These women aren't acting like women normally should.

• 59:45Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's very limited.

• 59:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:51Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting. It all, yeah, like it's, I mean, people ask me about those stories all the time. Like, why don't you talk about the stories between women? And I'm like, it's not my fault. Like, I would love to.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:02Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I promise I would. Like, it is entirely, I mean, it's all about like what it comes down to with like most of my podcasts, which is like, it's all about the patriarchy.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09Liv Albert?

  But like,

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 1:00:11Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I mean, there's a reason that we have the sources that we have and it's not because that like, you know, it's not because women weren't writing stuff down or women weren't telling stories or women weren't having these experiences. It's just that they don't survive for us today because of all the men who stood in their way.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah. But it's like the further we only have like, you know, we have so few of Sappho's poems left, even though we know there were tons out there. But, you know, the men came in and they burnt them all and now we don't.

• 1:00:41Liv Albert?

  Yeah, and even the ones we do have are like a fluke.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:44Liv Albert?

  It's like, they're all like, we found this piece on like another thing, like.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:00:49Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah, it's utterly fascinating. I also feel like I am just always required now to think about the time that I released an entire episode on Sappho and the island of Lesbos and then had somebody on Twitter tell me that I was using a slur.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:01:08Liv Albert?

  Did you miss that?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  I missed that.

• 1:01:11Liv Albert?

  I, yes, it was a couple of years ago and I did this entire episode dedicated to Sappho and the episode title was called, the like lesbian from Lesbos was like in the title.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22Liv Albert?

  And I got a DM from somebody on Instagram and they're, I don't know what their username was or whether it indicated anything about them, but like, I just remember really specifically that their image was a picture of Taylor Swift. And I think it just says a lot.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:37Liv Albert?

  Basically, they DM'd me and they were like, I was scrolling, I found your podcast and I was scrolling through the titles. And that's key. They didn't say they were listening.

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:48Liv Albert?

  They were scrolling through the titles and they were like, and I saw that you used the word lesbos. And I was, and they're like, and I just want you to know that that's a slur and you should take it down and never use it again. And then they were like, if you're a lesbian, then I'm okay with it. But if you're not, then I'm not okay with it. And I just, I like, I mean, it was the funniest message I've ever gotten and I like replied to them and I was like, that is the wildest thing I've ever read. Like, the episode is about the origin of the word lesbian, like you need to get a grip.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Liv Albert?

  It's an island. That's literally where the, I was like, I talk, I told you the history of the first official lesbian and you're mad at me.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Liv Albert?

  Cause I used the name of an island.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  You read the titles of the podcast, like.

• 1:02:40Liv Albert?

  Exactly. You didn't listen. I can tell you that. Anyway, the funny part was that I tweeted just a screenshot of like the DM and some, my caption was something like, this is the wildest thing I've ever read. I was talking about Sappho.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:54Liv Albert?

  And it was like my most viral tweet ever. And also the number of people who like still got mad at me or then I had the people who were like, it's pronounced Les Vos. And I was like, I know it is in modern Greek. It's fine. Like just, let's not, that's not the point. Like, that's not the purpose of what's happening. Anyway. It was an incredible experience and I think about it every single time that I think about Sappho now.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:13Liv Albert?

  It's the funniest thing that's ever happened. But then they're actually really nice and they replied like, oh, thank you for teaching me. And I was like, maybe like, maybe you should have just like even clicked to the description, which literally says, this episode is about Sappho, the origin of the word lesbian from the island of Lesbos. Like, I made it really clear.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, thank you for teaching me. Interestingly, what a podcast can actually do if you actually press play and you actually listen, is it could actually teach you just itself.

• 1:03:37Liv Albert?

  Or like, literally Google one single thing before you think I'm using a slur.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:42Liv Albert?

  One, and then of course I had a lot of lesbians in my comments being like, I don't think that's a slur. Is that a slur?

• 1:03:49Liv Albert?

  It was generally a great experience. Um, anyway, how we got there talking about Sappho, but it is, yeah, it's so fascinating. This kind of like complete lack of, of women's stories. And yeah, I mean, I think my like, sort of happier way of seeing it is just the idea that they were all have been really sexually satisfied with each other at all times. But because they weren't necessarily using traditional modes of penetration, the men just like, didn't see it as sex and it never got written down. Or if it did, it just got lost because of, you know, Christian monks later.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, absolutely.

• 1:04:29Liv Albert?

  Okay. I mean, God's topics, everything exists. But I do want to hear more about like what you, because you talked a little bit about Harry Styles' Dionysus last time, like, tell me what you've kind of studied when it comes to Lil Nas X and like queerness in classics and whatever. Yeah.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Oh, so I'm just absolutely, I'm just obsessed with Lil Nas X at the moment. I'll be in that top 0.1%. Whatever. Um, but yeah, so Lil Nas X, it's specifically his music video. I don't know if you've watched the Montero Call Me By Your Name music video.

• 1:05:04Liv Albert?

  I did back when it came out. Yeah, but it's been a while.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  So this music video, unbelievably amazing, as everything that Lil Nas X does is, that it basically.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  The video itself is like, has a lot of ties with the ancient world with antiquity. And it kind of like really emphasizes that at one point, you see this inscription on a tree, which is from Plato's Symposium. And I don't know if you've covered Plato's Symposium in.

• 1:05:37Liv Albert?

  I did really early on, and I think I did like a really now I look back and I'm like, that was not a very good job. There's so much more to say. So actually, it's funny you say that because I I'm going to cover it again in better detail. Around the same month, this is coming out. So maybe.

• 1:05:50Speaker 01

  Perfect.

• 1:05:50Liv Albert?

  So yeah, maybe this will line up really well. Yeah.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Um, well, yeah, so it's specifically referring to this part where Plato has this character Aristophanes say, oh, um. Humans originally were like made of two, two parts. And then they were, they were either like male, male, male, female, or female, female. And then Zeus feared their power, split them down the middle, and now we all search for our original half. And that's like where soulmates, where our soulmates are, that's how, why we have soulmates. But it's also kind of like this early explanation of that's why some men are attracted to other men. That's why some women are attracted to other women. And that's why some men are attracted to women, some women are attracted to men.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  So it's kind of like this really early, like explanation mythology behind why soulmates exist. The them and why people are attracted to different people. So yeah, there's this quote in ancient Greek written on a tree and it's referencing that.

• 1:06:58Liv Albert?

  It's like a deep cut too. Like there's a really, really specific type of person who is going to get that.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's not even like it's like written in English, but like it's actually in.

• 1:07:10Liv Albert?

  Get it.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Ancient Greek. No, I literally paused it, got out my like ancient Greek dictionary. And was like trying to um piece enough together that I could be like, oh, Plato's Symposium, okay.

• 1:07:22Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's it's a very niche reference and then right at the end of the video. This uh scene where he gives a lap dance to the devil. If you can tear your eyes away from the spectacle, you can see that there's this Latin inscription. In front, which says, again, it's in Latin, but the translation is they condemn what they do not understand. So like super meaningful, absolutely amazing, but yeah, so you have right at the start, right at the end. These ancient Greek and Latin texts that kind of just emphasize.

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  The connection with antiquity and the ancient world and. Yeah, you get this from the start. You go through a kind of ruined landscape where there's this broken down like Doric temple and. Uh Doric temple is this style of temple that in ancient Rome particularly becomes like associated with masculinity.

• 1:08:28Liv Albert?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  Just for it, just like straight blocky and they're like, okay, so that's male.

• 1:08:34Liv Albert?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  And then the curvy one is female. Um because everything has to be male or female, yeah. Um but yeah, so it becomes associated with masculinity and as well you have these like this broken down like aqueduct. Which again in kind of like Roman thought in the kind of politics of. Their um expanding their empire and conquering. They were like, okay, we'll bring build these viaducts, transport water to where it was dry before. And in that way, we have like conquered nature and we are. Like above nature and so then.

• 1:09:14Speaker 01

  Lil Nas X comes in and these symbols of masculinity and like conquest and power are all like crumbling and decaying. It's kind of like this early idea of what the music video is gonna be and like this is gonna be this kind of disruption of traditional masculinity and power. And he just like moves on through to this like scene where he's seated looking very femme. He's got like long pink hair, he's got long hair, pink guitar, and then there's this big like snake coming out from behind. And immediately that's kind of like

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  biblical, Eve, serpent, temptation kind of thing. But also like Apollo is often associated in antiquity with the snake. And then it starts like chasing Lil Nas X and he's running past this like figure made of stone like this kind of half into a tree, which is like to me, very symbolic of like Daphne, who, you know, Apollo was turned into this tree to try and escape Apollo. And faces emerge from these purple flowers that look like hyacinths. And essentially, this is all kind of linked in. You have this like predator chasing, which

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  I would argue Apollo pretty much always characterized as a predator. Just an awful shitty god, like the worst.

• 1:10:44Liv Albert?

  Truly.

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  Just truly awful.

• 1:10:48Liv Albert?

  Poseidon is sometimes, well, I I stand by Poseidon as the absolute worst of the Olympians, but Apollo is really up there.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  Close second. The Theseus of the gods, if you will.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And yeah, and then you see Lil Nas X, he goes down into this kind of amphitheater and he's in this chained, like chained up. He's got this kind of like faux fur, pink, like kind of cape across him that looks to me very kind of Hercules-esque. Even the hold which the chains are on is like in. Weightlifting is like the Hercules kind of like hold.

• 1:11:32Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I think it's in an old movie. I remember seeing people talking about it when that video came out.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Liv Albert?

  It's like, yeah, in an old movie about Hercules. He's like specifically standing just like that.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  Exactly. And Hercules is so seen as this kind of like, especially now we kind of look at him as this kind of like heroic ideal. But he's also in like ancient texts, there's a lot to do with him kind of like subverting gender norms, like in one of his, you know, in one of his labors, he like famously goes to the queen of the Amazons and has to wear her clothes and act like a woman. And while she wears his, and then he has this lover Hyllus, which obviously ends tragically as all of these stories do. But so, yeah, so he is.

• 1:12:17Liv Albert?

  Hyllus is taken by women. That feels like.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:20Liv Albert?

  Kind of means something too. That's interesting. Sorry, that just occurred to me.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  No, definitely. Yeah, no, I definitely think there's something there. And my favorite kind of aspect of the video is where you see Leon Azex go from his kind of like chained Hercules, Heracles, however you want to call him. Um, he tries to go up to ascend to the heavens and he's like cut down. Has the very famous like pole dance scene where he's like spiraling down, amazing, down into hell. And it forms what we know in ancient stories as the Catabasus, or the kind of descent into the underworld. And we see it in like all of these stories of heroes, you know, Aeneas, Odysseus, like Heracles.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, all of these characters have, I don't actually know where the Heracles does.

• 1:13:13Liv Albert?

  I don't, I think, I don't think Theseus definitely does.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  Theseus definitely does, but, okay, so.

• 1:13:18Liv Albert?

  He does it badly.

• 1:13:19Speaker 01

  In the leagues of heroes like.

• 1:13:21Liv Albert?

  Although, of course, Heracles does, because he goes and gets Cerberus.

• 1:13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. Okay, just doubted myself, but no.

• 1:13:27Liv Albert?

  No, so did I immediately.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  I don't remember that in the Disney movie, but no, you did that, actually. In the Disney movie as well.

• 1:13:36Liv Albert?

  He really does it in the Disney movie. Yeah, even more.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, so, yeah, so effectively like kind of places Lil Nas X in the ranks of these heroes. And all of their kind of descents into the underworld form this massive part, part of their like narrative arc. And I think that's especially important with when we look at, okay, how is classics used now? And disappointingly, a lot of the time that we see classics used in like kind of modern politics and culture is it's been really latched on to by white supremacists, right? Who see the ancient world as like that they are the inheritors of ancient Greece and ancient Rome. And they see this as this kind of like

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  idealized white society, which it absolutely categorically wasn't like they are hundred percent wrong. But they they see this and like it's when you see they're like them with their like molon labe placards. And it's like all of this kind of like referencing to the ancient world, which by honest side note, the stupidest thing. Like, why are you referencing ancient Sparta? Like Persia did beat them.

• 1:14:50Liv Albert?

  Thank you. I say this all the time because molon labe means come and take them and it's like Persia did.

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  Persia did.

• 1:14:58Liv Albert?

  They took them.

• 1:14:59Speaker 01

  They took them. I mean, I don't think any of these people with the placards are particularly keen on, you know, actual facts here. I think we can

• 1:15:08Liv Albert?

  No, indeed.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  agree that they are ridiculous and anyway, yeah, that always gets me.

• 1:15:15Liv Albert?

  Yeah, I'm the same.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  But yeah, so and especially um Hercules or Heracles, he's often like his white supremacist website is like really, really love him, really love all these heroes. So I think it is like massive and so important and incredible to see this like black artist, this black man who has been raised to the ranks of a hero, like a hero alongside Odysseus, Aeneas, like all of these ancient heroic figures. He's been raised alongside them and he completes his heroic narrative. So he fights the devil. And gives him this lap dance, amazing, then like kills him, takes his crown,

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  and then gets the wings that he would have needed at the start to ascend to heaven. So he's completely like completed this heroic narrative, this Catabasus, and has brought himself into the ranks of like the Homeric hero, the ancient hero. And I think it's this like beautiful kind of reclaiming of antiquity from the hands of white supremacists who hold up these heroes, these kind of like pillars of like what they think is this like great,

• 1:16:34Speaker 01

  like white heterosexual, toxic masculine ideal. And then Lil Nas X comes in with this like beautiful performance of like femininity, black excellence, black beauty, like comes in with all of this and then puts himself alongside these heroes. I think it's unbelievable. It's so powerful, works on so many levels. And it just really challenges this toxic heteronormative white idea of what a man should be. And I think it's, it's just beautiful. It's amazingly done.

• 1:17:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it challenges that and it so explicitly challenges those, those, everything that you're just talking about. This like white hetero narrative when it comes to ancient Greece and, and like especially when it comes to like, or ancient Greece and Rome, I should say, but when it comes to like classics broadly too, like there's all these really, and I don't know enough about it, and so I won't pretend like I do, but I know that like there's a real distinct lack of, of specifically black people and broadly, more broadly, people of color who are like studying the ancient world and, and not for any lack of interest, I imagine, but more like all of the different systemic reasons.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:49Liv Albert?

  Um, a- and so like it's kind of, it's nice on that level too of, of having that like, yeah, a, a black man putting himself in the classical world, which is like absolutely, he would have had a place there. But like, the modern world sees that he doesn't.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  Um, yeah.

• 1:18:04Liv Albert?

  And so, yeah, that's so lovely. Also, it sounds like an amazing video and I'm gonna watch it again.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. You should. I, so I presented uh, on this, at this, um, the annual meeting of postgraduates, um, in ancient history in Malta. And I Presented on this and so I had to watch the video. I would say I've contributed at least a thousand of the views that are on there. I was going frame by frame and I still love it and it's still like just as amazing to me as it was.

• 1:18:37Liv Albert?

  That's wonderful.

• 1:18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, but yeah, I think it's incredible and also very needed because like. I was trying to think, I can't remember what her account name is. I feel like on Twitter, it's maybe like artist fully or something.

• 1:18:56Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah, Brittany.

• 1:18:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, Brittany, right. Who does the and we've just seen again, she did like an amazing depiction of Athena. Who happened to be black and has got a massive amount of racist backlash over it. And it just shows that like. How important it is to reclaim. Classics back from this disgusting white supremacist narrative that has come along. Um, and yeah, and it's. You can see as well, because like we had the Lil Nas X video and then I think it was just like. Months later, it wasn't a long time later than Lizzo. Did her rumors video and again, that drew really heavily from antiquity.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  And so I think we're seeing this really like beautiful pattern of like. Black artists like reclaiming this. Culture that has been used against them in a lot of ways and you know. People used ancient history to justify all sorts of like awful things, slavery, racism. It's been used in so many, exactly.

• 1:20:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  In so many ways against black people, against people of color more broadly. Against so many people. And so I think that it is. Powerful and amazing and so valuable and needed to see. This kind of reclamation that we're seeing at the moment.

• 1:20:21Liv Albert?

  Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, it's it's really wonderful to watch.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:20:26Liv Albert?

  Um, and I think that that more like positive note, because I had another thing to add, but we're gonna end it on the positive note. That's absolutely fascinating and I just love it and I loved hearing about. I also love how in detail you can describe that music video. Just like, I'm assuming.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could do frame by frame from memory. Yeah, at this point, yeah.

• 1:20:46Liv Albert?

  Yeah, very.

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  I close my eyes at night and I just see it.

• 1:20:51Liv Albert?

  Not so bad. That seems like the fine way to live. Well, do you, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much. Do you want to tell my listeners, oh God, yeah, I'm so happy to have you back. I'm so glad you asked. Do you want to tell my listeners where they can like read more from you or follow for whatever you want? Or just literally anything and everything?

• 1:21:09Speaker 01

  Yes, so I am most active on Twitter, which my Twitter is just queer classicist. But then also I have a website, thequeerclassicist.com, which has taken a backseat in the last few months because I've had a lot of conferences and papers that I've been writing. But it is, everything that I've needed to do has now been done. And so it's now the front of my attention. And so there will be like more coming up there. But everything is shared on Twitter. Twitter is the place I spend way too much of my time.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  And so everything new that I'm doing goes on Twitter first. So yeah, I'd say that's the best way to find out more. Yeah.

• 1:21:55Liv Albert?

  Great. And I will link to everything in the episode's description too, so everyone can click and find it easily.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:22:01Liv Albert?

  Thank you for doing this. This was so much fun and so fascinating. And it's so lovely to talk to you about all these wild and so entertaining and important topics.

• 1:22:09Speaker 01

  Yes, it's been so lovely talking to you too. It's been great. Won't leave it, won't leave it two years before our next chat.

• 1:22:18Liv Albert?

  Exactly. Good.

• 1:22:35Liv Albert?

  Oh, how fun. I love talking to Yentl again. We talked about Rhodes because I'm going to Rhodes. I think I put that off mic, but I'm so excited and now it's all I can think about. And gods, I just love learning the intricacies of these, just these more specifically academic ways of approaching the subject. It's interesting, even if it isn't necessarily how I go about it on the podcast. It's so valuable anyway for me to know, for me to share. Plus gods, listening to Yentl describe basically every second of that Lil Nuts X video. Madness, incredible. I was enthralled, like so fucking fun, all of it. So as always, a huge thank you to Yentl for joining me and make sure to follow her on Twitter or check out her Queer Classicist website for more. I have linked to both as always.

• 1:23:20Liv Albert?

  Last time she and I talked about a Dionysian Harry Styles too, and this time Lil Nas X and Queer Theory. Honestly, you get it all. And if you haven't listened to that last episode with her, oh my god, please check it out because Harry Styles is Dionysus. Gods, did I make a, I made a real admission off mic when it comes to Harry Styles too. I have listened to a lot in the past year. Let's Talk About Myths, Baby is written and produced by me, Liv Albert. Michaela Smith is the Hermes to my Olympians. Honestly, Michaela does so many things. She edited this episode. She's been editing so many conversation episodes so that I don't lose my mind and I love her to the ends of the earth for it. Stephanie Foley works to transcribe the podcast for YouTube captions and accessibility.

• 1:24:04Liv Albert?

  The podcast is hosted and monetized by iHeart Media. Help me continue bringing you the world of Greek mythology and the ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron. Well, you'll get bonus episodes and more. Just visit patreon.com or click the link in this episode's description. I am Liv and gods do I love this shit.

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