When I was a kid I was obsessed with Greek mythology. By the time I was 13, I’d read every book in the school library on the subject, and every book in the town library to which children had access. Then I moved on to Norse myth, then to fairy tales. But Greek myth was my first love and remained my favorite. Perhaps it is too obvious to say that this had a strong influence on my religious life.
There’s a significant amount of sexuality in Greek myth. Even in the sanitized versions available for children, it’s pretty clear that Apollo isn’t chasing Daphne in order to yank her hair ribbons. I don’t think this damaged me. I could be wrong. It could be that I’d have led a chaste and Disneyesque life without the influence of Greek myth. But I think not.
Learning is its own good. Learning about the world, about the range of thought, art, culture, and lifestyles (gasp) of human beings; in other words, learning about (gasp gasp) diversity, gives kids options. I’m sure I would have ended up Pagan without the influence of Artemis, Aphrodite, and Their cronies, but I’d have been without a model, and without a vocabulary.
So it’s more than interesting to me that the Greek gods I read about as a child were entirely heterosexual. I’m currently reading a terrific book called Myths and Mysteries of Same Sex Love by Christine Downing. It’s a dense book that discusses Freud and Jung at length, and raises interesting alternative views of their respective takes on homosexuality. Then she tackles Greek culture and Greek myth. In particular, she devotes a lot of attention to Ganymede, beloved of Zeus, and Hyacinthus, adored by Apollo.
You’re not surprised, I trust, to hear I never heard of either of these homosexual loves in my school days; their tales were excised from every version of Greek mythology I could find.
I wonder how much of a difference it could make. I wonder, if you changed nothing of the way the world is, of its prejudices and problems, but simply let kids hear stories, if that wouldn’t, in some ways, change everything.
