Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

PERVERSIONS OF GREEK SEXUAL LIFE

be that he himself takes pleasure in expected sexual excitement of the spectator, or only wishes to satisfy his inordinate vanity in the possession of so beautiful a woman.

2. ‘"[TRANSVESTITISMUS

For those who find sexual excitement or satisfaction in showing themselves in the dress of another sex, the term “‘ Transvestites’? has been invented. This perversion, which finally goes back to the embryonal-androgynous nature of every human being, was not foreign to the Greeks, although we hear comparatively little of it in our authorities. I have already frequently mentioned “‘ transvestitic ” usages in religious cult. At the festival Cotyttia in Athens, which was held in honour of Cotys or Cotytto, the goddess of sensuality, dance performances took place by men in women’s clothes, in which the ceremonies, which certainly at first only referred symbolically to the sexual, gradually passed into orgies, so that, according to Synesius (Calvitii Encomium, 856)“ one who participates in the orgies of Cotys was identical with a cinzedus””. Male sexual excitement seems to have been increased by wearing a wig in imitation of a woman’s hair in addition to assuming feminine garb. The Italian festivals of Cotys, mentioned by Horace (Epod., 17, 56) were specially infamous, but appear to have been only female orgies.

An epigram of Asclepiades (Anth. Pal., xii, 161) speaks of a beautiful girl named Dorcion (little fawn) who was fond of dressing up as a boy, and so “ with the chlamys clearly revealing her naked thigh, to flash the fire of love from her eyes”.

Ctesias related that Amarus, the governor of Babylon, was fond of appearing in a female dress and ornaments, and that, while he was so attired, 150 female singers and dancers enhanced the joys of the table (Athenzeus, xii, 530).

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