Happy PRIDE month everybody!
That wonderful time of year where we appreciate the sparkling kaleidoscope of human variation that makes life so interesting.
And despite what some rhetoric would suggest,
most of that variation was not first invented in the 60s, the 80s, the 2000s, or the first time you heard someone use the term in public.
All throughout human history and all over the world,
people have been people for as long as that's been a meaningful concept.
So today, let's take a quick look at an assortment of myths, legends, and stories highlighting some of that majestic rainbow of experience on the global stage.
Let's start in the early aughts BCE in the Han dynasty of China.
The story goes that Emperor Ai was taking a nap with his fellow politician and also super definitely boyfriend Dong Xian.
Emperor Ai wakes up to find Dong Xian still sleeping like a baby resting his head on Emperor Ai's extremely shiny and extremely expensive imperial sleeve.
Rather than waking him up to move it, Emperor Ai opts to cut the sleeve off and leave his nap undisturbed.
This was such an iconic display that apparently Emperor Ai's courtiers cut off their own sleeves as tribute to their relationship,
and the cut sleeve became a euphemism for gayness overall.
You ever do something so sweet and so gay that people are still talking about it two thousand years later?
Meanwhile over in Hawaii, Hiʻiaka, goddess of hula dancing, medicine, and sorcery
is spending her days on the beach with Hopoe, a dancer she's very close to.
They share a relationship sometimes called aikāne,
which is a term that technically means a close sexual relationship between men.
So how does that apply to these ladies?
Well judging by the number of bosom friends, gal pals, besties, and chums in the modern translation,
I think we can safely conclude they were married.
But all is not well on the island as Pele summons Hi'iaka and sends her on a quest to find her immortal husband.
In turn, Hi'iaka makes Pele swear an oath to protect her grove and her girlfriend.
Pele agrees, but quickly becomes impatient, and as Hi'iaka struggles through her epic quest,
Pele's temper flares, and she begins chucking lava,
destroying the island, burning the grove, and finally,
turning Hopoe into stone.
Super not cool, Pele.
I can't believe you contribute to the bury your gays trope like that.
Meanwhile in Ancient Greece, (buckle in your seatbelts, folks) we hit two opposing ends of the spectrum with Apollo and Athena.
The only thing more extensive than Apollo's list of male lovers is his list of female lovers,
and despite the stereotypes, most of those relationships don't actually end in tragedy.
While a handful of his mortal lovers do turn into plants,
most of them end up working out pretty well, receiving gifts of prophecy, immortality, godhood, all that jazz.
In fact, during a year he spent in exile as punishment for killing a monster he wasn't supposed to,
Apollo worked as a herdsman to King Admetus,
and according to Ovid was so absolutely smitten with him
that he wildly embarrassed the other Olympians by doting on the king like crazy.
He also later helps Admetus win a lady's hand in marriage through a chariot race,
which combined with Poseidon doing the exact same thing for Pelops,
suggests that this was something of a classic divine boyfriend/wingman move.
And then there's Athena noted as one of only three beings who Aphrodite holds no power over,
the other two being Artemis and Hestia.
And while Artemis hanging out with her huntresses and foreswearing forever the company of men can be interpreted a few different ways,
Athena is pretty explicit.
In the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite, the singer goes out of their way to specify that
Athena has no time for Aphrodite's shenanigans and instead of dealing with any kind of romantic
shenaniganory, prefers to spend her time on the art of war, as well as the art of art in general.
This trait of hers is so iconic and universally recognized that it contributes to her most famous epithet:
Athena Parthenos, the virgin Athena.
AKA what the Parthenon is named after.
Personally, I think her Promachos epithet is cooler.
It means she who fights on the front lines - except in the battlefield of love.
Meanwhile in Japan, let me introduce you to Inari,
a very important Shinto deity of fertility, agriculture, prosperity, rice, tea, and like a bunch of other important stuff.
Inari is a fox deity, but unlike your garden variety kitsune, they are more than just a trickster spirit.
A full thirty percent of the shrines in Japan are dedicated to Inari, so suffice to say, they are a serious big deal.
Now sometimes they appear as a bearded old man riding a fox,
sometimes as a young woman carrying sheaves of rice
sometimes an androgynous Bodhisattva,
and those are just the times they look like a human as opposed to dragon or giant spider.
The general consensus is that Inari has no said gender and appears however they like.
But unlike many shapeshifters, they don't tend to play pranks and mostly help people in trouble.
Like the swordsmith Munechika, who is ordered by Emperor Ichigo to forge him a sword.
He can't do it without a smithing partner of equal skill,
so he goes to Inari's shrine to pray for help where he meets a mysterious young boy,
who tells him about the cool legendary swords of the past and promises to help him forge the sword.
Surprise surprise,
the boy is actually Inari and with their help, Munichika forges the blade Kogitsune-maru, little fox.
Nice.
Speaking of foxes, Japan also has the folktale of Tamamizu,
a kitsune who's just minding their own business when they spot a young woman and fall instantly in love.
The kitsune considers turning into a handsome young man and wooing her
but decides it wouldn't be good for her to marry a fox spirit.
So instead they turn into a young woman of a similar age.
She calls herself Tamamizu and gets herself adopted by a nice family,
but her family notices she's pining a bit and asks if there's a special someone out there,
but Tamamizu says she couldn't possibly get married with her low status,
but she sure wouldn't mind being a handmaid to some beautiful rich girl, hint hint.
So Tamamizu gets set up as the handmaid to the girl she likes,
and they spend several years together,
with Tamamizu occasionally dipping out for a secret fox-based adventure.
But despite her happy and comfortable life, Tamamizu is still yearning something awful
and her poems are all sad.
Then one day the young woman enters a competition to find the most beautiful autumn leaf,
and with the help of her fox siblings, Tamamizu scours the mountain
and finds her a beautiful five color leaf that coincidentally has the entire lotus sutra printed on it.
Obviously, she wins the competition and the emperor himself catches wind of this gorgeous leaf and awards the girl's family tons of status and land.
And eventually, he proposes to her.
Tamamizu is of course fully supportive as their relationship advances,
but she's kinda dying on the inside and ends up deciding to sneak away
so her mistress can be truly happy with the emperor.
She leaves her a sealed box with a letter in it,
tells her that in these uncertain times anything could happen,
and to open the box if she ever disappears,
and then disappears.
Whereupon the girl learns the truth about her companion and the tragic tale of Tamamizu.
But we've got enough tragic tales of unrequited love.
Let's hop over to Mesoamerica and get a look at Xochipilli, the prince of flowers.
A much-beloved god of summertime, partying, pleasure, creativity, and alcohol.
How timely.
Despite being possibly married to the alcohol goddess Mayahuel
(and the only evidence for this, by the way, seems to be that they are seated near each other on a page of the Aztec codex.
Looks like the shippers are at it again.),
Xochipilli was the patron god of male homosexuality and temple prostitution.
He also had a twin sister/female counterpart, Xochiquetzal,
patron goddess of women and female prostitution,
along with all the flowers and partying and art stuff.
Xochipilli was probably a holdover from the Toltec civilization,
which apparently had a reputation among the other Mesoamerican civilizations for being rather more on board with that stuff than most.
Even before the Spaniards showed up the Aztecs and Inca had some pretty harsh laws about no bone zoning,
but Xochipilli was a-okay with all that jazz.
At least we think that's how it played out.
Pre-colonial Mesoamerican religion can be pretty tricky to research,
what with all the conquering and reconquering going on down there,
there's kind of a lack of sources where a society describes itself in its own terms.
The Aztecs seemed to have thought of Xochipilli as something of a personification of male weakness,
an embodiment of everything wrong with the Toltecs that allowed the Aztecs to conquer them.
And then the Spaniards showed up,
stomped all over everything,
and wrote about the Aztecs the exact same way.
So all things considered,
let's just be happy that Xochipilli's positive vibe somehow survived two bloody conquests and five hundred years of colonization.
Peace and love, baby.
Now that's what I call flower power.
Now there's loads more we could cover,
but to keep the whirlwind world tour nice and concise,
let's cap it here.
Have a great pride month and enjoy all the rainbows.
*Red singing 'True Colors' by Cindy Lauper*