Borderline Virginities by Undheim Sissel;

Author:Undheim, Sissel;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge

Hippolytus

Hippolytus, the devoted follower of the virgin goddess Artemis, is probably the closest we may come to a male virgin in classical Antiquity. The son of an Amazon warrior and the mythic hero-king Theseus, Hippolytus’ tragic story of an attempted seduction staged by his stepmother, Phaedra, was retold by a number of classical authors.41 Servius describes Hippolytus as chaste (castus), and writes that it was because of this chastity that the goddess Artemis/Diana rewarded Hippolytus with a shrine and a cult in Aricia under the name of Virbius.42

In Euripides’ dramatic version of the story from the fifth century BC, Hippolytus is presented as avoiding women and cherishing sophrosyne.43 When his father, Theseus, accuses him of having sexually assaulted his stepmother, Hippolytus declares his complete ignorance when it comes to the sexual act:

By one thing I am untouched, the very thing in which you think you have convicted me: to this very moment my body is untainted (hagnon)44 by love. I do not know this act save by report or seeing it in painting.45

To further emphasize his complete lack of interest in sex, Hippolytus states that he has no desire even to see images of the act, “since I have a virgin soul.”46 Hippolytus’ virginity then, is located in his soul, psyche, rather than in a part of his body or as a term applied to describe Hippolytus himself. By claiming a virgin psyche, Euripides’ Hippolytus enhances his claim of indifference towards sex, but, more interestingly, the virgin soul also avoids the problems entailed by making the audience envision a male virgin as such, at the same time as the statement brings attention to the traditionally gendered division.47 Hippolytus has already come across as an uncharacteristic male, not only in his devotion to Artemis but also by his devotion to the goddess’ (for him) paradigmatic virginity.48 It is exactly this unnatural and unmanly disinterest in love and sexuality that in the play is punished by Aphrodite, as Hippolytus’ anomalous desire to be virginal disrupts her schemes and insults the goddess of love by rejecting her.

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