And ultra-androgynes remain—to a large extent—in that pre-puberty period down to thirty-five. Their development has been arrested. Full-fledged male associates absolutely ignorant of the existence of androgynism have described—in the author’s hearing—androgynes even close to fifty years old as “still mere boys.”
But an adolescent androgyne or boy god was also worshipped by the Semite nations (other than the Jews) under the name Ablu, and by the Celts under the name Maponus.
Philologists will recognize that “Apollo,” “Ablu,” “Maponus,” and “boy” are descended from the same vocable in the language used by the Asiatic tribe from which most of the civilized nations of the ancient and modern world derive. B is only a strengthened p; the liquid l has often been transmuted into the kindred n; and the diphthong oy indicates the elision of a liquid. We have here etymological evidence that an adolescent-androgyne deity was worshipped before the dawn of history.
To-day, among some primitive races, as the aborigines of America, androgynes are the central feature of the most sacred rites.
Hermaphroditos and Ganymede.
Hermaphroditos stands second among androgyne gods. The myth is that “he-she” was originally a full-fledged human adolescent and an entirely separate nymph in the full flower of feminine charm. The nymph, falling in love, besought Zeus that the adolescent and herself might be forever amalgamated. Excepting the pudenda, the body remained that of the nymph. The psyche became a compound of the masculine and the feminine. This myth was a poetic recognition of the existence, at the very dawn of history, of androgynes such as exist to-day.
A picture or statue of Hermaphroditos adorned nearly every Greek and Roman home of the better class. This was because the ancients held the androgyne in honor as the super-human—man and woman in one individual.
Ganymede ranks third.[[10]] Originally a human adolescent of extraordinary feminesque beauty, Zeus snatched him up into the heavenly zone and conferred immortality that the feminesque youth might be his cup-bearer. The latter’s statues represent him with a mademoiselle’s chevelure, hips, and legs, but with male breasts and pudenda. The fact that the father-god of the classic world entered into this most intimate |Socrates.| union partly explains why the androgyne was held in honor by the Greeks and Romans.
Socrates is the earliest historic character whom sexologists have declared an androgyne. For centuries, a common designation of male homosexuality has been “Socratic love.” In Plato’s “Dialogues,” Socrates is the teacher. His remarks of extreme affection to his youthful disciples are sickening even to me, though an androgyne myself. Present-day scholars who close their eyes to the facts of androgynism, who cling to mediæval sex ideas, and hence hold homosexuality to result from deep-eyed moral depravity, have denounced Socrates as the greatest moral leper that ever lived. But from Socrates’ own generation down through the nineteenth century, he was universally recognized as the greatest saint of the classic world.
That Socrates was a married man and father and wore a beard does not disprove the sexologists’ claim. The mildly androgynous—psychic hermaphrodites, like Oscar Wilde—occasionally marry and procreate; chiefly for social reasons, not from the sexual incentive. Secondly, the razor was practically unknown in Socrates’ generation. Even to-day, some of the less extreme androgynes wear a full beard because of horror of a razor.