A Love Letter to Greek Femboys
Cranberry Milk 10
I
When a man is in love with a man
Can I make a confession? I’m currently a Greek Mythology bitch. I have abandoned the chains of Judaismm and am now a disciple of Aphrodite. Not in a Percy Jackson way (I would NEVER wear orange), but in a classic-Greek-myths-and-their-modern-retellings kind of way. I’ve half-heartedly masturbated to Lore Olympus far more times than I’d like to admit (I’m a Minthe apologist if anyone was wondering), and I’ve been voraciously tearing up every piece of Ancient Greek media I’ve come across: The Odyssey, Medea, To Aphrodite. I’m fascinated by the ties between them. The characters that show up in multiple stories, tying them all together until you begin to recognize names and faces and invisible strings building a web of connections. It’s like the MCU for women! But without the exploitation of SFX Artists.
Clytemnestra by Costanza Casati was the book that stole my heart this past summer, and it pulled me into a genre I’d been tacitly aware of but hadn’t yet mustered up the courage to delve into: Feminist retellings of stories from Greek antiquity. Think Circe by Madeline Miller, The Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes, the entire bibliography of Jennifer Saint. And then there was the book that started it all. The Song of Achilles, also by Miller. I read it a few weeks ago, over fall break, and I was completely captivated.
For the uninitiated, The Song of Achilles is a YA romance/adventure novel that focuses on the relationship between Achilles (oh he of the delicate heels!) and his male lover Patroclus (random dude lol). When Miller wrote this, she saw herself as righting a wrong of history, revealing the truth between them, despite mockery to the very idea of Achilles’ queerness.
...Patroclus is such an underdog. Giving him voice felt a little like standing up for him, like some kind of Lorax of ancient Greek mythology. I had been intensely frustrated by a number of articles I had read that kept sidestepping the love between him and Achilles, which to me felt so obviously at the story’s heart. There was even one article – I’ve repressed who wrote it – that kept commenting that Achilles’ grief and anger at Patroclus’ death was out of character, and they couldn’t understand why he was so upset. So partially I was propelled by a desire to set the record straight, as I saw it.
(Miller, back of book Q&A)
The nature of Achilles and Patroclus’ relationship has been debated for centuries, and if we’re honest, the very existence of Achilles as a historical figure is shaky at best. For the Ancient Greeks, the Iliad and the Odyssey were faithful retellings of history, but so is the Bible to Christians. Parsing out what was true and what wasn’t in the muddied historical past is a worthy goal, but not one that I’m particularly interested in.
I will say that at some point a friend of mine – let’s be honest, an ex-boyfriend – referred to the story as “Homeric fan fiction.” That was fairly dampening. But I decided: so be it. If it’s fan fiction, it’s fan fiction. I’m still going to write it.
(Miller, in the back of book Q&A)
However, I do think it’s evident that when stories, whether real or not, are retold across history by speakers invested in upholding certain ideals of heteronormativity, queer aspects are almost always discarded. And I think that those queer aspects are worth uncovering and looking at not just as reimaginings, but as rememberings.
It’s fitting then, that the story is told through the eyes of Patroclus, in the first person. He’s looking back on his life and his time with Achilles, and telling the story of their love and their loss from his own memory. The first person perspective accomplishes two things. First, it allows the reader to better immerse themselves in a setting that is foreign to them. Second, it allows the reader to see Achilles, Aristos Achaion, the greatest warrior of his generation and demigod son of the water goddess Thetis, through the eyes of the man who loved him most. We see his majesty, his warmth, and his beauty, but we’re given a degree of distance from his godliness. Made to watch in awe, but never truly know what goes on in his mind.
However, we do know how Patroclus feels.
This feeling was different. I found myself grinning until my cheeks hurt, my scalp prickling till I thought it might lift off my head. My tongue ran away from me, giddy with freedom. This and this and this, I said to him. I did not have to fear that I spoke too much. I did not have to worry that I was too slender or too slow. This and this and this! I taught him how to skip stones, and he taught me how to carve wood. I could feel every nerve in my body, every brush of air against my skin.
(The Song of Achilles, Ch. 6)
We know how this boy feels, hopelessly in love with another but not knowing the word; but knowing that he wants, more than anything, to stay around him. That he feels safe with him. This and this and this. Later on, after they consummate their relationship in a particularly steamy sex scene, the motif returns.
We ate, then ran to the river to wash. I savored the miracle of being able to watch him openly, to enjoy the play of dappled light on his limbs, the curving of his back as he dove beneath the water. Later, we lay on the riverbank, learning the lines of each other’s bodies anew. This, and this and this. We were like gods at the dawning of the world, and our joy was so bright we could see nothing else but the other.
(The Song of Achilles Ch. 10)
This and this and this.
II
To fruit or not to fruit?
When Miller was writing this story, she saw herself as righting a wrong. Bringing the truth of their relationship to the forefront, exposing a queer reality that had long gone unseen by the world. Lately, I feel that more of us believe that we have seen it. We’ve all heard the jokes about the Athenian men and their “temple boys.” When I was with my ex, we would often joke that he was a renaissance man, taking notes from the Greeks, and carting around his femboy (me).
However, I think our understanding of how Greeks viewed queerness is obscured by a desire to think of the past as better than the present. As queer people, there’s comfort in knowing that queerness always existed, and when we see examples of this we’re biased to view them as inherently positive.
It was comforting to imagine a time before Christianity told you that the acts of love you committed were a sin or the law pronounced that your public displays of affection were acts of “gross indecency”. The persistent dream of a “gay utopia” is one of the constants in gay and lesbian historical imaginings over the last 200 years.
But when we actually dive into historical evidence of queer history in Greece, the reality is less appetizing. Mother of lesbianism, Sappho from the Island of Lesbos wrote letters of longing to women, but killed herself by jumping off of a cliff. In maintaining this idea of a gay utopia, we forget how poorly women were treated. As wives, women basically belonged to their husbands, or they were conquests of war. Women weren’t seen as having their own autonomy, let alone their own sexuality.
Men were viewed as having sexuality, but many historical accounts of male homosexuality are accounts of pederasty. Relationships between older men and younger boys. As modern scholars, to ignore the implications of this would be irresponsible. Young boys, at the precipice of puberty, being made to enter relationships with older men is predatory. The power imbalance between them was the main feature of these unions. The older lovers, or erastes, were father figures to the boys. They would shower them with gifts, teach them about their sexuality, but once the boys grew older, the relationship would end quicker than you could say “Call Me By Your Name.”
According to author Hein van Dolen, the origin of pederasty came from the Dorian island Crete, where a coming-of-age ritual saw adult men kidnapping a consenting adolescent boy and having their way with him. The boys of Crete were the pass around party bottoms of antiquity. Oh to be a Dorian femboy carted off by the rough hands of the village men for a night of ecstasy! Do you think they used olive oil as lube? We must consult the historians!
Of course, there are conflicting accounts of Greek homosexuality. Not only was this thousands of years ago, but Ancient Greece was made up of hundreds of city states, each with their own cultures and their own perspectives on sexuality would vary from place to place. That difference in culture is something that comes up in The Song of Achilles, as the Trojan War brings many different cultures together, and united in their war against Troy, they find a sense of cultural one-ness.
The men too became less like different armies and more like countrymen. These men, who had left Aulis as Cretans and Cypriots and Argives, now were simply Greeks – cast into the same pot by the otherness of the Trojans, sharing food and women and clothing and battle and stories, their distinctions blurred away.
(The Song of Achilles Ch. 24)
However, the Song of Achilles does provide its own insight into the ways that homosexuality was viewed by the Greeks. There’s the shifting of Thetis to become a homophobic mother, unaccepting of her son Achilles’ relationship, though that may have more to do with his human-ness than his male-ness. Patroclus and Achilles’ companionship in their youth is not subject to scrutiny. Rather it is a source of joy, and it seems to be a given by Achilles’ father Peleus that he should have a young male companion and that his companion should follow him everywhere.
The thing that is seen as odd in the story is not that Achilles should seek solace or pleasure in his male companion, but that he should seek solace or pleasure in his male companion only. Men were still expected to have a wife, and to produce children with that wife. Achilles especially – as the prince of Pythia – needed to provide an heir to the throne.
And it is true: the Jewish and Christian attitudes and obsessions have never played a role in the sexual lives of the ancient Greeks. In their eyes, it was not despicable when a married man had affairs with boys, although the Athenians expected a man to have children -especially sons- with his lawful wife. The Athenian man was, according to Foucalt, a macho, a penetrator, the one who forced others to do what he wanted them to do.
The Greek conception of homosexuality was not one that was gendered, but one defined by power. Men could sleep with women or younger boys, or temple prostitutes. This image of Greek masculinity was that a strong, empowered man exuded domination while still being intelligent and in control. He could not act “barbaric” like a foreigner. These ideas, marred with toxic masculinity, xenophobia, and misogyny, make sense when you consider Greek society. Made up of warring city-states, a man had to be strong, had to know how to fight, and had to have a strong sense of nationalism.
Odysseus smiled in return, teeth white against his dark beard. “Excellent. One tent’s enough, I hope? I’ve heard that you prefer to share. Rooms and bedrolls both, they say.”
Heat and shock rushed through my face. Beside me, I heard Achilles’ breath stop.
“Come now, there’s no need for shame – it’s a common enough thing among boys.” He scratched his jaw, contemplated. “Though you’re not really boys any longer. How old are you?”
(The Song of Achilles Ch. 15)
In their youth, Patroclus and Achilles’ relationship brought them pleasure, and was seen as acceptable under the pretense of boyish play, but they could not be boys forever. To be a man, is to take a wife; to forgo pleasure for service, to forgo love for war. In the conflict with Troy, both men end up forgoing their lives for war. It is not that their queerness is morally wrong, but that it is childish. That it leaves them out of step with the expectations of manhood and places them distinctly in the realm of boyhood.
They combat this through the taking of women captives. Ever the proto-feminist, Patroclus watches as women are taken captive by the men of the armies, and he convinces Achilles to claim them, not for sexual gain, but to protect them. The first is Briseis, notably a black woman, who Patroclus cannot bear to watch be taken by the ravenous appetites of the Greek armies, and so he compels Achilles to claim her. He knows Achilles will not touch her, but he also knows that Achilles taking women captives will make men think he has an appetite for the feminine form. That it will help bolster his masculinity in the eyes of his followers, the Myrmidons.
Soon enough, when Achilles is off at war, Briseis and Patroclus are running a women’s shelter of sorts. Tending to the female captives, teaching them Greek and other skills, helping them live as kind a life as they can under the circumstances. Briseis and Patroclus grow particularly close, and it’s in this closeness we see another example of how Greek society viewed queerness.
Her shoulders crept up, like folded wings. “I know that you love him,” she said, hesitating before each word. “I know. But I thought that – some men have wives and lovers both.”
Her face looked very small, and so sad that I could not be silent.
“Briseis,” I said. “If I ever wished to take a wife, it would be you.”
“But you do not wish to take a wife.”
“No,” I said, as gently as I could.
(The Song of Achilles, Ch. 24)
Miller frames men, in Greek society, as often having male lovers in addition to wives. As enjoying their dalliances with men alongside their responsibilities to the family unit, and their biological imperative to continue their bloodlines. It is this which was so transgressive of Achilles and Patroclus. Their rejection not of heteronormativity, but of Greek manhood altogether.
III
trans!Achilles
In The Song of Achilles, Achilles’ goddess mother Thetis appears multiple times at key points throughout the story. We learn that she was given as a wife to Peleus unwillingly as a gift from the gods; and that after a year, after birthing him a son in Achilles, she left. The conception of Achilles is unequivocally framed as rape; and although Thetis resents Peleus and most of human society, she loves her son, and every so often she comes and whisks him away for a visit in the night.
In this book, women – whether Briseis or Deidameia – are written to be fragile. Their delicacy contrasting the masculine world of war Achilles and Patroclus have been drafted into. But Thetis is not delicate; for she is not a woman, but a goddess. She is described as “wily, like her father, Proteus, the slippery old man of the sea, and she knew how to make her skin flow into a thousand different shapes of fur and flesh.” Her laugh is like the bark of a seal, her voice like waves crashing against the rocky shore, her skin pale as the moon but making the olive-toned men next to her seem washed out and lifeless. She is described not as feminine, but as otherworldly.
“Thank you, Mother,” Achilles said. He understood that she was claiming him. We all did. It was proper for a son to greet his father first; mothers came second, if at all. But she was a goddess. Peleus’ mouth tightened but he said nothing.
(The Song of Achilles Ch. 11)
Although we are made intimately aware of Greek patriarchy, seeing early on the way that the noble men of Pythia have their way with servant women: None of this applies to Thetis. Upon first meeting Chiron, when he insists that Thetis will visit Achilles, as is her duty as his mother, Patroclus silently thinks in contradiction, that she is a goddess first. When she visits Pythia with Achilles, the men fall in line. Greek gender roles and patriarchy cannot touch her. She is post-gender.
As is Achilles. With the Trojan War on the horizon, and Thetis aware of the prophecy stating that her son will meet his demise if he is enlisted, she steals him away to the small island kingdom of Scyros. When Patroclus travels to Scyros to find his lover, he finds Achilles in disguise as a woman named Pyrrha. The best way Thetis saw fit to hide Achilles from Agamenon and his forces as they gathered troops for his war of revenge was by disguising Achilles as a girl. Patroclus, also under a pseudonym, Chironedes, pretends to be husband to Pyrrha, and they live under false pretenses, as husband and wife.
I looked back to Achilles. He was holding the earrings up to his ears now, turning them this way and that, pursing his lips, playing at girlishness. It amused him, and the corner of his mouth curved up. His eyes flicked around the hall, catching for a moment on my face. I could not help myself. I smiled.
(The Song of Achilles Ch. 14)
As cruel as the pretenses of this disguise were, there are moments like this one that show Achilles not as shackled by this feminine presentation, but empowered by it. Achilles enjoys playing in this femininity. He enjoys disguising himself as a woman, free from the responsibilities of manhood. He enjoys the freedom to be with Patroclus, the man he loves, even if only for a fleeting moment.
When Odysseus uncovers Achilles, he does it through deception. He and his men ask to see the beautiful women of Scyros, and have them dance for him; which they do, with Achilles amongst them. Then, he has one of his men sound the trumpet for emergency in Scyros, causing the women to scream and clutch to each other.
All the girls but one. Before the final blast was finished, Achilles had swept up one of the silvered swords and flung off its kidskin sheath. The table blocked his path to the door; he leapt it in a blur, his other hand grabbing a spear from it as he passed. He landed, and the weapons were already lifted, held with a deadly poise that was like no girl, nor no man either. The greatest warrior of his generation.
(The Song of Achilles Ch. 14)
Held with a deadly poise that was like no girl, nor no man either. Here, Achilles is framed not through girlhood or manhood, but through his godliness, something above gender, something intangible that makes him special. Achilles, intentional or not, is framed through this text as non-binary. We watch him delight in his femininity as well as masculinity, shifting into opposing gender roles with ease. When his glory is revealed, it is not that he is a man, it is that he is Achilles.
“We want you to come to Troy,” Odysseus said.
“And if I do not want to come?”
“Then we make this known.” Diomedes lifted Achilles’ discarded dress.
Achilles flushed as if he’d been struck. It was one thing to wear a dress out of necessity, another thing for the world to know of it. Our people reserved their ugliest names for men who acted like women; lives were lost over such insults.
(The Song of Achilles Ch. 15)
It is one thing for a man to sleep with a man. That transgression, so long as the man still proved his masculinity through other pursuits (and carried out his duty of creating offspring), was not seen as conduct worth ridicule. But for a man to not want to be a man? For a man to engage in the behavior of the weaker sex? That was degrading.
It was certainly shameful when a man with a beard remained the passive partner (pathikos) and it was even worse when a man allowed himself to be penetrated by another grown-up man. The Greeks even had a pejorative expression for these people who were called kinaidoi. They were targets of ridicule by other citizens, especially comedic writers. For example, Aristophanes (c.445-c.380) shows them dressed like women, with a bra, a wig and a gown, and calls them euryprôktoi, “wide arses”.
Achilles, if his crossdressing were revealed, would’ve been seen as one of these kinaidoi: Men ridiculed for acting like women, who were also perhaps the transsexuals of Greek antiquity. A lot of gender expansive experiences in men were framed as fruity manhood in Greek society. Take the god Hermaphroditus, the Greek t-girl goddess who had both tits and a dick, but was referred to largely with male pronouns and seen as the god of male effeminacy.
I’m not saying that Achilles definitively was trans, or that Miller even intended for this gender expansive reading of her text. But what I am saying is that if Achilles was trans, how would we know? Greek society did not create a space for men to explore their femininity: They were expected to work and fight and sow children. Something Achilles was, against his will, forced to do when his mother coerced him into sleeping with Deidameia. In spite of this, Achilles lived as a girl for a time. He had long beautiful hair, and danced in flowing dresses, and played with femininity.
Is the idea of Achilles being anything other than a cis man really so unbelievable? You’re telling me you wouldn’t pay to see Hunter Schaffer play him in the live action Iliad? Be fucking for real.
IV
There is no room, with constant wars, for sissy boys
Despite the cultural narratives that permeate our society of trans women always having been women, I know that I used to be a boy. I remember my boyhood: One that only existed in the specific cultural context of being seen, raised, and socialized the way that boys were. I remember my failure to execute boyhood: I was never any good at sports, I wanted to wear flowy dresses and play with dolls and read books under big, shady trees. I lived in the 21st century, a world with cultural ideas of what being transgender was. That allowed me to see myself as, and ultimately become, a woman.
But what if I hadn’t? I found myself, while reading The Song of Achilles, developing a kind of kinship with these boys, Patroclus and Achilles. In Achilles’ clear femininity, and his lack of access to that; in Patroclus’ painful awkwardness and inability to perform his social role correctly, if at all. In a constantly warring world, there was no room for inadequacy or effeminacy in those seen as men, and yet it existed in our leads.
I imagine, if I’d lived in that time and place, I wouldn’t have been a woman. I’d have been an effeminate man, looked down upon: A kinaidoi. Or I’d have locked my desires away, like a great secret. Maybe, if I’d lived in a world with a third gender group, I would’ve found celebration and warmth in that. Like the Mahu of Hawai’i, the Hijra of India, the Khwaja Sara of Pakistan, and the Bakla of the Philippines. Or I wouldn’t have been a woman, because I would’ve never made it to adulthood, too soft for a world so hard.
I think about my trans ancestors a lot. Not just in my lineage, but the world’s. Queer culture isn’t one that’s held through blood, but through community. I think of the trans people who thrived in the past, and the trans people who were oppressed. The trans people who almost were and the trans people who never would be.
The world, for so much of its history, has been ruled by ideas of order. That there is a way to be, and a way not to be. That there are certain behaviors expected of you, by how you were born. Trans people, just through the act of existing, are dismantling hegemony, throwing a wrench in the delicate machine of order. It’s why the powers that were tried so hard to stamp out gender expansiveness. It’s why the powers that be are still trying.
The fight never ends. It gets easier some, and harder others, but the years will pass, and the fight will continue. And my beautiful trans sisters, and my soft, delicate femboys, fight a battle far more difficult than one of fists and swords. It’s one of resilience. It’s one of knowing oneself in the face of a world that wishes you would forget. We are all at war, we are all great heroes, and we all possess a bravery that is too powerful to restrain. We stand proud in our oddness, band together in the face of oppression, and refuse to conform.
So to all of my trans ancestors, to the ones who wouldn’t even have an idea of what that meant, to my delicate, greek femboys: I salute you. It’s because of you that I’m able to do what I do today. To stand proud in my transness, and for that I am eternally grateful.
Everything I’ve done is because of you. Every way that I can shine is because of you. And I hope that, even just a little, I’m making you jealous. I mean, come on! Did you have dickgirl memes in 1200 BC?
Sources
Friday Essay: the myth of the ancient Greek ‘gay utopia’ (The Conversation)
Mad about the boy (The Guardian)
How the ancient Greeks viewed pederasty and homosexuality (Big Think)
I love this mix of novel analysis, historical commentary, and personal narrative! brilliant as always xoxo
Achilles now my 3rd fave transperson, after you and Hunter Schaffer 👨❤️💋👨🏳️⚧️🥳