Who was the asexual mythology figure?

---

Request for Question Clarification by hammer-ga on 26 Jan 2005 06:37 PST

Which mythology? Greek? Hindu? Norse?

And do you mean asexual or androgynous?

- Hammer

There were many. The first that comes to mind is Tireseas featured in
many of sophecleses plays.

If you mean androgynous, the answer could be Hermaphroditis, the son
of Hermes and Aphrodite. While bathing, he becomes united in single
body with a nymph.

Nowhere is the paradox of Dionysos more dramatic than in the stark
contrast between the god of the phallus and the 'effeminate' god of
women. Ancient sources make frequent reference to Dionysos as
'womanly' or 'not a real man' (Evans, 20-21; Jameson, 45); they
sometimes dress him in women's clothing as well. And yet it was in
honor of Dionysos that Greek villages organized Phallophoria festivals
in spring (Danielou, 94-96), phalloi were carried in ritual
procession, ithyphallic satyrs pranced with maenads in Greek vase art,
actors strapped on huge artificial phalluses as part of their costume,
and the revealing of a phallus in a basket figured as a central
element of mystery cult initiation (Kerenyi, 273). In the presence of
Dionysos even animals often sport erections, as in a frequently
depicted myth where Dionysos leads Hephaistos back to Olympus mounted
on an ithyphallic mule (Carpenter, 16-19). Yet Dionysos himself was
never shown with an erection. This iconographic convention, along with
the occasional reference to effeminacy or androgyny, has led to
various theories seeking to drastically unman the god, as it were;
some writers read into these details the idea that perhaps Dionysos
himself was asexual (Jameson, 44), or even emasculated through
castration (Kerenyi, 275-277, 285)