# What is the significance of the virginity of Athena, Artemis, & Hestia? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 10, 2018, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847 "2018-06-10T22:39:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/21 "2018-06-11T17:17:32Z")
> [@](#): > > What is the significance of the virginity of Athena, Artemis, & Hestia? They could run faster than Zeus. Thank you; I’ll be here all week; please tip your waitstaff… ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/22 "2018-06-11T17:49:13Z")
Perhaps the Greeks were smarter than modern man, recognizing that there’s nothing a penis can do to affect the essential nature of a goddess, or indeed any woman. Their “virgin” status appears to be pretty much under their own control and at their own whim. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/23 "2018-06-11T19:19:47Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > Perhaps the Greeks were smarter than modern man, recognizing that there’s nothing a penis can do to affect the essential nature of a goddess, or indeed any woman. Their “virgin” status appears to be pretty much under their own control and at their own whim. But isn’t the whole point of the question that _other_ Greek goddesses weren’t, y’know, virgins? I don’t think anyone refers to Hera as a virgin after explaining that she gave birth to gods, and mention of Demeter’s kids should go hand-in-hand with her not getting referred to as a virgin either; and then there’s Aphrodite… ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/24 "2018-06-11T19:24:21Z")
I expect it was because they had no interest in sexual relations. I don’t recall a single story in which there was ever a moment where any of them were seriously tempted to lose said virginity. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/25 "2018-06-11T20:28:51Z")
But that just raises the question, Why weren’t they? The Greek gods and goddesses were very much as slave to emotions and whims as humans. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/26 "2018-06-11T21:20:03Z")
Wasn’t Artemis interested in Orion? I seem to recall that being part of the myth about how he ended up in the sky (which is not, of course, to be confused with the myth of how [O’Ryan](https://books.google.com/books?id=qnQlAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA204&lpg=PA204&dq=o%27ryan+the+poacher&source=bl&ots=xG72n-7Pfn&sig=RJuGRVFue_-YGaH38MSXauWI258&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-7tOixMzbAhXnxlQKHR0yCc8Q6AEIRTAI#v=onepage&q=o'ryan%20the%20poacher&f=false) ended up there). And Athena had her share of favored mortals, too, most of whom happened to be fine specimens of masculinity in their own right. It’s easy to imagine that she wasn’t _just_ interested in their minds. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/27 "2018-06-11T21:59:35Z")
It’s the source of their [Virgin Powers](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VirginPower). ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/28 "2018-06-11T22:38:15Z")
How many male Greek deities did not pursue sex? > [@Melbourne](#): > > I interpret it to mean that they are young and unmarried. > > I’m no linguist, but I observe that when you aren’t being rude or medical, in the languages I’ve been exposed to, the old words for “young unmarried woman” (maiden) and “virgin” (maiden) seem to be the same. That is what I wonder. There’s also other possibilities for confusing translation: a woman who has not become pregnant, but not necessarily been abstinent. Having procreated or not being the important characteristic. Or, a woman who has not had sex with a man. Male-male sex was definitely in the gamut of ancient Greek culture, but I do not know if female-female sex was. I expect it was, but I don’t know if it survived in writing. (I’m not doing a Google search for that on this computer.) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/29 "2018-06-11T22:45:58Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > How many male Greek deities did not pursue sex? Uranus probably stopped after Aphrodite was born. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/30 "2018-06-11T22:58:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Wasn’t Artemis interested in Orion? I seem to recall that being part of the myth about how he ended up in the sky (which is not, of course, to be confused with the myth of how [O’Ryan](https://books.google.com/books?id=qnQlAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA204&lpg=PA204&dq=o%27ryan+the+poacher&source=bl&ots=xG72n-7Pfn&sig=RJuGRVFue_-YGaH38MSXauWI258&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-7tOixMzbAhXnxlQKHR0yCc8Q6AEIRTAI#v=onepage&q=o'ryan%20the%20poacher&f=false) ended up there). > > And Athena had her share of favored mortals, too, most of whom happened to be fine specimens of masculinity in their own right. It’s easy to imagine that she wasn’t _just_ interested in their minds. Artemis hunted with Orion, IIRC, but I don’t know that her interest in him went beyond that. I remember reading at least one version of his story where she kills him for being a rapist. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2018, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/31 "2018-06-11T23:21:00Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Artemis hunted with Orion, IIRC, but I don’t know that her interest in him went beyond that. I remember reading at least one version of his story where she kills him for being a rapist. There are multiple versions of the death of Orion, although Artemis does generally end up killing him. In one, Apollo grows jealous of his sister’s relationship with Orion and tricks her into killing him by daring her to shoot an arrow at a bobbing round object far off in the sea that turns out to be Orion’s head. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/32 "2018-06-12T07:44:37Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Syncretism messes this up - some goddesses who were patronesses of childbirth would get identified with another goddess who was virginal, but still. Quoted this one just because it happened to be in front of me; several of you guys have mentioned that being a maiden and patron of childbirth appear incompatible to you. But you’re forgetting that one of the professions which have been mainly performed by women in almost every society, and one which in Southern Europe afforded economic independence to a woman (and, in those legal systems which didn’t consider us automatic imbeciles, legal independence as well), was midwife. > [@Pleonast](#): > > Male-male sex was definitely in the gamut of ancient Greek culture, but I do not know if female-female sex was. I expect it was, but I don’t know if it survived in writing. We get the word _lesbian_ from Lesbos, where [Sappho](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho) lived. The same poetess gives us the adjective _sapphic_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/33 "2018-06-12T14:23:55Z")
But would it have been common for a midwife to be virginal/unmarried/childless/whatever herself? My mental image of “midwife” is much closer to the likes of Nanny Ogg. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/34 "2018-06-12T15:12:13Z")
I suspect the key is the association in ancient Greek culture generally between being the recipient of penetrative sex, and subordination. Athena and Artemis, in particular, were famously not subordinate to other gods. Being virgins was just another indicia (albeit one of particular importance, at that time, for women) that they were not subordinate to _anyone_. This didn’t prevent them from reproducing though – for example, Athena has Erichthonius, when Hephaestus attempted to rape her; she fights him off, but not before he ejaculated on her thigh! (She wipes his jizz off with a napkin and tosses it to earth, which gives birth to Erichthonius; though somehow Athena ends up as mom … ). ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/35 "2018-06-12T15:14:29Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > We get the word _lesbian_ from Lesbos, where [Sappho](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sappho) lived. The same poetess gives us the adjective _sapphic_. Quite right and I actual knew that. I guess I’m wondering how well attested it is in the surviving manuscripts, rather than traditional hearsay. I expect there was extreme censorship between then and now. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/36 "2018-06-12T16:43:54Z")
Oh, and I’d always understood Hephaestos to be, if not completely uninterested in sex, at least not driven by it in the same way that most of the male gods were. Yeah, he’s happy to have Aphrodite as a trophy wife, but if she’s off schtupping Ares every night, well, that gives him more time to go down to his forge and get some work done. That said, I’d never heard of the myth of him attempting to rape Athena. Even aside from the question of his sex drive, that just seems remarkably stupid of him (and he’s supposed to be one of the smart ones). ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/37 "2018-06-12T17:42:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, and I’d always understood Hephaestos to be, if not completely uninterested in sex, at least not driven by it in the same way that most of the male gods were. Yeah, he’s happy to have Aphrodite as a trophy wife, but if she’s off schtupping Ares every night, well, that gives him more time to go down to his forge and get some work done. > > That said, I’d never heard of the myth of him attempting to rape Athena. Even aside from the question of his sex drive, that just seems remarkably stupid of him (and he’s supposed to be one of the smart ones). I suspect it is best thought of in terms of an explanation – the resulting kid, Erichthonius, was supposed to be the king of Athens and the inventor of a bunch of useful inventions (the plough, the chariot, that sort of thing). I can picture the myth formation going something like this: A: ‘One of our ancient kings invented a bunch of clever things, useful in peace and war.’ B: ‘His mom must have been Athena, goddess of war and wisdom, and our patron deity.’ A: ‘Well, if that’s the case, his dad must have been the god of making stuff.’ B: ‘How can that be, when he’s famously ugly and she’s famously a virgin?’ A: ‘I guess they didn’t actually have sex - he must have tried to rape her. You know, all the gods are pretty rape-y, when you think about it … like Zeus.’ B: ‘But obviously, he can’t have succeeded. I mean, she’d kill the bastard, right? She’s the war goddess!’ A: ‘So he must have dripped on the ground … that means our king’s sprung from the soil, which is fitting. Though in a mythic sense, Athena is also his mom.’ B: ‘The wisdom of Athena, the creativity of Hephaestus, but sprung from the sacred soil of Greece … and warlike too … the perfect embodiment of Athens. No wonder he invented the plough for peace and the chariot for war!’ ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/38 "2018-06-12T20:03:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, and I’d always understood Hephaestos to be, if not completely uninterested in sex, at least not driven by it in the same way that most of the male gods were. Yeah, he’s happy to have Aphrodite as a trophy wife, but if she’s off schtupping Ares every night, well, that gives him more time to go down to his forge and get some work done. > > That said, I’d never heard of the myth of him attempting to rape Athena. Even aside from the question of his sex drive, that just seems remarkably stupid of him (and he’s supposed to be one of the smart ones). I don’t know about his libido, but he was not cool with the adultery. from [Hephaestus - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestus) > [@](#): > > Though married to Hephaestus, Aphrodite had an affair with Ares, the god of war. Eventually, Hephaestus discovered Aphrodite’s affair through Helios, the all-seeing Sun, and planned a trap during one of their trysts. While Aphrodite and Ares lay together in bed, Hephaestus ensnared them in an unbreakable chain-link net so small as to be invisible and dragged them to Mount Olympus to shame them in front of the other gods for retribution. > > The gods laughed at the sight of these naked lovers, and Poseidon persuaded Hephaestus to free them in return for a guarantee that Ares would pay the adulterer’s fine. Hephaestus states in The Odyssey that he would return Aphrodite to her father and demand back his bride price. And he was certainly not asexual: > [@](#): > > Hephaestus was somehow connected with the archaic, pre-Greek Phrygian and Thracian mystery cult of the Kabeiroi, who were also called the Hephaistoi, “the Hephaestus-men”, in Lemnos. One of the three Lemnian tribes also called themselves Hephaestion and claimed direct descent from the god. And it seems that Zeus gave Aphrodite to him as a consolation prize, after Athena refused him: > [@](#): > > In Athens, there is a Temple of Hephaestus, the Hephaesteum (miscalled the “Theseum”) near the agora. An Athenian founding myth tells that the city’s patron goddess, Athena, refused a union with Hephaestus. Pseudo-Apollodorus[32] records an archaic legend, which claims that Hephaestus once attempted to rape Athena, but she pushed him away, causing him to ejaculate on her thigh.[33][34] Athena wiped the semen off using a tuft of wool, which she tossed into the dust, impregnating Gaia and causing her to give birth to Erichthonius,[33][34] whom Athena adopted as her own child.[33] The Roman mythographer Hyginus[32] records a similar story in which Hephaestus demanded Zeus to let him marry Athena since he was the one who had smashed open Zeus’s skull, allowing Athena to be born.[33] Zeus agreed to this and Hephaestus and Athena were married,[33] but, when Hephaestus was about to consummate the union, Athena vanished from the bridal bed, causing him to ejaculate on the floor, thus impregnating Gaia with Erichthonius.[33][35] ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2018, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/39 "2018-06-12T23:01:38Z")
Oh, I can certainly see that he’d be interested in Athena. It must have seemed to him that they’d make a pretty good pair. And there’s a heck of a lot of middle ground between “no libido” and “as much libido as Zeus”. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2018, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847/40 "2018-06-13T00:53:07Z")
There was just a ton of stuff about this in my salad days. Way back when the feminists and poets were tearing into mythology. History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies. I dimly remember a lecture at UC by Santa Cruz by Donna Haraway about Mnemosyne and her Children that went way over my head. So long ago that I couldn’t believe you spelled Mnemonsyne like that. Wow that was a long time ago. The concept of the Virgin Goddess is not “not yet having been penetrated by a dude”, but rather, “without a consort, existing separately from male relationships, drawing her power solely from herself, inviolable”. Virgin didn’t even mean not having sex (they had their dalliances). But it was from a position of power. Virgin Goddesses also had many “male” attributes and interests – war, hunting, wisdom. I could dredge up all those Parabola magazines and Diane di Prima poems and all the feminist mysticism stuff I used to be into, if it wasn’t that it has all flowed downstream long ago. But no. Virgin Goddesses are way way way bigger than merely as yet unravished brides. They are a gigantic door into the Numinous Feminine. Watch out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-significance-of-the-virginity-of-athena-artemis-hestia/815847.md?page=3)