In honour of Saint Valentine's Day, today's installment of Red History will focus on Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of Love, known to the Romans as Venus.


"The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli

Aphrodite, in Greek times anyway, was the Goddess of Love, Lust, Beauty, and Sexuality. Today she seems to represent that more Romantic idea of Love, but in the good old days Venus was a straight up Sex Goddess. Very, very sexy. In ancient Rome, when people wanted to talk about sex in polite society, they would refer to 'The Gifts of Venus'. It seems, that alone among the Olympian Gods, her worship was not conducted with ritual sacrifice and blood offerings, but with ... ahem ... offerings of other bodily fluids and all kinds of ritual prostitution.

"Aphrodite had a festival of her own, the Aphrodisiac (also referred to as Aphrodisia), which was celebrated all over Greece but particularly in Athens and Corinth. In Corinth, intercourse with her priestesses was considered a method of worshipping Aphrodite." - wikipedia

Contrary to popular belief and according to Hesiod, Aphrodite is not a true Olympian. Nay, she is in fact a Titan, born a generation before Zeus and Company started running shinola. Her birth came as the result of a tussle between the Titans Uranus (The Sky) and Cronus (Time) wherein Cronus ended the argument by cutting off Uranus' testicles (ouch!). Uranus' mighty balls sailed through the sky and fell into the sea. Foam rose to the surface at the site of splash-down, and out of that foam Aphrodite rose fully formed and sexy.

Other stories of her origin exist. Homer writes that she is the daughter of Dione (Zeus's female aspect), and Plato writes in the Symposium that there are two Aphrodites; Aphrodite Ourania (Heavenly Aphrodite, goddess of spiritual/romantic love) and Aphrodite Pandemos (Common Aphrodite, goddess of lust and irrational human longing).

Aphrodite has inspired many great loves, she's responsible for Paris and Helen's getting together (remember that movie 'Troy'?), and she has had many lovers herself; Her Husband Hephaestus (God of the Forge), Ares (God of War), and Adonis (the prettiest boy who ever lived). She's also the mother Aeneas, who escaped Troy to found the City of Rome (see Virgil's 'Aenead' for more details).

In art Venus is often portrayed as a beautiful Red Haired woman thus confirming what redheads and thier fans have known for years: Redheads make the best lovers. So, young lovers, if you really want to celebrate Valentine's Day the old fashioned way, find yourself a lover and enjoy the "Gifts of Venus" by having some freak-deaky sex.