Pride Tales

***Miscellaneous Myths: Pride Tales*** is the fifty-fourth episode of the *Miscellaneous Myths* series by Red. It's a collection of LGBT myths/stories from various mythologies all around the earth (such as Greek, Japanese, or Aztec) and was uploaded in June of 2020, (on pride month). It's one of the videos that cover various mythologies and folk beliefs instead of just one, like *The Zodiac*, *The Wild Hunt*, and *Animal Brides*.

## Summary

### The Cut Sleeve

The first segment takes us to China, during the Han dynasty. Emperor Ai was taking a nap with fellow politician/boyfriend Dong Xian. The emperor woke up to see Dong Xian still sleeping, resting on the emperor's shiny and expensive sleeve. Rather than waking him up, Emperor Ai decided to cut the sleeve off, and leave his nap undisturbed. This became so iconic that many of the emperor's courtiers would cut off their own sleeves as well in tribute of their beloved ones, and the cut sleeve became a euphemism for homosexuality in general.

### Hopoe, the Balancing Stone

Next is Hawaii, where Hi'iaka, the goddess of sorcery, medicine and hula dancing is spending her days in the company of Hopoe, a dancer she's very fond of, sharing a relationship called "aikāne", usually meaning a sexual relationship between men. Pele then orders Hi'iaka to find her a husband, and promises to look after Hopoe while Hi'iaka is gone. However, the mission takes a lot of time, and Pele grows impatient, and begins chucking lava, destroying the island and eventually turning Hopoe into stone (Red says that technically, Pele contributed to the "bury your gays" trope).

### Phoebus, Parthenos

The third segment is about Greek myth, and specifically the Greek gods Phoebus Apollo and Athena Parthenos. Apollo's reputation as a god with a tragic love life is exaggerated, as the only thing more extensive than his list of male lovers is his list of female lovers. While some did suffer the fate of becoming flowers (like Hyacinthus) some instead were given gifts (like Branchus, who became a prophet). In fact, when Apollo was turned into a mortal and made to serve the mortal King Admetus for killing a monster he wasn't supposed to, Apollo fell in love with him and doted so much it embarrassed the other gods. When Admetus later wished to take a wife, Apollo helped him win a chariot race to marry her, similar to what Poseidon did for Pelops. On the other side of the spectrum is Athena, Apollo's half-sister. While he is interested in everyone, she's interested in no one. She is one of the three goddesses (the other two being Artemis and Hestia) whom Aphrodite has no influence over. The *Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite* puts great emphasis on Athena being no interested in any sort of relationship, but rather having time only for war, giving her her "Athena Parthenos" epithet, *the virgin Athena* (Red notes that she prefers "Promachos", *she who fights on the front line*).

### Inari

Next is Japan with Inari, a deity of fertility, agriculture, rice, tea, prosperity and other nice stuff. Around thirty percent of the shrines in Japan are dedicated to Inari, a fox trickster deity with no fixed gender that sometimes appears as a bearded old man, a young woman carrying sheaves of rice, or an androgynous Bodhisattva, or some animal in general. In one story, Emperor Ichigo orders a swordsmith, Munechika, to forge him a sword. He goes to pray to one of Inari's shrines, and a boy appears promising to help him with the sword. The boy is Inari, and with their help Munechika forges the sword Kogitsune-maru ("little fox").

### Tamamizu

Again in Japan, and again in the talk about foxes, there's the tale of Tamamizu, a kitsune (intelligent fox) sees a lovely young woman and falls in love instantly. The kitsune considers turning into a man to woo her, but decides it wouldn't be good for her if she married a spirit fox, so she turns into a young woman by the name Tamamizu. She gets adopted by a family, who notice that she is pining after someone. Tamamizu says she can get married due to her low status, but wouldn't mind becoming handmaiden to a certain rich girl, and she eventually becomes. Years later, the girl gets into a competition about finding the most beautiful leaf, and Tamamizu, with the help of her fox siblings, finds a beautiful five-coloured leaf with the entire Iotus sutra printed on it, which she gives to the girl. She wins the competition, and even the emperor hears word of it, and awards her family lands and status. Eventually, he proposes to her. Tamamizu is supportive, though hurt, and decides to make room for the new couple so her mistress can be truly happy with her new husband. She places a letter inside a sealed box that she tells the girl not to open it unless something happens to Tamamizu, and then disappears. Thus the girl learns the truth about her companion's feelings and true nature.

### Xochipilli, the Prince of Flowers

In Mesoamerica, Xochipilli was a much beloved god of summertime, pleasure, partying, creativity and alcohol. He was possibly married to the alcohol goddess Mayahuel (with Red saying that this assumption comes from them being depicted next to each other in some Aztec codex page), yet he was the patron god of male homosexuality and temple prostitution, while his twin sister/female equivalent, Xochiquetzal, was the goddess of female homosexuality and female prostitution. Xochipilli probably originated from the Toltec civilization, which apparently had a bit of "reputation" among other Mesoamerican cultures. The Aztecs seem to have seen Xochipilli as an embodiment of male weakness, and the reasons why the Aztecs eventually conquered them - which is what the Spaniards would do to them as well when they arrived. Red says it's remarkable how Xochipilli retained his positive and good nature despite two conquests and centuries of colonization.

## Credits

In the credits, Red sings *True Colors* by Cindy Lauper. She wishes the LGBT community a happy pride month, and says she avoided using modern terminology for this video since modern labels don't quite work on ancient cultures, as fun as it is to speculate about what each figure can be. She brings up Artemis (who could be interpreted a number of ways) or Iphis and Ianthe (whose story doesn't map to any label or orientation) as examples.

## Characters appearing

Emperor Ai

Dong Xian

Hi'iaka

Hopoe

Pele

Apollo

Hyacinthus

Branchus

Admetus

Artemis

Athena

Aphrodite

Hestia

Actaeon

Inari

Emperor Ichigo

Munechika

## Notes

1. ↑ Though Red reverted back to "all of Apollo's lover die tragically!" by *Hades and Persephone*.