In fact, the concept of "androgyne" is many thousands of years old. In Plato's famous dialogue "The Feast", a picture of universal love between writers and artists, philosophers and scientists, who did not reckon with natural sexual characteristics, is already widely presented.
They are mentioned in the plays of Aristophanes and in the poetry of Sappho … But this is already, so to speak, erotic delights. And the androgynes from myth are quite different. Extraordinary creatures, whose bodies have two origins: female and male. That is why they are especially agile, strong, enduring …
The Olympic gods saw in them a threat to their greatness, and then the insidious Zeus decided to split the androgyne in half. Since then, people have walked the Earth in the hope of finding their soul mate. And, let us note, based on the logic of myth, a man should strive for a woman, and a woman for a man. However, this story is not about sexual vicissitudes, but rather about the union of two souls in one body.
As mythological ancestors who combined the characteristics of both sexes, androgynes have existed in many cultures. In brahmana India, this is Aditi, the bull cow. In Ancient Egypt - Ra, who impregnated himself, after which all the other gods were born, and the Memphis Ptah is both a man and a woman. Not to mention the Indian Quetzalcoatl and the ancient German god Tuisto - they are bisexual by definition.
VICTIMS OF FASHION
Only with the advent of Christianity did the attitude to the body change. The pleasures of the flesh came to be considered a sin. And if androgynes were allowed anywhere, it was only in the angelic world, but these lovely creatures did not have not only sexual characteristics, but none at all. And if Christianity speaks about the integrity of a man and a woman, then only about the spiritual - say, this is allowed in marriage. But, of course, not in the sense of free choice of a partner in sex - here the church is dead.
In our politically correct time, the term "androgyne" has ceased to be shocking. And he describes psychosocial rather than physiological or anatomical features. Girls and boys with an obscurely pretty appearance have become fashionable - there are a lot of them on the catwalks, in a secular get-together, in advertising … And they are not only popular with gay people.
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Their cuteness, emphatically hermaphrodic form attracts the attention of all who consider themselves fashionable. As they say now, this is in trend. Androgynes are actively involved in modifying their bodies, as are the ladies who pump up their breasts to the tenth size or exhaust themselves with braces. But some simply use what nature has given. And she is increasingly making adjustments to the images of brutal men and gentle women. This is how evolution reacts to the unnatural development of civilization, in which women want equality in everything, causing men to respond with a desire not to be a hero.
OUTSIDE SCIENCE
The first psychologist who turned his attention to androgynes was the famous Carl Gustav Jung, who wrote that the human psyche is dual in nature, and therefore men and women, feeling their inferiority, need to restore their original integrity. By the way, he drew, albeit a vague, line between androgyny and homosexuality. Indeed, these are phenomena of a completely different order.
If homosexuality is the subject of scientific conversation, then androgyny is a sociocultural phenomenon. The appearance of metrosexuals, androgynes and other freaks in our country is of little interest to the common people and scientists. It may be for the better, otherwise we will, like the Swedes, force boys in kindergartens to play with dolls, and girls - in cars. And the link of times will collapse …
We have long been destroying the centuries-old way of life, encroaching on one or another detail in the traditional picture of the world. With the achievements of scientific and technological progress, the need for equal rights for men and women is manifested. And then the boundaries between the sexes begin to blur. And then television, the Internet and other media have tried. They imposed fashion on the layman: they taught him to think about the naturalness of a sexual experiment. Is it good?
FAMILY MARRIAGE
It is definitely bad for the future of the family. But no one has yet denied the value of the family as a unit of society. But androgynes pretend not to understand what family is. Why do people unite? To be stronger, more confident, to take advantage of the opportunities that nature has laid in us. On what basis do people unite? After all, any association requires the rejection of personal egoism in one way or another. But a person gets great opportunities for social growth and upbringing of children.
But our androgynes say this: your marriage is due to fear! You are always defending yourself against an obvious or imagined enemy: from the state, the church, or unemployment. Your goal is social partnership, and ours is pleasure. Love and spiritual unity as the basis of the family are not considered by androgynous, as, incidentally, and in general are less and less remembered by modern man.
Gone are the marriages called authoritarian, that is, based on the authority of one of the family members. But in their place came not romantic love marriages, but partnership, where material calculation is not even covered up with love rhetoric. But in this case, why is the egoism of heterosexual partners better than the aesthetic cohabitation of people of indeterminate sex?
GROW A BOY
The first idea of what it means to be a boy or a girl is usually given to a child by his parents. Little girls are often given more attention than boys. Parents treat girls defiantly softer, more tender. On the other hand, boys are much more likely to receive encouragement in their studies and professional searches. We try to involve them in physical work: bring water in the country, mow the lawn or dig up a garden bed …
We teach the girl from an early age to cleaning the room and cooking dinner. We talk to them in different ways, recommend different books and teach them different language norms. That is, we must do it, and whether we are doing it is a matter of parental adequacy. Of course, peer influence also shapes gender identity: individuals who behave in an atypical manner are isolated and ridiculed.
Television has become a huge educational force. Let's be honest: young people devote more time to watching TV than communicating with us, and indeed any other form of communication. Androgyny has become the norm, almost a fashion on our TV air. However, you can look at the problem easily: psychologists argue that androgynes have a number of advantages over people of stereotypical behavior. What are the benefits? Well, they have higher self-esteem, they make more effective decisions in difficult situations, they demonstrate a higher level of social motivation, that is, careerism. Do you lack these qualities? Come on, probably not enough. And they have it by nature - like the color of the eyes.
FREEDOM WITHOUT SEX
Today, many say that androgynes are people of the future, when everyone will be equal to such an extent that gender division will become an unnecessary anachronism. The emergence of this style began in the 1960s and 1970s, during the heyday of punk culture, which for the first time took the risk of mixing male and female features in clothing.
That time was the first period of the dictatorship of the fashion industry: couturiers instilled unisex fashion, the model Twiggy, an awkward girl-boy, became the symbol of the generation. And the unisex style took root, firstly, because it is comfortable - no need for high heels and frilled skirts, neat dresses and corsets, everyone put on jeans and sneakers.
And secondly, the style brought the long-awaited freedom and equality. The guys wore long hair, dyed and … yes, they loved each other. The girls dressed in shapeless jackets and threw away cosmetics boxes. And … yes, they found pleasure in communicating with each other. In many ways, then it was a form of protest, a fight against prejudices. Shocking parents! Let them know: we are free to live as we want!
Oh well. And what is it today, when there are no prejudices left? Return of fashion? Or maybe mass psychosis? After all, the combination of male and female character traits is not at all the same as the desire of a girl to look like a boy, and vice versa. And it certainly doesn't boil down to wanting to be a creature of indeterminate gender.
Inna SHEVCHENKO