Sex as a Weapon
An Inside Look at the Use of Sex And Sexuality in Ovid’s Metamorphoses
When we think of the goddess Venus and the god Cupid, we think of beings who inspire love. When we think of romance, we usually do not include forcing one against his or her will to engage in a sexual act. The Venus of Ovid’s Metamorphoses is not the inspirer of love, rather, she is the empress of sexuality and she is at war with those who threaten her empire. Just as the other gods are self-serving conquerors, Venus, too, is a conqueror. Sexual independence is her object of destruction.
The gods’ use of sex can be likened to an emperor’s capture of land. As an emperor or ruler sees land that he wants to conquer, the gods see mortals’ flesh which they want to conquer. And just as an emperor would wage war against the object of his conquest, so too do the gods wage war against chastity. Jove transformed to the form of the virgin goddess, Diana in order to get close enough to rape one of her virgin followers, Callisto. Jove conquered Callisto’s flesh, as he did with the virgins Io and Europa. Jove takes pleasure in his war against chastity.
None of the gods, however, use sex and sexuality more maliciously than Venus, the goddess of love. In “Constructions of Venus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses V,” Patricia Johnson argues that “Ovid’s elegiac and epic treatments of Venus and Cupid are…a mockery of Augustan moral legislation and launching a broader assault upon the Roman imperial ideology” (Johnson 126). “In Calliope’s song Venus has graduated from her traditional role as an inspirer of love…to become a rapacious empire builder, with Cupid as her agent” (Johnson 127). “In Ovid’s own context, his presentation of Venus as an unwelcome imperialist aggressor in the realm of sexuality comments negatively both upon sexuality and empire,” for he clearly was taking a jab at the Augustan moral legislation of 19 B.C.E, which, in a host of ways, rewarded men and women who married and bore children and punished the unmarried and the childless” (Johnson 144-145).
The stories of rape in Ovid are, at first glance, seemingly romanticized. However, when I took a closer look, Ovid likens the rapes more to the empirical, Augustan tactics of his time. “Rome itself was regularly identified with [Venus] as its patron goddess…” (Johnson 128). In this article, Johnson opens our eyes to see how sexuality in Metamorphoses V is used as, not only a weapon but a war tactic. “The rape of Proserpina is cast as both a sexual and political act, in which the innocent victim, and even the perpetrator in this case, are pawns in a much larger game Venus is playing” (Johnson 144). “Venus’ fear of insurgents shapes the…reason for the rape she is poised to incite” (Johnson 138). Venus views all who reject “love” as rebels disobeying her authority. “Venus’ weapon, in [Proserpina’s] case, through Cupid’s bow, is rape” (Johnson 139). Furthermore, any female who chooses chastity is an enemy of Venus’ empire. When she says to her son, Cupid “…And the daughter of Ceres, if we let her choose, will be like them [the virgin goddesses, Athena and Diana]: she is so bent on chastity. But for the sake of all I share with you, please join that goddess-girl, Proserpina, to her great uncle, Pluto” (Mandelbaum 161). “The meticulous usage of her sexual artillery are a befitting form of assault in the battle for the empire of Love.” Venus says:
Nevertheless, we are scorned in heaven (such is our endurance), and your power with mine is shrinking. Can’t you see that Pallas and spear-hurling Diana have withdrawn from my camp? Proserpina will join their ranks too, if she is not stopped, for she has the same hopes (Johnson 138).
Venus, herself, is “sexuality” and any female who chooses to remain chaste is an enemy. Consequently, the “self professed virgin goddesses”, the Muses, as well as Minerva and Diana are also seen as threats to Venus’ and Cupid’s sexual authority, “perceived as dissidents” (Johnson 139). The Muses, self-professed virgins, are victims of an attempted rape by a mortal king, Pyreneus. “…everything terrifies our virginal minds.” “Fearful of their lives, the Muses claim they would be happy living on Helicon if only they were safe. Political/tyrannical imagery emerges…in which we establish that virginity and its violation are a reoccurring theme” (Johnson 139-140) in Venus’ quest to thwart “sexual self-determination.”
Also included in her sexual combat against those who would threaten her empire of Love is sexual slavery, and prostitution. Venus further seeks to assert her sexual authority in the story of the Propoetides. For their vile act of denying Venus’ divinity, “they were the first to prostitute their grace, sell their bodies; and when shame was gone and they could blush no more, they were transformed…into stones” (Mandelbaum 335). She waged a tactical, erotic eradication of those who threatened her empire, refusing to acknowledge her autonomy. Venus humiliated and eliminated a threat to her sexual sovereignty by forcing the Propoetides into sexual slavery.
The rape of Proserpina and the sexual slavery of the Propoetides are clearly an “act of imperial aggression of Venus, the selfish head of an empire of sexuality” (Johnson 146). However, these acts of sexual terrorism are extremely opposite from the kindness and mercy she had shown Pygmalion, bringing to life the sculpture he had created and fallen in love with. Of course, she granted Pygmalion the thing that her sexual regime stands for, love. Venus rewards those who would succumb to her power and obey her laws of love.
Those individuals who chose to identify with the virginal “self-determination” of Athena, Diana, Minerva, and the Muses are a serious threat to Venus’ sexual empire. The sexual independents who choose chastity over making love, find themselves on the receiving end of Venus’ wrath.
WORKS CITED
Johnson, Patricia J. "Constructions of Venus in Ovid's Metamorphoses V." 1996: 125-149.
Mandelbaum, Allen. The Metamorphoses of Ovid. San Diego, New York, London: A Harvest Book, 1993.
