6/13/2002: Ancient transgendering
 

http://cellar.org/2002/gallus.jpg

If you think these times are odd... just look into history. Recently the remains of a guy who was at least transvestite were found in ancient Roman town in Britain, and this is a reconstructed painting of him/her. The remains were found 20 years ago, but only recently have they figured out why the male skeleton was wearing women's jewelery. Turns out he was a Gallus, who worshipped Cybele.

If you Google Cybele and castration, you learn stuff...

It turns out that, in Roman times, we're talking like about 200 B.C. or so -- there came about a group of worshippers of the goddess Cybele. It was basically a cult of priests that might have been a sort of counter-movement to the Hittites. (The Hittites were ultra-manly men, warriors who perfected iron and horse-driven attacks and stuff and who thus conquered a large amount of the known world at the time.)

This cult of priests were called Galli, or the singular Gallus. They believed that they were the living embodiment of Attis, a demi-god who was driven insane by Cybele when she found that she was completely unable to seduce him. (Apparently Cybele was a serious hotty.) One story has it that Attis ran off and castrated himself under a pine tree, throwing the gems into the branches and letting his blood sorta fertilize it. They myths are mixed on whether Attis didn't take to Cybele because he was charmed by someone else. The myths are also mixed on whether Attis was actually Cybele's son.

This story turned into a festival in Roman times and is probably part of the tradition that became the Christmas tree. The tree itself represents the phallic symbol; the "balls" of decoration represent Attis' original pair. <i>Merry Christmas everybody!</i>

Anyway, to join the Galli sect, a man would be castrated and then would wear the garments of women. They believed that this practice "made them whole", in a perfect union of God and Goddess. The whole thing was proceded by baptism in the blood of a bull (if one could afford it).

Hey, we can even bring this whole thing around to modern times. One major thing remains as a concept introduced by these myths: <i>mandatory celibacy for priests</i>.

Tony should be a teacher. He makes even the most boring subjects fascinating!

Here's my favorite part:

Good stuff!

I think you and I should start like... "History Channel Redux"... and we'll take all the programs and re-dub them with terms and languge that people want to hear.

I'd be into that! There would be individual shows like "Genghis Kahn: the baddest of all bad-ass motherfuckers." We'd talk about what really went down and not leave any of it out.

One stupid source mentioned the ritual self-multilation practices of the Galli, but not the castration. Come on, if you're going to talk about the Galli, you gotta talk about how they cut their own nads off. That's what people will want to hear about.

Check out this one: an Egyptian tomb was discovered that was apparently built for two men that had a very close, unspecified relationship. The kicker, and I admit that this at first made me think this was a joke, but apparently it is not, is that tomb inscriptiosn indicate that the two men were both manicurists.

http://www.egyptology.com/niankhkhnum_khnumhotep/

Man, that seriously would be awesome. We'd have all the trailer trash and whatnot watching that shit, and the squares could watch the History Channel (like I do... hehe) if they didn't want to hear our awesome voiceovers.

"Now this was one big-ass bomb. It had the power to obliterate the living shit out of some 100,000 people. It's pretty fuckin' sad that it had to happen, but Truman saw it as the holy way out of the living hell that was the War in the Pacific."

God that'd be great. I bet our ratings would be awesome.

"Yeah, yeah, takalookydis: the guy just points his sidearm at the guy's skull, and... BOOM. Guy's on the side of the good guys, too... wait, let's back it up and show it again. BOOM. Damn, that's harsh. Wait, let's show it in slow motion. BOOOoooom. Yeah, that guy's toast. Wait, let's show it backwards... moooooooOOOOB. Awesome."

(Well that ain't quite what you're talking about, but I had fun writing it)

Whaaa? Frida Kahlo!? She's everywhere....

Frida too, was a fan of cross dressing, although her genital altering was not voluntary.

Some Tangut: "Well which club is yours?"
Genghis: "The one that says 'Bad Motherfucker.'"

I'm guessing we're talking "female circumcision"---more properly termed "female genital mutilation"? Online references are typically vague.

How the hell anybody can call that "circumcision" is way beyond my understanding. You could "circumcise" a male that way by using a meat cleaver to remove his glans.

Of course *that* would be an outrage....

Read an article about that, one of the brutal things i've heard of thats still going on, bloody hell.

It's an outrage when it happens to a woman too. I mean, fuck, I hate it when they look all bored when I'm fucking them. I need to be able to tweak <b>something</b>!

Hmmm.. Might be more than just a "failure to tweak" at work here....:-)

man you set yourself up for that one.