Essays

Gender- en seksualiteitsnormen in dialoog vijf van Loukianos’ Hetairengesprekken

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Abstract

This paper examines how norms regarding gender and sexuality are constructed in the fifth dialogue of Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans. The fifth dialogue is unique within the collection because of its overtly queer content and its explicit references to sex. In the dialogue, a courtesan recalls a sexual encounter with the rich ‘woman’ Megilla. The story takes a turn when Megilla/os expresses that they identify as a man. The text has mainly been studied by using modern terminology, such as ‘butch’ used by Carlà-Uhink (2017: 14) and ‘transvestite’ used by Cantarella (1994: 93), to explain non-normative sexualities, gender identities and expressions. This paper avoids this modern terminology by using Queer Theory to analyse how gender and sexual norms are constructed, reaffirmed, and also reassessed in the text. By specifically looking at the construction of these norms, the terminology that is unavoidably generalising and reductionist is circumvented. This paper rejects the assumption that this dialogue unambiguously reaffirms existing norms by presenting in a dismissive and humoristic manner what happens when these are defied. Instead, the analysis concludes that this dialogue explores the nuances of a wide range of non-normative expressions and questions the strict boundaries of existing norms regarding gender and sexuality

How to Cite:

Lanckriet, A., (2022) “Gender- en seksualiteitsnormen in dialoog vijf van Loukianos’ Hetairengesprekken”, Tetradio 31(1): 6, 113–136. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tetradio.91597