Guest Writer - A Swan On Saturday - Part III - Heather

I had been wanting to post about the Greek myth 'Leda and the Swan' for a long time. I was a little weirded out by the idea of a women having sex with a swan. Then I realised, why should I write it when I'm friends with an expert on the subject!?! I asked Heather, fresh back from completing her MA in Greek and Roman Archaeology at Newcastle University in England, to write up a post. Please enjoy this final post in a three part series.

From Heather:

A Swan On Saturday - Part III - The Bestiality Sexuality

Greek gods were anthropomorphic, meaning that they looked like humans. But the Mediterranean was full of zoomorphic (animal-like) gods at the time, and so Greek cultural and artistic traditions, closely tied to those of Mesopotamia and Egypt, were familiar with portraying an animal in a human pose. Take Egypt for example. Most of their gods were animals or at least half animals, and yet they were often seen standing on two legs or seated on a throne like a Pharaoh.So the idea that a swan could mate with a woman wasn’t so far fetched. And sculpting a lewd statue of a woman who is, literally, parting her legs so a swan can enter her is nothing to the society who painted scenes of orgies and prostitutes on their drinking cups. When you look at all the examples out there, da Vinci’s is actually rather tame. Yes, Leda is naked and Zeus the Swan is cupping her butt with his wing. But at least he’s reaching for her face with his beak, instead of her nipple, like here:
Modern artists are still inspired by this story, and they don’t seem to shy away from the bestiality either, like this 2008 painting by Steven Kenny:
I think the most shocking thing is that Renaissance artists would portraying the coupling of a woman and beast, but sex between a man and woman was too risqué.