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one part of the myth, Set proclaimed to Horus, “How
lovely your backside is”. Informing his mother Isis
about his uncle’s ardor, Horus is told to catch Set’s
semen rather than becoming impregnated by the
murderer of his father. Set, in doing so, was planning
on humiliating Horus by showing the gods that Horus
would be filled with someone else’s semen.
Horus and Isis’s next plan was to ‘impregnate’ Set
with Horus’ semen. His mother spreads powerful un-
guents on Horus’ penis, after which he ejaculated into
a jar, and they spread it on some lettuce, a favorite
aphrodisiac to the ancient Egyptians. Set then ate the
semen-covered lettuce, and so Horus (rather than Set
with his first ‘attack’) became sexually dominant over
his uncle. Set then asked the gods to bring the semen
forth from the ‘impregnated’ one, to humiliate Osiris’
son. The semen comes out of Set himself, and he
becomes the laughing stock of the gods!
However, the Pyramid Texts offer another point of
view:
Horus has penetrated Seth’s anus with
his seed. Seth has penetrated Horus’
anus with his seed.
-- Dollinger, A.,
Drink, Drugs and Sex
This reflects an interesting shifts in attitudes re-
garding homosexual desire and homosexual acts
in ancient Egypt:
It is possible, then, for the words to
have both the connotations of cowardice
in retreat and feminine sexual activ-
ity. The desire of sexual penetration
is therefore the defining feature of
Seth and Horus’ homosexuality.
Because Seth desires the young
Horus, he is seen as evil; Horus
resists the penetration, and therefore
avoids social stigma. However, in later
texts like The Book of the Dead, it be-
comes not the desire, but instead the
act itself which defines the Egyptian
as a social pariah.
Readings from the Book of the Dead
suggest that by Egypt’s New Kingdom
(1550-1069 BCE), the stigma had
shifted to include the action of homo-
sexual penetration, rather than solely
the desire for the act. Absent from the
Egyptian consciousness, however,
seemed to be the convention of any firm
and defined sexuality. Modern conven-
tions of homo- or heterosexual were
absent because there was no affiliation
for sexuality beyond the sex acts them-
selves.
-- Clayden, A., (pers. comm., 2013)
Hapi
The Egyptian god if the Nile, Hapi, was a masculine
deity, given female properties because of the fertility of
the Nile River. Without the Nile, there would be no
Egypt. Due to the duality of Egyptian
thought, there were two
Hapi gods - one of
Upper Egypt wear-
ing the water lily
(lotus) on his head,
and one of Lower
Egypt
wearing
papyrus.
He was
usually
depicted
as a blue or green col-
ored man
with a protruding belly,
carrying
libation jugs. He also has
full breasts,
indicating his ability to
nourish
Egypt. Despite being a
hermaph-
rodite god, both the
northern and
southern versions of
Hapi were giv-
en wives - Nekhbet in
Upper Egypt
and Wadjet in Lower
Egypt.
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SEXY GLAM
MAGAZINE - FEBRUARY 2018