In my friend’s high school Latin class, they had read certain Greek and Roman myths, and she had brought up a story including Zeus’ bisexuality, or rather, more accurately, a lack of labeling of his sexuality, and his rampant sexual freedom. We discussed this in depth, since it posed a stark contrast to our current society and experiences, but the conversation died since neither of us were particularly knowledgeable on the subject. We had hoped for more opportunities to explore the topic further and educate ourselves, but, unsurprisingly, in our high school there were no courses offered on this specific topic, nor any sort of psychology or Greek and Roman history course. Thus, I was thrilled when I found this class. This is a topic I’m extremely interested in and have had on the backburner for a long time. Furthermore, my hometown/high school was very hush-hush about sex and sexuality, whereas in my college community, sex and sexuality are common occurrences and gossip. These contrasting experiences give me an interesting perspective on the topic that I look forward to developing further.

Although I generally want to learn more about the topic since I think it is interesting, more specifically, I want to learn about other societies’ perspective on sex and sexuality. This content ideally will make me more aware and respectful of how other communities engage with sexuality, and the value of the history of sexuality and its evolution. By understanding the past, we can hope to understand the present in all its complexity. These personal goals overlap with the course aims, however, there are goals of mine and aims of the class that do not overlap. I hope to apply the knowledge from this class to my personal life and how I process and analyze sex and sexuality, more than just our current American society, which I think is beyond the scope of the class aims, although is clearly adjacent and relevant to the content. Additionally, my goals omit the less content-focused aims of the class, such as developing my authorial voice and writing style. As such, my primary goal this semester will be to “Learn about how sexuality was understood in the ancient Greek world and how those classical conceptions reverberate into our own,” as that is a large goal of mine that is also present in the course aims. Overall, my goals and the courses goals match, and I believe this will be a very rewarding class.

My one reservation is my ability to balance this class’ work with my other courses this semester, but I’m sure I’m just nervous given it is the first week of the semester. In terms of questions regarding the course, I currently have just one: do we need to purchase a hardcopy of The History of Sexuality, or can we use the eBook provided by the Honnold Mudd Library? I’m really looking forward to this class!