Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Cupid's Eros

Happy Valentine's Day!

[description: series of portraits of a nude man with red wings wielding a bow and arrow]

Cupid has been neutered in modern days, represented in the traditional form of the putto, or cherub: a chubby, winged baby. A very noncontroversial depiction of love in the Christian sense - an act the goal of which is to produce a child. In essence, people fall in love so that babies can be born.

However, Cupid has also been depicted in antiquity as a mischievous youth, the child of Venus, Goddess of Love and Beauty - cementing the inextricable link between adolescence and sexuality, however taboo it is to acknowledge that natural fact in today's culture.

Furthermore, the name of Cupid's counterpart in Greek mythology is Eros - root of the word erotic, indicating sexual desire - which suggestively implies that it's not just inoffensive kissing and hand-holding that goes on whenever Cupid shoots one of his arrows. -_^

[description: portrait of Cupid as above, this time with an erection]
"Ain't no need to hide, ain't no need to run,
cause I've got you in the sights of my...love gun."