1.Originally, there were three sexes, not two, and we were doubly formed, not individual: male and male, female and female, and male and female. Zeus split the spherical creatures in two as punishment for their arrogance, causing each to experience the loss of the other – a loss that we long to redeem through sexual union, as the once androgynous couple become the procreative heterosexual couple.
2.From Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex:
Plato’s Symposium is cited by Cal’s new friend, Zora, who offers him an alternative explanatory narrative to the scientific category ‘5-Alpha-Reductase Pseudohermaphrodites’:
There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That’s why everybody’s always searching for their other half. Except for us. We’ve got both halves already.
