assignedcatholicatbirth reblogged
Bull-god, drunk god, god of women and transvestites, giver of ecstasy, master of dance, lord of the emotions—such were the various masks worn by the daimon whose lineage went back to ancient Minoan civilization. In his myths and rituals, Dionysos embodied both a feeling for the living continuities of nature and a concept of the human personality as an organism deeply rooted in the nonrational forces of the cosmos. Serving as the focus for the spiritual needs of Greece's underclasses, he became the god that the patriarchal establishment could neither accept nor eliminate. And so Dionysos represented the return of the repressed in several senses: return of the religious needs of the lower classes, return of the demands of the nonrational part of the self, and return of the Minoan feeling for the living unity of nature. And so in turn he threatened several repressors: the aristocracy of well-to-do male citizens, the domination of intellect over emotion, the alienated ethos of the city-state.
Arthur Evans, “The God of Ecstasy: Sex Roles and the Madness of Dionysos,” 1988