Michael Rex has a Ph.D. specializing in literature, poetry, and drama. In this essay he explores the ideology of Lysistrata's sexuality and how translators can affect this sexuality.

Without argument, Lysistrata is a play about sex. However, the attitudes of the translators often get mixed up in how the play expresses the sexuality of the title character. As an image of a traditional Greek woman, Lysistrata would not have behaved in the manner that she did because, according to history and respectable male philosophers, respectable Greek women did not engage in sexual activity. More recent studies, like Merlin Stone's When God Was a Woman, Pauline Schmitt's A History of Women: From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints, and Elaine Fantham's Women in the Classical World suggest that women had more control and took more of an active part in their lives, especially their sex lives. The play...