In the beginning of the epic poem Gilgamesh, the main character Gilgamesh is conveyed as a generally immoral human, his genesis mythically coming from the gods. "Two thirds they made him god and one third man."

Sayers, Janet. Sexual Contradictions. New York: Tavistock Publications Ltd., 1986. 23-34.

After Gilgamesh and Enkidu meet, there forms a relationship based on the theories of Platonic love , which can also be called erotic love. However, this relationship does not have to be a sexual one, such as modern times lead us to believe. "Erotic need not suggest sexual relationship here, but the companionship, the feeling of being met fully by others, the warmth of empathy, and the sharing of the heart that is erotic in the widest sense, yet not necessarily physically sexual." (Doty 76). Gilgamesh and Enkidu come to share a relationship in which each becomes a very close companion of the other. In this relationship, Gilgamesh tends to be the more masculine figure, while Enkidu is more feminine in many respects. On the broad level, one possible explanation for this is the idea of social conditioning. "...children learn of the association of aggression, say, with masculinity from the fact that parents and nursery school teachers treat boys more roughly and boisterously than girls, and from their experience in nursery school, for instance, that the boys tend to be more often involved than the girls in rough-and-tumble and aggressive interaction." (Sayers 24). Although Enkidu did not attend a nursery school, he was raised in the wild, and in the wild it is often true that many wild animals have different definitions of gender roles, such as females hunting ad males watching the young in some species. This was the environment in which Enkidu spent the earliest part of his time on earth. Then, in his first interaction with mankind he was with a harlot, and therefore his first glimpse of mankind was of the feminine side, even if it was from a sexually male perspective. Then, he is forced into a world where his behaviors that were the norm are no longer the norm for most of the society he is entering into.

Whereas at one time we could not look at this kind of relationship in terms of the possibility of there being more than an emotional Platonic love present, with the opening up of today's society it can now become an important analytical lens (Doty 76). Although we can not say that Gilgamesh and Enkidu definitely shared a homosexual relationship, we also can not discount the possibility that such a relation ship exists. It is interesting that they take each other by the hand in several instances. It is hard today to know for sure if this was typical at this time or if it was a specific gesture. Of particular interest in relation to the meeting of Gilgamesh and Enkidu is that upon embracing Gilgamesh, Enkidu essentially gives up women to be by the side of Gilgamesh. This could easily be an example of Platonic love, in which the separate parts of the original being have returned to their unified state, in this case both parts being male. In modern times, it would be very difficult for most males to relate to this type of a relationship. This is largely due to the distrust of male relationships, and t

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Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)