Truck stop brothels run by a web of ex-cons. A Commonwealth attorney wasted on

whiskey and power. Protection exchanged for cash and flesh. This is Hooker Gay, criminals and libertines in the South, and I am

your host and lifelong wayward woman, Dr. Lindsay Byron. Listen to Hooker Gay, Criminals and Libertines in the South on the I Heart Radio

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky, listener discretion advised.

One brief content note before I begin, I talk about sexual violence and suicide in this episode.

So if those themes are something that you are particularly sensitive to, this might be an episode to skip.

The story of Medusa, like many ancient legends,

plays out differently depending on which version you're reading.

It was Avid in his Greek mythology fan fiction metamorphoses who introduced the version of Medusa's story that most

listeners are probably familiar with today. In that version, Medusa was the

daughter of a sea god who grew up to be a beautiful young priestess of Athena or Minerva as the goddess would have been known to Avid and the Romans.

Medusa tragically caught the attention of Poseidon or Neptune, who proceeded to rape her in

Minerva's temple.

Avid uses the brutal word vitaeasy, injure, defile or damage to describe the act.

You might know what happens next in the story.

It's not Neptune who's punished, but Medusa herself.

Her hair is transformed into snakes by her own goddess. There is a feminist reading of that outcome in which some

see Minerva giving Medusa a means to protect herself against future assault.

That's a generous reading.

As classic scholar Natalie Haynes reminds us,

Minerva wasn't exactly a girls girl, but it's also a fairly depressing reading in my view.

...