@inbook{5648f5d32d29415895357a195b95607e,
title = "The Risks of Riding a Dolphin: A Motif in Some Greek and Roman Narratives of Animal-Human Love",
abstract = "This chapter focuses on a little-noticed motif in the narratives of dolphins falling in love with humans found in Apion (quoted by Aulus Gellius), Pliny the Elder, Aelian, and Oppian: the dorsal fin appears either as a handle to grasp or as an improbably sharp object capable of piercing the flesh of the beloved, wounding or even killing him as he rides on his lover{\textquoteright}s back. Observing the erotic charge of the language and imagery, Williams situates this motif in broader contexts: other narratives of animals in love with humans; Lucretian and Virgilian conceptualizations of erotic desire in terms of piercing and penetrating, pleasure and pain; the role of penetration in pederastic configurations of human desire. In a coda, two widely different texts on animals, humans, and physical intimacy—an epigram by Strato of Sardis and a scene from Jack London{\textquoteright}s Call of the Wild—occasion some reflection on scratching, piercing, and shared pleasure.",
keywords = "Aelian, Zoophilia, Virgil, Strato of Sardis, Scratching, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, Pleasure, Piercing, Periander of Ambracia, Penetration, Pederasty, Oppian, Lucretius, London, Jack, Gellius, Aulus, eros, Dolphins, Dogs, Desire, Aristotle, Apion, Animals",
author = "Williams, {Craig Arthur}",
year = "2021",
month = sep,
doi = "10.1007/978-3-030-65806-9_10",
language = "English (US)",
isbn = "9783030658052",
series = "The New Antiquity",
publisher = "Palgrave Macmillan",
pages = "215–238",
editor = "Katherine Hsu and David Schur and Brian Sowers",
booktitle = "The Body Unbound",
address = "United Kingdom",
}