But why did the νοῦσος (disease) receive the epithet θήλεια (feminine)? Taking the word to be used _passively_,—as obviously is done by those who make out the νοῦσος θήλεια to have been an affection similar in character to menstruation,—we might find its explanation in the dictum of Tiresias, who, as is well known, ascribed to the woman the greater pleasure in the act of coition. From this fact,—if it is a fact,—a greater longing on the part of the woman for coition may be deduced; for which reason _Plato_ compared the _uterus_ (womb) to a wild beast. Thus the νοῦσος θήλεια would be _feminine concupiscence_. Just as the woman longs intensely for natural coition with the man, in the same way and with a like intensity does the pathic long after unnatural[351]. Thus the punishment inflicted by Venus would have consisted in the goddess having implanted in the man the concupiscence of a woman. If on the other hand θήλεια (feminine) is taken in an _active_ sense, as it is by _Stark_ and other interpreters,—and with greater correctness, then the νοῦσος θήλεια is _a form of lust that transforms men into women_,—and this can be said of paederastia in several senses, as is manifest from what has been said already on preceding pages. The Pathic becomes a woman, because he renounces his man’s prerogative, as being the stronger, to play the _active_ part[352], and assumes instead the _passive_ rôle of the woman[353], Entering into competition as he does with the ladies of pleasure in courting the favour of men, he has recourse to all the arts they invoke to gain their object; and seeks by artificial means to bring his body into as close a resemblance as possible to the female form. He dresses himself out like a woman of pleasure, adopts female dress, and lets the hair of the head grow long, whilst at the same time he carefully eradicates by the process of _dropacismus_ (use of pitch-ointment as a depilatory) every trace of hair on other parts of the person, even sacrificing what was the chief ornament of a man in Ancient times,—his beard[354]. All this was done by the hero of _Aristophanes’_ “Thesmophoriazusae”, and without a doubt an underlying irony _à propos_ of the pathics was at the bottom of the poet’s conception. Care of the skin, such as women adopt, by means of baths, friction with pumice-stone, etc. complete the feminine appearance[355],—hence the expressions μάλακος, μαλθακός (soft or effeminate) for the pathic, μαλακία, μαλθακία (softness, effeminacy) for the pathic’s vice; and outraged Nature avenges herself by seconding his endeavours. In consequence of the stretching of the fundament, the buttocks become broader towards the lower part, and the space between them wider, causing the hips to take more the shape they have in a woman, the pelvis itself seems to be enlarged, while the legs lose their straightness and the knees bend more and more inwards (γονύκροτος—knock-kneed,)—in short the whole of the lower half of the