As a college student, when I think of the term “f***boy,” it conjures up an image of Sperrys, salmon colored shorts (not cargos), and a button-down shirt covered in little anchors.
In short, it is the image of your stereotypical Greek life frat guy. These boys seem like the epitome of being a douche, but I’d like to take you back to the time where Greek life was much different. I’d like to introduce you to the original f***boys: the Greek gods.
Let’s start off with Zeus. Weirdly enough, Zeus is not the OG f***boy, but more on that later.
Zeus is the frat guy who sleeps with any and every girl he pleases and, unfortunately, this was not up to the girl. He would turn himself into anything just to get into a girl’s pants. For example: a swan, a shower of golden rain, an eagle, etc. Today’s Zeus would be the guy who will do and say anything to sleep with you, whether it is giving you a wink across the room or slipping a little something into your drink.
Should you be the object of Zeus’s desire, you’re in for more pain than you think. Modern day Zeus has a girlfriend named Hera. She’s the sweetheart of the fraternity, but she’s anything but “sweet.”
If she sees Zeus so much as look at you funny, she will make your life a literal hell. For example, in Greek mythology, Zeus once tried to sleep with a woman named Io. In order to hide this from Hera, he made a huge cloud cover the Earth so she wouldn’t see. Due to the fact that Hera isn’t an idiot, she knew something was up and decided to investigate. Digging himself an even deeper grave, Zeus transformed Io into a cow, because that makes logical sense. Hera pretended to love the cow so much that she insisted on keeping it as a pet. This is the part of the story where Zeus probably saw another woman he wanted to sleep with and wandered off somewhere. Hera proceeded to take Io home and torture her.
Now, Zeus sounds awful, but we can probably blame bad parenting for that. Zeus’s father, Cronos, was a "titan," which explains the demon man picture below. He once overheard a prophecy that one of his children would overthrow him.
Like any rational parent, this news troubled him. Unlike any rational parent, however, Cronos decided the best course of action would be to eat all of his children. The only reason Zeus lived was because his mother fed Cronos a rock dressed in baby clothes, so not only can we add 'terrible parent' to the list, but also 'complete idiot.' Honestly, I’m not sure how Cronos factors into the modern frat life. Let’s just mark him down as the alumni dad who is crippled by fear that his own son will be more successful than him.
Poseidon is another well-known character: god of the sea, and Zeus’s brother.
He plays a huge part in another well-known character’s story. Let’s give a warm welcome to Medusa, the misunderstood snake queen. Most of you have probably learned that Medusa is a horrifying witch who turns everyone to stone with just one look, but this is far from true. Medusa was once a fair and lovely girl who served as a priestess for Athena. Poseidon saw her one day and thought, “Yeah, I’m definitely having sex with this girl, whether she likes it or not,” and so he did. This angered Athena for all the wrong reasons. Due to the fact that history has never looked kindly on women, Medusa was blamed for letting herself get raped while Poseidon got off scot-free. Medusa was cursed for all eternity to live as a monster who turned anyone who looked her in the eyes into stone, and Poseidon continued to live as the mighty god of the sea. The modern-day comparison for this isn’t too hard. Medusa is the poor girl who gets asked, “Well, what were you wearing?” while Poseidon was probably a Steubenville football player or something.
That last one was a little dark, so I’ll focus on the good attributes of our next god. Apollo was the beautiful, shining songbird of Greece. He was a curly-haired prophet who only spoke the truth and played the lyre.
He was one of the nicer gods, only punishing some of the women who rejected him. His mother, while pregnant with him and his sister, was pursued by a massive snake who constantly harassed her. A mere four days after being born, Apollo went after the snake and killed it. Apollo was a gifted musician as well. He once skinned a man alive for beating him in a musical competition, but we’ll overlook that for now. Modern day Apollo would be that one guy at a party who always brings his guitar, even though no one asked him to.
So yes, frat guys might be douchey, but they are nowhere near as bad as their ancient counterparts.
