Editing Hathor (section)

===Sexuality, beauty, and love===

Hathor's joyful, ecstatic side indicates her feminine, procreative power. In some creation myths she helped produce the world itself.{{sfn|Pinch|2002|p=138}} [[Atum]], a creator god who contained all things within himself, was said to have produced his children [[Shu (Egyptian god)|Shu]] and [[Tefnut]], and thus begun the process of creation, by masturbating. The hand he used for this act, the Hand of Atum, represented the female aspect of himself and could be personified by Hathor, Nebethetepet, or another goddess, [[Iusaaset]].{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|pp=99, 141, 156}} In a late [[creation myth]] from the [[Ptolemaic Period]] (332–30 BC), the god [[Khonsu]] is put in a central role, and Hathor is the goddess with whom Khonsu mates to enable creation.{{sfn|Cruz-Uribe|1994|pp=185, 187–188}}

Hathor could be the consort of many male gods, of whom Ra was only the most prominent. [[Mut]] was the usual consort of [[Amun]], the preeminent deity during the New Kingdom who was often linked with Ra. But Mut was rarely portrayed alongside Amun in contexts related to sex or fertility, and in those circumstances, Hathor or [[Isis]] stood at his side instead.{{sfn|Wilkinson|2003|p=155}} In the late periods of Egyptian history, the form of Hathor from Dendera and the form of Horus from Edfu were considered husband and wife{{sfn|Lesko|1999|p=127}} and in different versions of the myth of the Distant Goddess, Hathor-Raettawy was the consort of Montu{{sfn|Darnell|1995|pp=47, 69}} and Hathor-Tefnut the consort of Shu.{{sfn|Pinch|2002|p=197}}

Hathor's sexual side was seen in some [[Ancient Egyptian literature#Narrative tales and stories|short stories]]. In a cryptic fragment of a Middle Kingdom story, known as "The Tale of the Herdsman", a herdsman encounters a hairy, animal-like goddess in a marsh and reacts with terror. On another day he encounters her as a nude, alluring woman. Most [[Egyptologists]] who study this story think this woman is Hathor or a goddess like her, one who can be wild and dangerous or benign and erotic. Thomas Schneider interprets the text as implying that between his two encounters with the goddess the herdsman has done something to pacify her.{{sfn|Schneider|2007|pp=315–317}} In "[[The Contendings of Horus and Set]]", a New Kingdom short story about the [[Osiris myth#Conflict of Horus and Set|dispute between those two gods]], Ra is upset after being insulted by another god, [[Babi (mythology)|Babi]], and lies on his back alone. After some time, Hathor exposes her genitals to Ra, making him laugh and get up again to perform his duties as ruler of the gods. Life and order were thought to be dependent on Ra's activity, and the story implies that Hathor averted the disastrous consequences of his idleness. Her act may have lifted Ra's spirits partly because it sexually aroused him, although why he laughed is not fully understood.{{sfn|Morris|2007|pp=198–199, 201, 207}}

Hathor was praised for her beautiful hair. Egyptian literature contains allusions to a myth not clearly described in any surviving texts, in which Hathor lost a lock of hair that represented her sexual allure. One text compares this loss with Horus's loss of his [[Eye of Horus|divine Eye]] and [[Set (mythology)|Set]]'s loss of his testicles during the struggle between the two gods, implying that the loss of Hathor's lock was as catastrophic for her as the maiming of Horus and Set was for them.{{sfn|Selden|1998|pp=346–348}}

Hathor was called "mistress of love", as an extension of her sexual aspect. In the series of love poems from Papyrus Chester Beatty{{nbsp}}I, from the [[Twentieth Dynasty]] (c. 1189–1077 BC), men and women ask Hathor to bring their lovers to them: "I prayed to her [Hathor] and she heard my prayer. She destined my mistress [loved one] for me. And she came of her own free will to see me."{{sfn|Bleeker|1973|pp=40–41}}