Medusa: the real story
Analogies are not meant to be taken literally. Neither are adages, idioms, proverbs, etc. When we talk about Medusa having snakes for hair, her hair is not actually snakes. Some chap saw her dreadlocks and compared them to snakes since this is the first ebony goddess he had ever encountered. With juicy hips, thighs, and buttocks she slithered when she walked, but not because her hindquarters were a serpent.
A gaze from her did not turn men to stone, rather it made one part of their body rock hard. They froze with mouth open as she went by, which further cloudied the true meaning of “turning to stone.” Her deep dark brown eyes with flecks of gold around the black pool of her iris; a hypnotic whirlpool coupled with those full glorious lips. Plump and wide, those lips. A light lavender dusting over them, like sugared fruit that anyone to look upon her, men and women both, just had to taste. That urge, utterly palpable. Legend of her beauty grew and doubters were likewise silenced with the frozen open mouth.
Where she walked, a wide wake of fantasies and ache followed. Perseus did not “cut off her head” in the way that you think. She and he were engaging in the ol’ “sword swallowing routine” and Perseus, a wise and intelligent chap who charmed her, persisted at his father’s request to bed her, so to prove which kind of man he was. The man he was, however, was a man interested in other men. Though Medusa’s eager and supple mouth felt good as Perseus’s eyes were closed, his mind flooded with fantasies of men from town. Being a decent man, he stopped the proceedings, ended the oral pleasure, “cut off her ‘head.’”
Perseus confessed his nature. They cried and held each other, and Medusa was disappointed, since he was the only male who had anything interesting to say instead of the stammering mouth-agape apes she was used to. Yet the friendship persisted and even flourished now that sex was no longer a complicating element. But wait, how did Perseus use Medusa’s head to slay the Kraken?
The “Kraken” was a nickname for a ruthless and corrupt seafarer and according to plan Medusa used her wiles and charms to get into his room. She disrobed, commenced with her oral talents. The Kraken, fully distracted and about to climax never heard Perseus as he stole in and stabbed the vicious slave trader. Medusa’s vengeance for her family was complete. Perseus was the assassin. But all these years later, Medusa is painted the villain with snake hair, Perseus the hetero hero, the Kraken an aquatic monster “turned to stone by Medusa’s head.”
Tales like these are steeped in nuance and one can endeavor to decipher the true meaning with a little ingenuity.