Interestingly, Venus is a goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, which is significant, since she was literally created from the male genitalia, and males were more strongly linked to sexuality than females, even at that point in Roman history. In the rest of Roman and Greek mythology, Venus/Aphrodite generally plays a benevolent role, though she does use influence women to use their sexuality in inappropriate ways, such as the willful seduction of one's own father.

Botticelli's painting captures all of the prettier elements of the birth of Venus without referencing the uglier parts of the myth. There are no castrated gods or vengeful sons in the painting, merely a beautiful, naked woman emerging from the sea, standing grown in a sea shell. The sea shell symbolized the vulva in art of that time period. Moreover, Venus was a frequent non-religious subject of paintings, because it was considered acceptable to depict...
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