Hera and Zeus once got into a heated debate over who derived the most pleasure from sex: the man or the woman. Zeus claimed that women took greater pleasure in sex, and Hera claimed that men got all the enjoyment. Neither one could convince the other, so they decided to call in Tiresias to settle the dispute.

Tiresias was unusually qualified to judge the matter because he'd lived as both a man and a woman. When he was a child, Tiresias came upon two snakes mating. He took a stick and beat the coupling pair, killing the female. At once, he was transformed into a woman. He lived as a woman for seven years until he chanced upon another pair of mating snakes. This time, he killed the male snake and was transformed back into a man.

When asked his opinion, Tiresias was adamant: Women derive more pleasure from the act of sex. In fact, he said, a woman enjoys lovemaking nine times more than a man does. Hera lost the debate, and she was so furious that she struck Tiresias blind.