Aristophanes and his theory of the three sexes from wikipedia's article on socrates' symposium

"Aristophanes

Aristophanes was the greatest comic poet of Athens, a brilliant and beloved playwright who ruled the comic stage in the late fifth and early fourth century BCE. He had rivals, but none of their plays have survived. The fact that Plato places him in this group is one of the most curious things about the Symposium, since Aristophanes ridiculed Agathon, the host of the party, in his play Thesmophoriazusae, and also made fun of Socrates. The Clouds, staged c. 423 BCE, presents Socrates as a cult master and director of a ridiculous phrontisterion ("thinking-shop") wherein one learns "immoral logic". Aristophanes mentions Socrates disparagingly in at least two other plays as well; the antagonism, according to some interpretations, was not benign.

Not only did Aristophanes have nothing good to say about Socrates, Socrates has nothing good to say about Aristophanes. In Plato's Apology of Socrates he specifically blames Aristophanes for starting the slander that led to his death (Apology 18-19). In what seems to be a complex literary "tit-for-tat," Plato in the Republic depicts Socrates outlawing such people as Aristophanes who write things that cause people to injure themselves by laughing.^[9]

Before launching his speech, Aristophanes warns the group that his eulogy to love may be more absurd than funny. His speech is an explanation of why people in love say they feel "whole" when they have found their love partner. It is, he says, because in primal times people were globular spheres who wheeled around like clowns doing cartwheels (190a). There were three sexes: the all male, the all female, and the "androgynous," who was half man, half woman. The creatures tried to scale the heights of heaven and planned to set upon the gods (190b-c). Zeus thought about just blasting them to death with thunderbolts, but did not want to deprive himself of their devotions and offerings, so he decided to cripple them by chopping them in half.

After chopping the people in half, Zeus turned their faces around and pulled the skin tight and stitched it up to form the belly button. Ever since that time, people run around saying they are looking for their other half because they are really trying to recover their primal nature. He says some people think homosexuals are shameless, but he thinks they are the bravest, most manly of all (192a), and that heterosexuals are mostly adulterous men and unfaithful wives (191e).

Aristophanes ends on a cautionary note. He says that men should fear the gods, and not neglect to worship them, lest they wield the axe again and we have to go about with our noses split apart (193a)."