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[His name] means the transgression of boundaries. Dionysus is the god not of the mean but the extreme, the god of wine and ecstasy, madness and confusion. Among the many antitheses he confounds is that between masculinity and femininity...Dionysus represents not the steady presence of some permanent aspect of the world but the unexpected appearings and disappearings of an energy incapable of being tamed...Dionysus represents the discovery that being passive [she uses passive when receptive would be a better term -- ed.], being taken over by the god (en theo), losing one's everyday identity, can be blessing and not only curse. The festivals in honor of Dionysus all seem to provide a time of license, of the suspension of the rules that constrain everyday life; the rituals sanction intoxication, ritual transvestism, the inversion of sex roles, ritual dismemberment, phallic processions. There is joyous revelry -- and mourning and lamentation. Dionysus's gifts bring joy -- and danger.
-- Christine Downing
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