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Musée du Louvre/Photo by Timothy McCarthy/Art Resource, NY

Cupid embraces the beautiful mortal Psyche, after both have been pricked by the youthful deity’s potent, love-inflicting arrows, in this late-18th-century sculpture by Antonio Canova. In the ancient Near East, too, archery is connected with sex. In Psalm 45:5–6, the king shoots off “arrows” on his wedding day.