Gender conception is also challenged with the scene at Duke Senior's forest home (Greenblatt, ed., pp1612-1613). There are no woman in the forest retreat and there appears to be no desire for them either. This seems to be an "all men together" lifestyle which is described as being "sweet." Duke Senior says (Greenblatt, ed., p1612, line 5) "Here we feel not the penalty of Adam" and this line alone really points to the "no women" feelings amongst the men.
One needs to look at the relationship of Rosalind and Orlando and Rosalind's disguise as Ganymede. To do this one needs to discover the meaning behind the name Ganymede.
The name Ganymede has social and literary connotations and suggests male to male desire. Ganymede was a young boy from mythology that Jove fell in love with. The boy replaced Jove's wife as his lover. In Shakespearean times the name Ganymede was used to describe a male prostitute and more specifically the name given to a young male lover of an older man. The term was fully understood at the time and I would suspect that Shakespeare used it to implicate a homoerotic overture between Orlando and Ganymede. The idea of a homoerotic relationship between these two would also be backed by the speedy acceptance by Orlando of the situation. Orlando describes Ganymede as "fair" and "good" and woos and flirts with him as he would have with Rosalind.
Returning to Rosalind and Celia one can find more evidence of their deep relationship when they are discussing Orlando (Greenblatt, ed., pp 1634-1635). They are in deep conversation about Orlando and Rosalind is "singing his praises" to Celia. Rosalind says she loves his hair, his and his love. Celia replies that his hair is the same as Judas's, his kisses cold as ice and that his love is hollow. So here one can see that Celia is jealous of Orlando.
Celia is not the only woman in love with Rosalind. When Phoebe first discovers Rosalind as Ganymede she falls in love.
