A question about Anath/Astarte

Question: Can you explain how Anath-Astarte could be a sexually promiscuous goddess of fertility and still a virgin goddess?

Anath was a Semitic goddess of fertility, sexual love, hunting, and war: an interesting combination. Are they related? Fertility and sexual love of course are linked; hunting of one's beloved is not without precedent; war for the sake of love, ditto - and there is the well-known aphorism that all is fair in love and war... 

So, not so paradoxical after all, perhaps, although the ancient concept of virginity does appear somewhat paradoxical according to our contemporary use of the term to mean someone who has not had sexual congress. So-called 'Virgins' might be those who were dedicated to the Temple; or they might simply be independent single women: I guess they were sexually active 'blue-stockings'! So, to be a Virgin Goddess implies not celibacy but control by the goddesses of their own sexual liaisons/activity.

The term can also, of course, simply mean a young woman, whether sexually active or not, and Anath was portrayed as a beautiful young girl, albeit one who was ferocious in battle! She was not only known as The Virgin, but also The Wanton, as much because of her love of war as for her love of sex. Her other titles included The Fairest, The Lady (of the Mountain), The Destroyer, and The Strength of Life, and her epithets include Agreeable Anath and Terror of Anath.

What I like about this is that there is no sense that opposites are necessarily contradictions: Anath, as an example of this, is both aggressive and ruthless but also beautiful and protective. Like her, any woman or man can manifest apparently opposing traits yet without being diagnosed as having a split-personality or being accused of being duplicitous.