I was trying to find a definitive answer for this on Google and in a few subreddits but could not find a satisfactory answer. A lot of sites seemed to contradict each other or only had partial lists of how many lovers Zeus had. Everyone seems to make fun of Zeus for all of his sexual partners, so I'm just wondering what a complete list would look like.
And to clarify: if there was some magic babymaking that didn't involve actual sex should probably count in this list too.
Thanks for helping with my curiousity!
So, the very boring and slightly anticlimactic (no pun intended) answer is that there is no definitive list.
The reason for this is the nature of mythological canon. We tend to think of Greek mythology as being one overarching story, with multiple chapters for each hero, which can ultimately be placed in one big framework and understood in a chronological fashion. The truth is that this is not how mythology works. Not only does mythology vary between time periods, but also between cults, regions and forms. To give an example, the mythological canon of Hesiod's Theogony, written in Greek in approximately 700BC, was not the same as the canon used in Ovid's Metamorphoses, written in Latin in around 8AD. Both poems are essentially genealogies of mythology; they are each an epic poem which states at the beginning 'here is how the world was created, and here is how the gods developed, and what they did afterwards', but they are very different in content.
To give what I think is the best example of how the actual stories themselves could be different depending on who told them, there was an active cult in Ancient Greece named Orphism. This wasn't exactly a separate religion, as religion didn't work in quite the same way (i.e. not several discrete religions without any overlap, but rather one broad way of viewing the world through theology with certain variations); instead, the people who were part of the cult of Orphism worshipped the same gods as the rest of the Greek world, but their rituals, and the narratives associated with those rituals, were focused on Orpheus and the idea of the afterlife. In their mythological understanding, Zeus slept with Persephone whilst wearing the guise of Hades. Persephone then gave birth to a son, Zagreus, who was destroyed in a jealous rage by Hera, and was later reborn as Dionysus. This myth is not the usual myth we hear about Dionysus' birth, but it is an equally valid one and one that formed an important part of Orphic ritual; it is canonical in the sense that it was part of the huge fabric of Ancient Greek religion, but not in the sense that you tend to find it in modern books which retell Greek mythology.
So, for various reasons, including the fact that mythology could be used in a number of ways – to entertain, to teach, as part of ritual, to make a political statement – there were hundreds, if not thousands, of variations of myths. In one version of a myth, a character might be the daughter of Zeus; in another, she might be the daughter of a mortal man, or another god.
There are, of course, some characters who are almost universally recognised as consorts (or victims, depending on how you look at it and which version you’re reading) of Zeus. Hera, Ganymede, Io, Europa (mother of Minos), Danae (mother of Perseus), Alcmene (mother of Heracles), Demeter (mother of Persephone), Leto (mother of Apollo and Artemis), Leda (mother of Helen of Troy), Semele (mother of Dionysus, except in Orphic tradition) and Maia (mother of Hermes) are possibly the most universally recognised. In some traditions, Zeus also fathered the Muses and the Fates, but again, this isn’t always the case. There are several nymphs, too many to name, who are sometimes invoked as Zeus' lovers, and several mortal women. He also had two other wives beyond Hera; Metis and Themis. Metis did not bear him any children, although he did give birth to Athena from his skull after eating Metis, so that technically counts. Themis is sometimes listed as the mother of the Fates and the Hours with Zeus, but not always.
The best source for a sort of amalgamation of Zeus’ consorts and children is Pseudo-Apollodorus’ (not his name; it means it has been falsely attributed to the real Apollodorus!) Bibliotheca, which is essentially an ancient school text. It’s very dry to read, but it was written specifically to teach people the mythological canon, and as such it lists certain gods and their consorts and children, and does so from several different canons without stating as such. Heracles’ children cover several pages.
The other two good ancient sources are, as previously mentioned, the Theogony (literally the birth of the gods) and the Metamorphoses, as both texts tell dozens of stories of gods and their families. Beyond that, it would really be a case of compiling the sources from different canons and retellings, which is almost impossible. Theoi.com is a good bet for an online source and is very comprehensive.