Reply #6: Relevant quote from 'Dude, where's my Goddess'

[omega minimo]

newswolf56 (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-13-05 06:28 PM
Response to Original message

20. With all due respect, the poster (#11) who describes...
ancient statuary of the Goddess (and by implication all such iconography) as "quite possibly the paleolithic equivalent of the internet porn site" fails to recognize that "pornography" is essentially a state of mind, an attitude or rather an entire complex of attitudes. That one would argue Goddess-iconography and porn are equivalent also suggests dire confusion between the attitudes that result in "pornography" and the radically different state of shamelessness or freedom from guilt that anthropology has shown to be characteristic of many so-called "primitive" peoples.

Pornography is always a manifestation of sexual guilt (hatred of self fostered by the conditioning imposed by Abrahamic religion) and hatred of women and nature (the central element in the Abrahamic creed): the entire notion this world exists merely as a series of obstacles to be transcended on the way to "eternity" and is therefore but vile ensnarement. Depending on its content, pornography may express specific aspects of characteristic Abrahamic hostilities -- an ultimate example would be snuff films in which women are horribly murdered -- or it may attempt to express the sensuality forbidden by Abrahamic precepts and thus be an act of rebellion. It may also be a confused expression of both motives. Whatever, the defining characteristic of pornography is not its imagery per se; it is rather the fact that it is invariably a product of guilt and shame: a definition strongly implied by the related jurisprudence, especially the notions of "socially redeeming value" and "local standards." The ultimate measure of pornography's implicit shamefulness is the fact that while pornography may exist in public, its erotic functions are all carefully concealed, relegated to back-alley shops with suspiciously stained floors, dark theaters with damp seats, spaces sealed by locked doors, under mattresses, in computer rooms protected by drawn shades. Not only that; in many places these erotic functions are specifically prohibited, as are the images themselves.

The milieu from which the Goddess iconography emerged is almost certainly the diametrical opposite of Abrahamic society. Everything that is known about so-called "primitive" peoples suggests they are mercifully unpoisoned by sexual guilt: literally shameless. And with their psyches never mangled by Abrahamic creeds, their attitudes toward sexually charged iconography would therefore be radically different too. We are so far removed from that purity, and so savagely twisted by 2600 years of doctrinally imposed guilt, I believe that even our most sexually healed individuals can approach "primitive" sexual consciousness only by analogy. In this sense it is as the Zen masters say about describing enlightenment: like trying to describe water to someone who has never tasted nor felt nor even seen it -- and yet enlightenment, like original shamelessness, is "nothing special." Indeed I am not even certain we can describe it by analogy; perhaps we can only speak in terms of what such shamelessness is not: despite Abrahamic efforts to condemn it as evil, it is as organic as the tendency of a flower to open or a stalk to grow. It is not remotely akin to the moral imbecility of the sociopath; neither is its lust like greed or covetousness -- not the greed of the spoiled child nor the greed of the predatory capitalist -- for how can one covet that which one cannot possibly own?: that which therefore cannot be diminished by ownership.

Which brings me to my final summation of the distinctions: one may own pornography, but one cannot possibly own the Goddess -- even if one regards her as nothing more than a metaphor.



In these times, mere survival is a revolutionary act.