I long for the days when sex was so sacred...

I think a good literary treatment of what sacred sexuality & temple prostitution might look like in a sex-positive culture is to be found in Jaqueline Carey's Terre D'Ange -books. Her Kushiel series is in parts basically BDSM erotica for the literary-minded, so for those of us who like our ice-cream vanilla with no sauce, her new Moirin series is equally delightful and a lot lighter in content.
 
Sort of along the same vein...

Years ago, I started to read The Moon Under Her Feet by Clysta Kinstler but never finished it because the person I borrowed it from wanted it back (she was moving or something). But it was good and real popular among my circle of women (Wiccan) friends. I might pick it up again.

Here is the review/summary on Amazon:
The Moon Under Her Feet

"This feminist retelling of the conception, birth, life and death of Christ as narrated by Mary Magdalene may cause some uproar in Christian circles. Yeshua (Christ) is born to Almah Mari (the Virgin Mary) after her union in Sacred Marriage at the Temple in Jerusalem with an unblemished man who kills himself as a sacrifice for his people. Later Mari Anath becomes Magdalene, or High Priestess of the Goddess, and assumes co-rule with Jehovah, succeeding Almah Mari. Mari Anath follows Yeshua in the years of his ministry, despite objections from some adherents who call her harlot because they oppose the double worship of the Goddess and Jehovah and the equality of sexes that relationship implies. But days before the crucifixion, when Yeshua sacrifices himself, he and the Magdalene are united in Sacred Marriage in the Temple before the people. Mari Anath gives birth to Yeshua's daughter Anna after she and Judas (who is The Christos's twin brother and betrays him at his behest in order to fulfill the prophesy) flee to Gaul to make a new life. First novelist Kinstler, a professor of philosophy, mines the literature of myth to make this lyrically written interpretation plausible. She provides notes and a bibliography to buttress much of her tale. "
 
Last edited:
We once went to Aphrodite's Temple (Sacred Sexuality) introduction...

here is a link http://www.ravenslairleather.com/Main.html

That looks extremely interesting. From their website:

The temple is a sacred space which is about worship. In ancient times, people would come to the temple not only to worship the goddess, but to also be worshiped. I invite you to rekindle this old tradition by worshiping one another as sexual human beings and allowing others to worship you. Recognize the god/goddess aspect within each person. We are not just physical bodies. The body is a sacred temple which houses our spirit...

Sex is a process of raising erotic energy either alone, or with others, bringing about pleasure and ecstasy for all participants. The energy raised is a form of power that can bring balance, transcendence, attunement, and healing. Sex is only partly about genitals and bodies. Much of sex happens in the mind and spirit...

We are constantly receiving stimulation...

We live in a touch deprived society. Yet touch has many benefits. Touch is a sense that is different from our other senses in that it is not localized. Our whole bodies are wired for receiving stimulations of touch. Touch is necessary for life. If infants do not receive human touch, they will die. Something very powerful is transmitted when we touch one another. For adults, it is necessary for physical and emotional health. Erotic touch is even more powerful. Think about how it feels when a lover provides an erotic caress. Our bodies respond and become charged with energy.

While I find that the best energy is raised with a person you care deeply about, energy can also be found in erotic interplay with respectful "strangers" or friends you are not in a deeply committed day-to-day relationship with.


I think a good literary treatment of what sacred sexuality & temple prostitution might look like in a sex-positive culture is to be found in Jaqueline Carey's Terre D'Ange -books. Her Kushiel series is in parts basically BDSM erotica for the literary-minded...

Sounds intriguing!


The Moon Under Her Feet...

"This feminist retelling of the conception, birth, life and death of Christ as narrated by Mary Magdalene may cause some uproar in Christian circles. Yeshua (Christ) is born to Almah Mari (the Virgin Mary) after her union in Sacred Marriage at the Temple in Jerusalem with an unblemished man who kills himself as a sacrifice for his people. Later Mari Anath becomes Magdalene, or High Priestess of the Goddess, and assumes co-rule with Jehovah, succeeding Almah Mari. Mari Anath follows Yeshua in the years of his ministry, despite objections from some adherents who call her harlot because they oppose the double worship of the Goddess and Jehovah and the equality of sexes that relationship implies. But days before the crucifixion, when Yeshua sacrifices himself, he and the Magdalene are united in Sacred Marriage in the Temple before the people. Mari Anath gives birth to Yeshua's daughter Anna after she and Judas (who is The Christos's twin brother and betrays him at his behest in order to fulfill the prophesy) flee to Gaul to make a new life. First novelist Kinstler, a professor of philosophy, mines the literature of myth to make this lyrically written interpretation plausible. She provides notes and a bibliography to buttress much of her tale. "

Some early Christian writings did not make the final cut and become part of the official canon of the Bible as we know it today. There are gnostic gospels, acts and revelations from the 4th century to be found which uphold the interpretation apparently expanded upon in this book.

There are women in the Biblical canon variously called Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, or who go unnamed, who anoint Jesus' feet, head or his whole body. One woman even wipes the anointing oil in with her hair, an obviously erotic act. The fact that a lowly woman in Judaean culture anointed a leader is obviously pagan and entirely heretical to the patriarchal "Jewish" thoughts of that era and culture.

The heiros gamos (sacred marriage) themes in gnostic Greek culture included the female Lover anointing the sexual organ of her male Lover in preparation for intercourse. In the Bible we see Mary anointing Jesus" "feet." In the Old Testament, the word "feet" was sometimes employed as a euphemism for the penis (while "thigh" was used to mean testicles).

Since the Jesus character was a typical dying and rising god (similar to many others going back in recorded history to at least 3500 BCE and Osiris), his "sacrifice" was one of the crops, cut down in their prime to be food (actual or spiritual) for the community. In the sacred marriage tradition, the King was married to the Queen (who survives, Mother Nature being constant), the marriage consummated, followed by the King's death.
 
.... Even amongst poly people here, I see relationships based mostly or only on sex all too often as being made out to be dirty and somehow lesser than, a full on, all or nothing totally committed relationship.

mmm. Sore topic for me. You see, for me, sex and feeling/heart are all intertwined. I'm a bi guy who has a lot more experience with men than with women, and who has also sought to bring another man (or woman) into my life -- with abysmal results--largely because so many gay/bi/queer men don't want to or cannot have what I want to share. (Women are another story--to much to say just now. But I'm not closed to the idea!) In my experience, too many men want to have "hot" sex with strangers and then hope never to see them again. That might be "fun" when you're in your teens or twenties, but I'm a grown up little boy now. I want to play lightly and love like it matters. It doesn't have to be setting up housekeeping. It just has to involve heart. Whether with a man or a woman.
 
It really sounds like my kind of book. I love "alternative" history. That is: history that is not written from the (white) male POV.

As a tall, white male American, I want to say that I'm in agreement with you in spirit yet opposed to your way of languaging this such that white males are The Problem. I'm SO not into the mainstream American/Global/Corporate/Warring... culture of domination. That is, the "Dominator Culture". My orientation is more like that of a Native American than of the oppressor import from Europe -- but this isn't to point fingers at Europeans!! ... So on and so forth....
 
River, please don't take responsibility for the patriarchy, which has a history going back to the beginnings of sedentary agricultural culture. I didn't mean my words to be an attack on any one man in any century. It's nothing personal! :eek:
 
Since the Jesus character was a typical dying and rising god (similar to many others going back in recorded history to at least 3500 BCE and Osiris), his "sacrifice" was one of the crops, cut down in their prime to be food (actual or spiritual) for the community. In the sacred marriage tradition, the King was married to the Queen (who survives, Mother Nature being constant), the marriage consummated, followed by the King's death.

The very first Christ character was actually a Christa, who journeyed to the Underworld to retrieve a lost lover and was nailed into a wall. She was the Ishtar/Astarte/Ashera/Isis Goddess-figure revered in the whole ancient Levant.

Magdlyn, 'Love as Thou Wilt' in L.R.'s signature is a direct quote from Carey's books and the 'constitution' of the fictional Terre d'Ange.
 
The very first Christ character was actually a Christa, who journeyed to the Underworld to retrieve a lost lover and was nailed into a wall. She was the Ishtar/Astarte/Ashera/Isis Goddess-figure revered in the whole ancient Levant.

Yes, I know that Babylonian Ishtar myth too, and it's similar to the Greek myth of Persephone's descent into Hades, down there for 3 months during winter. Not quite the same thing as the dying and rising grain god. But thanks for mentioning that. I'm not sure that myth is older than the Osiris myth, which goes back to 3500 BCE at the latest determined date. ...I'm sure earlier hunter/gatherer cultures had their own myths based on the wheel of the seasons.

The Egyptian myth shows Osiris and Isis and Set as siblings. Set tricks Osiris into a scheme, eventually cuts him up in several pieces and scatters his body parts in a marsh. With the help of Hathor, the female 4th sibling, Isis reclaims Osiris' body parts, reassembles them. The only missing piece is his penis, which she forms out of clay or gold. Then she takes the form of a bird, hovers over his penis and conceives Horus. Horus becomes the God of the Overworld, battles Set and wins. Osiris becomes the God of the Underworld and judges the dead.

I just love how these older religions frankly incorporated female dieties, and sex, into creation and fertility myths. Christianity tries to take sex out of the equation, fetishizing celibacy based on the writings of St Paul. But then, you get sex perverted, leading to the horrific abuse of children by Catholic priests, in a huge secretly sanctioned ring of child slavery. This has only come to full public knowledge in the last decade, but of course it was an established practice going back for centuries.

Magdlyn, 'Love as Thou Wilt' in L.R.'s signature is a direct quote from Carey's books and the 'constitution' of the fictional Terre d'Ange.

I need to get to the library for those books and Sex at Dawn!
 
I will point out that the Bible is not a good source on the religious practices of other peoples. Current scholarship holds that the things railed against throughout the Old Testament are actually practices that the Israelites practiced before differentiating themselves from the previous Canaanite culture (and the railing against their previous practices was part of that process of differentiation).

Also, current research fails to support the notion of the qadesh as temple prostitutes. The data doesn't support any distinct role, yet does point away from the "sacred prostitute" idea. While there may have been rites that involved sexual content, there's nothing to support the idea of a temple caste existing just for sexual activity.

Rather disappointing for those of us Recons who loved the idea, yet the scholarship doesn't support the notion. (And, yes, I am a Canaanite Reconstructionist.)
 
I will point out that the Bible is not a good source on the religious practices of other peoples.

Which other peoples? The Ammonites, the Sidonians, the Egyptians?

Current scholarship holds that the things railed against throughout the Old Testament are actually practices that the Israelites practiced before differentiating themselves from the previous Canaanite culture (and the railing against their previous practices was part of that process of differentiation).

I totally agree. There is so much evidence in the Bible for the presence of Asherim all over Judah and Israel (including one in the Jerusalem Temple), altars in the "high places and under every green tree," idols of silver and gold being worshiped, cakes being baked for the rituals for the Queen of Heaven, etc etc. The religious idea that Asherah was the consort of Yahweh was extremely common and officially supported at least until the reigns of Hezekiah and Josiah, during the Assyrian invasion. As far as I can determine, monotheism didn't really become official until after the exiles began to return from Babylon in the 5th century BCE.

Also, current research fails to support the notion of the qadesh as temple prostitutes. The data doesn't support any distinct role, yet does point away from the "sacred prostitute" idea. While there may have been rites that involved sexual content, there's nothing to support the idea of a temple caste existing just for sexual activity.

Ok, let's say they were also weaving veils for the statue of Asherah in the Temple then. Composing music, singing, playing musical instruments, painting and sculpting wall murals and idols, officiating at sacrifices.

We don't even need to talk about only "temple" prostitutes. Many of the Goddess's altars seem to have been outside on hilltops.

Heck, Solomon was depicted as a pagan... he kept over 100 women around for a sexual outlet (of course that number could be exaggerated).

There has been so much editing in the Bible before it reached its final form. We can only guess at what more details of women's religious practices were deemed too unimportant to keep recorded. (I found reading When God Was a Woman and The Hebrew Goddess to be very helpful.) In the current era, during the 13th century and on, Kabbalistic Jewish rabbis and pious laity prayed several times a day for the sexual union of Yahweh and his new lover, the Shekhinah.

For me, some of the best evidence for sexual activity being part of the Asherah/Yahweh rituals is in the Song of Solomon. "We go to my mother's house... our bed is green..." etc.

Rather disappointing for those of us Recons who loved the idea, yet the scholarship doesn't support the notion. (And, yes, I am a Canaanite Reconstructionist.)

What of the recommendation that the "dogs" be ousted from the Temple during one king's reign? (I think it was Josiah). Dogs being a slur word used for qudeshim.

What of the heiros gamos practice in the New Testament? Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus' head and "feet" (feet being the most common euphemism for genitals in the Hebrew Bible) in preparation for his (deleted sexual union), torture and death?

There is a legend that Mary "Virgin" was sent to live at the Temple when she was 12. Then she just happened to get pregnant by a spirit.
 
magdlyn, thanks for this thread :)

in this period (as i finished Sex at Dawn) i started reading Duby
http://www.amazon.fr/Chevalier-femme-prêtre-Georges-Duby/dp/2012790712
in his most important work about the birth of marriage and as it arrived to us, in our time -of course including sooo many coefficients.
it is clear that religion ruled something and the most of people did its opposite century by century, as our First Nature lead us, but i see how much this suppression is still influencing anyones' life every day; we cannot pretend it has a weight we all can ignore.
There is a legend that Mary "Virgin" was sent to live at the Temple when she was 12. Then she just happened to get pregnant by a spirit.

another legend says Mary was brought to the temple as a little girl and then kicked out when she received her first flow.
another one, coming out from the Aquarian gospel, says that mary and her cousin elisabeth went studying..well, i can't recall with whom and where, but something like very deep roots of knowledge in many arguments, metaphysical too.

it just flashed few sec ago the fact that the first and only christian pope who dared to say that the Spirit is the Feminine (as the father and the son are clearly spoken in critstian practice), was found dead after less than a month of charge and still it is clear (and unclear) that it was a murder going on, not a desease as the official, written version says.
 
There is a legend that Mary "Virgin" was sent to live at the Temple when she was 12. Then she just happened to get pregnant by a spirit.

I'm sorry, I misremembered the story. A popular apocryphal story, The Protoevangelium of James, probably written in 145CE, states that Mary was dedicated to the Temple when she was weaned at 3 years old. She lived there as a "dove," (common goddess holiness symbol). When she reached puberty, widowers of the country were commanded to bring their "rods" to the Temple to see who would earn her as a wife. A "dove" flew out of Joseph's rod.

Doves as a goddess symbol were used as early as the Minoan period, 16th century BCE.

At the time of the writing of the New Testament, doves were a symbol of the fertility goddess Aphrodite/Venus... Greek culture was pervasive in Judea.

To the Ancient Greeks, the dove was perceived as Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, and thus also invested with erotic connotations. As an attribute of the fertility goddess, the dove became a symbol of love between human beings, and between the deity and the worshipers.

Dove symbolism

http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/mag/MAen9905.html

Protoevangelium of James

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0847.htm
 
The Protoevangelium of James,

Doves as a goddess symbol
that's it, thanks, i forgot from where i got the "info" (or should we say the gossip?!); what i remembered about it, is this song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5pZX4m6Hjc
"l'infanzia di maria" by fabrizio de andré -who has been one of italian major poets (in music) of last century.

yes, the dove became the symbol of Holy Spirit which is, we said, Feminine, this too i'd forgotten!

i share with magdlyn some sense of "nostalgic" taste of the way whole humanity Lived sex before agriculture came and before the years of repression came through the Church' actions, speaks, books, and thoughts being themselves their own personal traitors; i.e. Bourchard de Worms in his "Decretum" was listing down what WE could do and not could do with our own sexuality.
actually, as years pass by, and after having read SaD, i have less and less words to ...explain...
i keep alive within me the sense of pre-historical values and honour we are also discussing here.
i cannot do without linking here this (hope it is not a problem for this board if i link music... ?) video and hope it will be also lookable..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kizbFjWheW0

I'm sorry,
oh no, we are glad :)
 
I found this thread because I've seen Mags mention sacred sexuality elsewhere on the forum and couldn't remember exactly where, and wanted to find more, so I did a search...

And I've read the thread and have some thoughts that I can't fully form right now because I didn't get much sleep last night and my brain is fuzzy, so I'm posting this so I can find the thread again tomorrow.
 
I've also had the idea that in another life/place/time I'd have served in the temple of a sex goddess of some sort, probably one of the forerunners of Aphrodite in Minoan Greece.....

As a young woman, once I realized sex was something people wanted from me, and I could give it to them and make them feel amazing, I went home with almost anyone who asked. The older I got, the more judicious I became with my sexual self, and less open to casual sex. But I sometimes feel as though my purpose in this world is to remain receptive, sexual, and loving. I am GOOD at being a lover, good at it to point where I often wish more worldly things (making money, cleaning house, creative pursuits) came as naturally to me.

It definitely sucks to live in a society where a woman's ability to give of herself is often commodified, vilified, or abused instead of celebrated and honored.
 
I doubt I would ever have served in a temple, but maybe that's because I've been unpacking a lot of crap from my past lately and so my thoughts on sex are ranging from positive to negative to confused as hell.

But Woody's given me some reading to do about Wicca and witchcraft, at my request, and that started opening up a few thoughts. According to the first book he loaned me, in witchcraft, sex is considered a sacred act because it embodies the creation energy and the interaction between Goddess and God. The first few times I saw references to that in the book, I pretty much wanted to throw the thing across the room... I had to do some serious introspection and journaling, and have a few conversations with Woody, to start making peace with the concept.

Note, for those reading this who haven't followed my blog and don't "know" me on here... I am not sex-negative *in general*. I am sex-negative, or at least have been, solely in reference to myself and my own life, and it's because of some serious abuses that occurred in my childhood and during my marriage to my kids' father. So anything I say here that sounds negative or judgmental about sex, please realize I am speaking only *for* myself *about* myself; I don't judge other people or their lives, because I'm not them and it isn't my place.

As I read and started tying threads together, I realized something, though. For whatever reason, past lives or something, for years now I've been very drawn to the god Shiva. And in reading about him, I've found many references to Parvati, who as I understand it is both Shiva's partner and his female aspect. And she's a fertility goddess, and the Creator to Shiva's Destroyer. I've felt drawn to Parvati to the extent that if I stand in front of a statue of her in a museum, I feel like I'm being yanked between worlds; everything spins around me, and my perception is split. Sounds weird, but I'm weird...

So Parvati, in some ways, is the embodiment of sexuality and sexual energy, and if I internalize that aspect, like I feel as if I should be... I've now lost the words to finish that sentence, but some of you can probably see where I'm leading with this.

Some of the experiences I've had with Woody, particularly since I read that book, are reinforcing it as well; sex is an empowerment. It's a flow of Creation energy, because, well, sex creates things. So I'm kind of tracking some thoughts here that are running away too quickly for me to express them, but it's something I'm working with.
 
So many times in my sexual life (before I was married and my sexual energies were tamped down for many reasons), I had visions of myself in a temple or bathhouse, welcoming men home from war, soothing their spirits and bodies with sex, massage, pleasure, and helping make them whole again. The problem with my visions of being a modern-day temple prostitute in current society, was that I was programmed to believe in monogamy and finding an exclusive partner to grow old with -- and so I would get upset when the men I was with got the healing they needed and then were no longer in my life anymore. I often overlooked the fact that the encounter was finite, not meant to be a forever thing, and just as healing for me as it was for them. However, I consider myself fortunate that these patriarchal thoughts didn't always get in the way. I have had the enriching experience several times of having shared my body with someone, felt my heart expand in the time we shared together, and was able to say goodbye, still feeling a loving connection, without any sadness or sense of loss. I remember one of these guys saying to me, "I won't say I'll miss you, because that would mean there's something lacking. But what we had fills me and makes it possible for me to leave, and to smile whenever I think of you." And I knew what he meant, and felt the same way. I have always remembered him fondly, although that was the last time we saw each other, 22 years ago. To the others in our social circle who knew we'd gotten it on, they probably thought that all we had was a one-night stand. It was so much more, and yet it was just sex at the same time.

I started having sex at 14, was always tuned into my sexual nature, and although my Inner Prude has always been there and I don't have much experience with kinky shit or experimentation, I have known that my sexuality was healing to others. My sister has had the same thing -- even "curing" (for lack of a better word) one lover of ED, after he had sex with her. I don't think it's magic or fantasy. I think it has to do with trusting and being secure in one's desires and sharing the body with kindness and respect, which enables one's partner to resonate with that. I see this as very different from swinging, which turns me off.

Though it can seem to others that it's just whorish behavior, or somehow disrespectful to oneself to be so "casual" with sexual dalliances.

Maybe the patriarchal view of sex as dirty having been held for so many generations is another contributing factor to post-traumatic stress syndrome. Imagine all the soldiers with PTSD going to see a skilled sex worker instead of a shrink!

Wow, brilliant post, I thoroughly indentify! Healing with sex is exactly what I love to do, I'll definitely read the book talked about upthread.
 
Makes me think of the movie, "American Courtesans" (2013). Interviews with past and present prostitutes. Really good film; lots of food for thought.
 
Yeah, but why are they even saying that? Why is it an issue or something to comment on? That's the problem. It's not a compliment, and no less derogatory than another chick saying she's a skank.

I remember, years ago, when I asked a guy I was seeing what drew him to me and made him want to pursue me. He responded with a bunch of nice compliments, but mixed in with all that was the comment, "I had the feeling you were free with your body." It might have seemed innocuous or flattering, but I felt degraded somehow by it. There was this constant niggling thought that he saw me just as someone who put out, and that he could get lucky with, not really an appreciation of ME, and how "free I was with my body." Now, it came out later on in the relationship that he did think of it as sort of a badge of honor to have "gotten" me. So I, and my sexuality, became objectified by his attitude.

THIS!^^^
I am having a hard time being open to casual encounters because lately men want to pursue me because they know I am poly and free with my body they just think that automatically entitles them! Even my boss made a joke about my comfort in my own body (he doesnt know I am poly I dont think, I am not secret about it, but I havent had a direct conversation either.). I made a comment about a little ggirl wearing bunny ears and he said I could use a set and tail for myself too.

Then more recently with Lark, who I thought was a man who was fine with me and wanting me for more than just an object kept repeating how hot I was and then only wanted to come to my house at midnight and sent me unsolicited pictures of sexual objects saying he couldnt wait to have sex with me, when I hadnt agreed or suggested sex was even on the table.
 
Back
Top