Is Sexuality Spiritual?

Dear friends,

A lot of writers are writing on matriarchy, and they all seem to associate it with sexuality. There are records of this occurring, but it should be taken into account that they are from patriarchal sources, and are therefore unreliable. It should also be taken into account that for matriarchy to change to patriarchy, it would have to go through a degenerate phase, and degenerate practices would survive into patriarchy.

This belief is largely the product of modern libertarianism, but it is influenced by Engels in The Origin Of The Family, Private Property And The State. His main argument is that matriarchy is polygamous and patriarchy introduced monogamy, which he says was proved by Bachofen in Mother Right, but Bachofen actually argued the opposite, that matriarchy was a rebellion against promiscuity and introduced monogamy.

For a religion to be based on sexuality, it would have to have a concept of the divine which involves sexual activity. That means it would have to have a dual male/female godhead, and not be a Goddess monotheism.

Archaeologists tell us that the earliest altars have a female figure as the only human figure, but they say there is a rod or pole representing a phallic symbol to constitute a male deity. Now this does not sound sensible. If they use a phallic symbol, they must want to represent sexuality, but, if so, they would use a symbol which has a greater resemblance to male genitals than a rod or pole. They would also not represent sexuality in such an abstract way. People preoccupied with sex are not abstract. There is also the matter of consistency. If they saw fit to represent the male deity by a symbol of his genitals, they would do the same with the female deity, but they never did. They always used a human figure. How did they conceive of the divine? As an abstract sexual symbol or a human figure? Surely not one for the male deity and the other for the female deity!

To clinch the argument, Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, in their book The Myth Of The Goddess, include a depiction of a female figure holding a rod in front of her in her hand. Surely that rod could not be a male deity!

There has to be another explanation for the rod, such as the World Pillar, which would be an appropriate symbol for a monotheistic Goddess.
This is the nature of the earliest known religion, and such a religion would not include sexuality as a religious practice. It is of a Goddess creating by virgin birth. Such a religion would value purity.

There is a survival of such a belief in the Greek character Parthenopaios, son of Atalanta. The myth is that she exposed him on a mountain to die because she wanted to conceal the fact that she was not a virgin any more, but the name Parthenopaios implies virgin birth, from parthenos meaning maid or virgin, and pais meaning son. Atlanta was a huntress, which gives her a link with survivals of matriarchal beliefs.

Herakles was said to be born of the god Zeus and the human mother Alcmene. Is it not likely that originally Alcmene was a virgin mother and a god was introduced into the myth to account for the lack of a human father for Herakles? Alternatively, did not the story of the introduction of a god originate from a principle of conceiving by the manifestation of the spirit? Herakles, better known as Hercules, was supposed to be the greatest of the patriarchal heroes, but the name means Glory Of Hera, Hera being a goddess. Originally, this myth had a matriarchal origin.

There is the well known virgin birth of Jesus and his mother who, though officially mortal, receives the veneration of a Goddess. It gives the impression that Christianity was originally very different from what we think it to be.

David.