IS SEXUALITY WRONG?
WILL THE ME TOO MOVEMENT GO TOO FAR? Will we take this moment to reclaim sexuality as a means to celebrate life?
Acknowledging the dark hole in our culture that traps women in unwanted sexual situations provides an opening to discuss sexual issues and, if we can see it this way, an opportunity for healing sexual disparity and achieving gender balance. Just under the surface of legitimate practices, men have elevated themselves to positions of power using women like puppeteers to satisfy their sexual desires while blocking those women from expression of their own desires, satisfactions, and expressions of themselves. This system of overpowering and controlling women through sexual predatory behavior is collapsing.
It is an extraordinary moment that peels away the shroud covering manipulation that has been in position for 5000 years. Human history in those 5000 years contains other hopeful moments when women might have regained parity. Will this moment last until women regain their position as fully functioning humans?
As the truth of women as prey subjected to men’s sexual desires is exposed, the other half of the story must also be told. We must now learn the story of how women were deprived of their position in the culture. History must be opened to the events 5000 years ago that unfolded to deprive women of their place in the enactment of life. We must now know that invading iron-weapon carrying, horseback-riding, armor-wearing forces (the Indo Europeans) came across the Caucuses and over-powered the peaceful, unprotected, agrarian settlements of Goddess worshippers. Women, before the imposed domination of men, had been equal partners in societal activities. During 30,000 years of the early history of humankind, sexuality had been the means to celebrate life and the creator of life, the Goddess. The feminine was supreme because new human life emerged through women.
Hidden behind the ugly domination that is now being exposed is the early story of sexuality, a celebration experienced by women and men—a celebration of life, a celebration of the sacredness of life of each other and of the creator of life—the Feminine Principle. During the 5000 years since the initial invasions, women have been made subject to the will of men. Their sexuality has been labelled evil and they have been held in bondage from themselves and their ability to celebrate life.
It is time for us to know that it was just this sexuality that had been at the center of our earlier ancestors lives. In their temples the people celebrated their own highest energy and the supreme energy of their Goddess with sacred sexual encounters. The altars in these temples were platforms on which the priestess of the temple (each women of the community took her turn as priestess) enacted sacred sexuality with the men of the community. After the invasions and the imposition of a god, these ceremonies continued with the consequence that male children were born into the goddess community’s and could not be claimed by their fathers. This reality interfered with the now-dominant culture’s goal of accruing wealth to itself through patrilineal inheritance. The leaders of the conquerors claimed the sexuality in the temples to be evil and imposed strict rules that women be sexual only with their husbands or they be stoned to death. This was the beginning of the blight on sexuality. The withering has continued to our time through 5000 years of decline and distortion during which women have been prisoners to men in one form or another.
Now, 5000 years later, we have so totally corrupted what was beautiful and sacred that men use sexuality to entrap women and women allow this defamation of what had been so sacred to their ancestors
I worry that sexuality itself will be condemned as those who have misused sexuality to achieve power over another are exposed. Instead, let’s use this moment of revealing the truth to find out the truth about our sexual nature. Let’s use this moment to talk about our sexuality and explore the beauty of it. Let’s bring ourselves to admit the truth of the importance of sexuality in our lives. Let’s explore the means to make sexuality even more beautiful and powerful as the gift that awakens us to the most wonderful energy of celebration. And let’s let our children in on the secret.
