Just a brief note on Apollonian and Dionysus in Pop culture. The opposing forces are often looked upon as left brain vs right brain. The left brainer being logical and good at math. The right brainer is artistic and sensitive. This is a common view of the opposing forces. And trust me, there is a reason I'm pointing all of this out. I am leading up to a point, if you can't guess it. But some of this is stuff people have never thought of before even though it is a strong under currant in our culture. Therefore I think it is worth it to lay the ground work for what is to come.
One band that sang about this back in the 70s was Rush.
Here is a link to a description of their song on Wikipedia.
NOTE: If you hate prog rock or don't give a flip about the 70s, skip this link and read about something more modern below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cygnus_X-1_duology
If you think I'm making a big deal about this then let me give you a very stark, very modern example. Natalie Portman was given an Oscar for her portrayal of a ballerina in, wait for it, "The Black Swan". I know of few better examples of our culture's obsession with the dueling forces of Apollonian and Dionysian.
Mary Kassian has written about this on her blog and about how damaging this view of women and female sexuality really is.
http://www.girlsgonewise.com/black-swan-deserves-an-oscar/
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Well I will have to dissent here I'm afraid, one I can't stand Kassian and her hypocritical 'purital' crap...
the virginal vanilla sex for women but oh Let's submit and worship on knees the primitive and GOD SANCTIONED AND ORDAINED dark sexuality of Men because Hey, THAT'S JUST NATURAL AND SO GODLY,
what a load of puritanical misogynist crap.
The portrayal of dark sexuality [I haven't seen the movie but just from reading the byte and from what my daughter who has seen the movie told me, taking it from there] is about the darkness that we ALL women, yes as HUMANS do have--that Same sexuality that Kassian so demonizes is manifested in the Wise Christian Woman White Privilege need to SHOP, SHOP, SHOP in that white rapist way which IS the core of rape/violence that IS sexual against WOMEN OF COLOR--FACT. Around the world, aka through labor slavery, ah, you see That dark side, That side is celebrated as 'pure, Holy, Virtuous' while of course she looks down upon those women who are Honest about yes, Virginia, I do have those desires of Power because sexuality Is intermeshed with our inner desire for power. Just because ole Kassian has issues with masturbation [another dark age ass hate the female body but glory in the ole phallic gawd] kaka, the vagina is eviiiil, nonsense,
that same sexual power is in Every wise woman's Puritanical 'how to wear makeup to please your husband for God' as if THAT ISN'T SEXUAL POWER MANIPULATION IN OF ITSELF---
the hypocrisy is So rampant, it makes the three some fantasy of the Black Swan look Tame in comparison.
It plays on that whole virgin-whore dichotomy that the Kassian types just Love to circle jerk to Why? Because they are Wise? No, because in Denying their own darkness, they play Superior Supremacist over their human sisters who do face, yes those inner desires, we all have them,
the Question is Why? It has to do with power, and that Power btw, we can Thank the Male Patriarchal Keeping Women on their backs pure and vanilla for HIS CONSUMING FIRE, while we have been indoctrinated to kill our own power,
and in that that Power has become twisted. That sexual power that by Instinct God gave woman, that has been demonized, is the power that is allowed to show, those raw screams in Every birth, with blood and water,
her pain Then is allowed, because you see Then it's the pain of the woman, just like rape--that dark sexuality is Always, by the Kassian types,
apologized for, allowed, under the sanction of Male Defined protecting HIS dark desires, Sexual Wisdom.
Of course, always with the woman being bound, virgin taken PIV for His dark pleasure, always the woman sacrificing Her desire, Her climax, so the Male Animal
can prowl, hunt and draw female blood.
IF women Did tap into their Sexual Dark Side power, from a feminine, SHE would dump the Male Defined Sexuality, learn to Love her body As is, and tell him,
to jerk off and leave her alone, and That is what the Patriarchs have always been afraid of...knowing our power, is the also knowing the power to say
NO.
Kassian's wise woman, will Never learn to do that--Never. She will always be, the duped, puritanical innocent virgin child, afraid of her desires, afraid of her own vagina, always needing the man to rape her and guide her along the mysterious dark paths of sexuality, always with daddy phallic, in Control.
Jane
I just got back from chaparoning my daughter's art convention and am exhausted so I cannot answer in length.
But I will mention a couple things.
You are jumping ahead.
The point of this and the last post was to point out these thought patterns in the secular world.
I haven't even gotten into how they have infiltrated the church and have wrecked havoc.
I'm going to go ahead and publish the post I was saving for Monday so you can get a better idea of where I'm really going. I'm covering a lot of ground, laying a lot of ground work, pointing at things as examples that may escape the notice of the more casual observer.
Also, on sex, I'm going to make a different comment about that below this one.
Concerning sex...
Sex being used as a tool of power makes me cring.
I understand that this is quite a common view and that often, when a culture strips its women of all power except the power of their own sexuality, that the only real thing that women can do is to use sex as a power tool, because it is all they have.
But you see, women should be allotted great respect and power just for being human beings so they don't have to rely on the power of there sexuality. Women only having the power of sexuality means that the older a woman gets, the more that power slips away from her. It means that, while men can grow in power through other means as they age, women can only shrink and the young foolish ones who haven't had a chance to live and gain wisdom have too much power and don't know when they are being exploited.
Anyway, I'm getting off track.
When a woman's only power is sex, then Muslim men want to cover up that power with burquas and everything else. They hide the entire woman because of the woman's power, sex. [It also creates situations where, if the man can't perform then he accuses his wife (show supposedly holds the power) of witchcraft.]
When a woman's only power is sex, then that last power can be stripped away through violence and oppression through trafficking and what not.
I do not want to strip away a woman's last power by making it dark and dirty. But that is what religion does. And that is what male greed does.
I want women to find their power and rise above the only power much of culture/religion has reduced them down to.
Sex, as a power, is sinking sand, shadows and wind.
God never reduced women down to this single, shaky power. This was done by others with faulty understanding.
Well, Mara, I hate to say this but yes, God did strip women down to this...other than Prov 31 [and even there, that allegory about her gates always being open means just that, she's always Available sexually to service the man], because the Bible [all the Judaic laws/and Greek-Roman NT laws] were Written BY MEN FOR MEN. Even in NT, women are reduced to the service of their sexuality, with the man owning the power.
Yes there are a 'few' egalitarian bents, such as in Corinthians however the far more Other references to 'she'll be saved in childbearing' and so forth with the submission scripts Do reinforce every single one of those women are for sex/Genesis her Desire WILL BE for her Husband, meaning HER sexual desires will be for him, not for herself, so that whole dichotomy is still there,
of course, women get the 'mother' icon thrown in but the message is loudly the same. MEN own the power, they owned it in OT with their allowances to have sex slaves [concubines who were NOT treated well, they were raped with impunity, FACT], and even the fact that Sarah was passed around,
IF you study the LAWS of ancient societies then and move away from the romanticism of the Bible [and the crap so many throw in to Dilute the truth of the horrid reality for women in Judaic and Mesopotamian/Roman society] they were All centered around the Power of male sexuality and the Passive rape victim of women. This is the psychological nature of PIV sex, it's always been about pain for women, risk for women, loss of power for women.
All marriage does is confine her into his prison, that's all. It does in no way Protect her from the violence of PIV. And it has Everything to do with Power, and the being stripped of power, by yes,God.
Though I believe this isn't Really GOD, but MAN'S GAWD, because we do NOT see this power dynamic in animals or in nature, among females, except among some of the ape families [which men Love to refer to them to justify their love for rape/dominance--but those apes do in no way represent All the animal kingdom, men just Choose to focus on them, same with Darwin and racism] but anyhow,
I have to beg to differ, it's not Culture, no, it's the other way around, Religion is THE foundation for all this power dynamic and dichotomy, reducing women's power and creating her in position to be raped with impunity, as well as abused,
the root isn't In society, the root is IN religion and it's books. This is the ugly truth, that many women STILL do not want to see--Religion IS misogyny,
there is NO way around this TRUTH.
Therefore, one has to Seriously ask, is religion truly the voice of GOD or was it MAN usurping God and throwing himself in, as gawd to justify, his Power and lust for Dominance,
I strongly believe, it's the latter.
Jane
In understanding the relation to Judaic/laws of Ancients and the stripped power of sexuality in women, we must actually go even prior to Judaism, to see how women's sexuality was taken as property/to be owned and her power as HUMAN stripped--and this Has a lot of influence over All the Moses's laws btw...Patriarchy was formed for creating farming slavery, which needed children. [I am simplifying this here, summation] and I believe because woman, was the one animal that could tell a man NO. That created fear--fear of unknown, that and she gave Birth, we have to understand how the primitive man in a hostile world of nature must have felt--how He saw what he believed then to be 'gods', forces at work, this is WHY this varies Depending on the geological environment of ancients, for example, in areas of Native Indians where the environment/animals are NOT hostile or a constant threat to man, those societies All tended to have more matri center beliefs and egalitarian ones--where as in Mesopotamia, where there was constant threat of lack of water, lions and other wild beasts, nature was seen as violent, hostile and female. Man had to tame her, by Owning her,
aka female = bad, this Shows in the ancient art of Sumer [Mayan with the serpent], where man or King is shown often with a lion, to show HIS power to lead, due to his lack of fear of lion [see David, same thing],
though it is Female lions who hunt, not the males...but male lions do attack those near their territory, so taking primitive man, that sort of explains Where they may have gotten a lot of their views of sexuality and dominance from--to offset Fear--and why Abrahamic religions from Mesopotamia ARE the most misogynist in the world,
with a very strong hatred and NEED to demonize and disempower the Female species, of both human AND of nature. [Greek society comes from the Phoenicians who also come from that part of world]
If you read up on the laws of punishment, where women were punished [prior to Judaism] for the crimes of MEN because they were viewed less than half the worth of men, you begin to see a chain reaction,
women were sold into slavery to Pay for the crimes/debts of men, as were children--Because they were the Resource of birth-labor to offset the dangers and violence of nature--the more women/child labor a man-tribe had, the more HE could insulate himself and protect himself, using HER as a shield, from the dangers of nature,
aka he needed to Dominate her esp sexually, to overcompensate for his Fear. To do so, he needed a 'gawd',
that said women were the culprit of all ills, and needed to be Controlled, stripped of HER power, so that Man could have his,
this doesn't mean there isn't a God, just that, God was the image of man,
man's mind. So, to say that God doesn't strip women and power,
is a false analogy, the ONLY power women were allowed to have, even in NT, WAS her power in still bearing Children,
this is Why we do not see any reference to the allegory or even direct of women [daughters of God] in Rev, because children are not needed in Heaven, therefore,
women are erased.
It goes Right along with the beliefs of women were here for nothing more than bearing children {Luther] and it is THE BIBLE,
it's all over OT, as well, and That is if she has a Son, if one looks at the Bible as an allegory for the Jewish people, then it's obvious,
as for power, women having, NO, other than birth, no,
and This is WHY, they can go back and pull up this translation and that, the very philosophy of the phallic male centric and it's power in relation to the powerless Dependence of female to man, is in fact, the Bible.
And it's This that spills over into Culture, and Culture then, with it's other misogynist influences, spills back into religion--
Jane
I agree with you on the failure of sexuality being power for women--it in fact DISEMPOWERS her, on that I strongly agree,
but I think it was Secularism, the revolt Against religion, that paved the way for women, and thought actually, to Move away from that dichotomy...this is where I do strongly believe
women will Never find freedom in religion, including Christianity from the defining Women as Sex Class, Beings, rather than Her as Human Being outside of SEX Utility for men.
But this is my strong belief, my belief is the majority of Bible is simply man's spewing his penis driven need to dominate-screw and that he took what teachings there Was on Christ, and formed them into the Religion mixed with paganism of Rome [Constantine was nothing more than a Caesar wanting to perpetuate an Eternal Rome]. In fact, there are some theories out there that suggest the military ventures of Caesar are in fact related in the 300 Years later by people who Never met Jesus much less could have KNOWN what HE said, were actually turned into a Messianic god, Caesar as Jesus.
Now I'm not saying This is what I believe, but I can't say, this ISN'T possible either, just Look at how MEN today twist God into a thug. IF they can do it today,
they darn sure could do it then--so on That I don't know--the Lack of female voice, in Bible, in of itself,
strips women of power. And reduces her to nothing but a utility for Sex, for the service of men OR for the bearing of children for the Body of Christ,
while yes there ARE scriptures that offset this--the Damage is enough there, that like with Islam,
unless we move away from Bible [and let's face it Mara, IF we really DID obey the Bible today as it was written by Paul, Women wouldn't even Have the vote today], then we are NO different From Islam,
no way--the Only thing that offsets us from Islam and Burkas, is that, we live in a nation, where MEN rebelled against the Monarchy, something Jude, Paul and Peter said NOT to do,
we forget that little TRUTH.
Jane
Yes, Jane, I guess we do have to disagree because I'm finding my freedom IN the Bible. Not outside it.
There are verses that have been mistranslated and misrepresented because they have passed through the hands of male translators. I know they are there. They exist.
I totally get that Hebrew comes from those ancient Babylonian/Sumeric (sp?) peoples. But you also have to note how Abraham treated Sarah (which was far and above anyone around) and how, even when he did fall into bad behavior, how God protected her. You can say it was only to keep the blood-line pure, but you also have to realize that her name was changed to mean a female ruler.
God did not have much to work with, but he still worked with humans where they were and brought them a little closer to where they needed to be.
Jesus is the One you need to interpret the rest of the New Testament through, not Paul.
Paul told us to follow him as he followed Christ. Whatever he said that has been twisted and wrongly translated to bring oppression to women needs to be 'reveiwed' or readjusted to what Jesus said.
Men don't do that, of course. Whatever they can use to put down women they will.
I totally get that you have to toss out the Bible for yourself because of all the crap that it has been used for. I get that and give you full space to go that route.
I, on the other hand, plan to cut through the crap and get to the truth.
I understand and accept the fact that you simply may not be able to go that route with me.
I trust that in your travels, you are doing the best you know how to get to the truth and I accept that you may even be right in it. I'm just not seeing it right now.
So far, the things that I'm finding in my searches are adding up to a God who loves women just as much as men and who considers them humans and not objects and that, overall, He wants to empower them.
Well I think for me, in my research, that even with Post Babylon Talmud influence of much of the OT, that it has more to do with the allegory and poetic language of the oppressed Jewish people, that has been seriously misunderstood, including those similar allegories of NT,
that wouldn't have taken into account from a women's lens simply because they were the messages of tribal patriarchal men of the Jewish people, Paul simply brings in the merging of Gentiles, under the new religious Rome inspired Christianity,
and that I think does help to not have to Rely on finding lost translations and so forth...and seeing the meanings Through the allegories,
such as, you mentioned God protecting Sarah, which simply isn't true, in light of the fact that In that era the kingdoms often raped women--and the Bible, both stories, in no way said she was spared rape, just that she was let go,
I think the allegory was, that Sarah represented numerous Jewish women of that period, who were taken and raped by kings [and this was in fact the case] and that her not being a virgin, she possibly had already child and was let go--also the clue is in the 'Pharaoh's women wombs were closed as well as the King', that means over presence of Time, how else would we know wombs were closed, Another clue was in her 'payment' or His rather, for taking his wife...
how she Got Hagar,
I think these stories are allegories of the Suffering these people endured, being that they were a minority, living among very hostile kingdoms of that period, they were Slave peoples.
Just like in NT, for me, this doesn't present a problem, if anything it sheds far more light on the discrepancy of Real Life in comparison to the Utopia bliss promised in scripture--which is what I think, Jesus's parable about the Kingdom of Heaven is inside you or Kingdom of God rather,
meaning, that life sucks...for the oppressed, and that the Real Life, lies within, that God is there in spite of all the difficulties. And I believe this Is more of the Eastern take on spirituality,
where as in the West, there is this tendency to take Bible literally, and for me, I think it causes far more problems in destroying Faith, because it builds up on False Hope.
Rather than inner strength...
that's just my take on it. After lots of research and serious questioning to the Myths surrounding Christianity, this was the one, esp in light of the fact that archeology has not found so much of the evidence of what we have been lead to believe, that rather, the stories and parables have far more Symbolic meaning--
than actual literal happenings. And this isn't unusual btw, other ancient beliefs using similar legends and stories, work the same way.
Peace,
Jane
BTW, I also don't think God ever Intended [or Jesus] for those stories to be taken Literally, but the Mystery, that Paul yes speaks of, of the meanings OF those stories,
which I believe does one, remove a lot of the inner hostility and cognitive dissonance caused by attempting to live life by Fairy tales that were Never meant to be taken literal but have Much deeper spiritual meaning,
and two, helps one to come to Accept that nature, God, help us by helping Inside of us, to NOT be overcome by Evil around us. And to see the consistency of God's care in nature, for us--
rather than base our existence on this world of matter, man, human systems, so forth.
Just saying...
:)
Jane
What you've said makes sense.
But again, it was written in the O.T. that neither man who took Sarah had relations with her. It does say that.
I agree that we take the Bible too literally and try to use it as a trouble shooter's guide or user's manual rather than just seeing it as God's dealings with fallen humans and their warped, fallen attitudes.
God says that as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than ours.
Our ways are pretty low right now, and they were even lower back then.
As westerners, we have a tendency towards stark black and white thinking. The orientals are far more organic in their thinking.
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