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The
patriarchal
obsession with virginity is reflected in the variety of
defloration
rituals of different cultures. In some, the rites were performed by the
priest, in others, by the girl's mother or the ruler of the land.
The same obsession with virginity is still evident in some parts of the world today in the time-worn custom of parading the bloodied wedding-night bed sheet before the community, as proof of the bride's "innocence." In Mexico, the priests of some tribes would deflower infant girls - whose mothers would themselves repeat the ceremony when the child was six years old. In Nepal, the defloration of girls was performed by a priest who forced them to sit on a stone phallus representing the god Shivalinga. In Peru, the Phillippines, Australia, and Samoa, defloration rites were formed in public. In ancient Israel, the bride's virginity was so important that the bloodied nuptial mat was displayed before the community as evidence of the bride's value.
The figure of the hermaphrodite (a person who is both male and female) was a constant obsession of the Greeks. For them, hermaphrodism symbolized erotic perfection. Plato gives an account of human perfection as represented by the male-female hermaphrodite.
In the Jewish Cabbalistic, or mystical, tradition, primal man, Adam, is androgynous. In Egypt, under Roman rule, incest between brothers and sisters extended even beyond the royal family. More than half of all marriages within the privileged class took place between siblings. Herodotus relates that, in a gesture of incestuous madness, the Pharaoh Mycerinos raped his own daughter. Out of despair, she hung herself. Mycerinos had her encased in a wooden cow which he buried in a room of the palace. Every day incense burned there, and at night a lamp shone continually. The word "prostitution" comes to us from Latin and, in its original form, describes public exposure, or the exposing of something to public view. During a festival of Assyrian orgies, called a festival of tents, all forms of class distinction and slavery were temporarily abolished in a ceremony intended to symbolically restore the power of the king. At this time, a ritual sacred marriage was enacted between a sacred prositute, who was a substitute for the goddess, and a slave, who was a substitute for the king. After five days of orgiastic festivities, the slave was burnt alive. Through this ritual the power of the king, who had temporarily "abdicated" in favor of the slave, was restored. A legion of independent prostitutes roamed the streets of Athens. The ingenuity of one of these streetwalkers has reached us via a delicate sandal with an invitation engraved on its sole. As the prostitute walked the dusty unpaved streets of Athens, she left behind the message "Akolouthi," or, "Follow me." In "pedication," or intercourse by way of anal penetration, the one who pedicates is a "pedicator." The one who is on the receiving end is known, among others, as a "catamite," from the name Ganymede, who was the cub bearer of the gods. The Church considered all sexuality out side holy marriage to be libidinous and thus forbade it. For instance, Thomas Aquinas listed the mortal offenses in the following order: masturbation, coitus in abnormal positions, homosexuality, and bestiality. During the dry season, Jivaro warriors circle the village holding a mock phallus made of woven straw. At a certain point, they break out into a chaotic, unrestrained frenzy, mimicking the movements of the coitus. Moaning, they caress their own phallus and masturbate. When they attain orgasm, they spread the sperm all around them. They are praying for rain. The word "masturbation" is a modification of the words "manu" and "stupare," meaning "manual defilement." |
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