"I did this as a healer, not a prostitute"

[Army Of Me]

Oh thank god for that. I am going to google "sacred whoring". I didn't realize there has been an upswing in this lately, as you mentioned (not sure why you say this is). I thought the princess kama site was a one-off. I will report back.

Update - I couldn't get past the first page of results what with reading all the over-blogged material on this. But here is one that is "An interview with Carol Leigh, a.k.a. the Scarlot Harlot: sex worker, sacred whore, pleasure activist deluxe, Goddess worshipper, witch and outrageous woman."

To me, the overall impression from this interview was that she is unclear about the issue, and some questions, she does not answer straightforwardly - "Does the sex always ring true as a divine act, or does it sometimes fall flat?" and "What elements need to be present to have sex as a sacred act? What about sex for money?". Also, there is a bit of idealizing the good old days when whores were respected and worshipped, and of course the words "if" and "utopia" found their way into the conversation at one point.

Anyway - I have taken the following question out of context, but it's a teaser as to the whole somewhat bizarre interview.

"Sylvana Silver Witch: How can today's man learn to embrace the sacred whore, rather than fear and revile her? How about the sacred whore in him?

ScarlotHarlot: He can give me money! Just kidding. But not really.

Anyway, if he wants to love whores he can keep a little Goddess statue by his bedside. Or he can dress like a girl. Or he can even watch reruns of Bewitched. He can masturbate and think of the Beautiful Goddess and her Wondrous Vulva while he does. "

Guh?

http://www.widdershins.org/vol2iss1/b9602 (please type in .htm at the end of the link if you get as far as wanting to look at it!)

[rich]

I think the mystical shit is a way for non-white women especially to make themselves competitive in the higher class venues for prostitution. Instead of cheap exotic they can become expensive exotic: In the HBO series Cathouse they make a big deal out of some competition between all the women, giving a prize to the biggest earner each month. The prize seemed to flip flop between Air Force Amy (always in red/white/blue) and an arab-looking woman who did belly dances and whatnot. So men could choose patriotism ("doing the american icon") or patriotism ("doing the enemy's woman.")

The historical revisionist shit is designed to do an end-run around feminism: whores were once worshipped and feminists are to blame, not patriarchy, for them falling from grace.

Like I said before, this is currently a big ticket item in academia, because of a false-oppositional framework set up that posits prostitutes and good wives as reflective institutions: whatever a wife is a prostitute isn't, and versa. So this means that focusing on prostitutes is supposedly 50% of the historical equation even if they weren't 50% of women or don't exist as 50% of the evidence that we have from history. So it's basically a big excuse for the cool kids of academia to focus on hookers for their own fun and profit.

I've written about part of this process, in the ancient greek world, where there's this false oppositional between seclusion/separatist models for women's lives. I have to pay my library fees before I can tie it into the prostitution obsession more, but you can read part II of this for info on the subject:

Amazons: the Contemporary Liberal Male Response[/url]

[SaltyC]

True, true.

These are ways to circumscribe the imagination of women trying to escape the good wife role, offering fire to those wanting to leave the frying pan. There was never a time when prostitutes were respected. the holy prostitutes were girls cast off because they were raped, orphaned, etc. and used to generate money for the temples they lived in.

I was just talking to someone about the dearth of women in technology fields. I hate it, I hate being the only woman in the company. They keep hiring more people and they're all men. We decided that the only explanation is that women believe they're not smart enough to handle the technology. They think they are better off making themselves attractive to a potential mate. The belief systems encourage this, and new age spirituality, wicca, is no better than Christianity on this. I think the only answer is atheism. Atheist women always go farther.

[Army Of Me]

Salty, about your "women in technology" comment - I had a great job on the technology "ground floor", hoping to move up, had a great female manager, but the trust I worked for was dispersed just as I was kicking into the process of being developed. This was about a year before I got ill. I have a couple of theories about the lack of females in the IT industry.

I believe I would have been held back somewhat, due to certain men in the department, not particularly thinking I was stupid, but just because they thought their jobs would be threatened. Also, there was that old-fashioned male-brain/female-brain differential (in their minds).

The other thing is, but I think men get into technology far sooner (in a big way) because of the attraction of porn. They invest in all the hardware, software, install programs etc, and when things go wrong (no access to porn oh no!) they become adept much sooner at troubleshooting and solving problems, which is a major part of working in technology. The initial appeal of porn leads them into technology as a hobby, and many are already semi-pros by the time they start applyling for jobs. this is just a theory. But I think too that there is again, that old-fashioned gender stereotyping going on where technology is seen as for men as it's just too brainy and not sexy or girly enough for women. The UK may be slightly different to the US - I found the system over here a bit fairer, if not perfect, and more women working in technology.

One more thing, Salty, I don't know if you are talking specifically about computer technology specifically (but this touches all areas of industry today anyway), but many women maybe subconsciously stay away from technology due to all the high-profile visibility of porn associated with it.

I don't know.