Goddesses, Succubi, snakes & a Canadian biker

John Collier's depiction of Lilith

Degradation: What the History of Obscenity Tells Us about Hate Speech. “The major distinction that I found between cultures that tolerated and even openly appreciated depictions of sex and those that found them somehow shameful was in their views of the nature of the divine. The Greek gods and goddesses were themselves highly sexual creatures.”

“The deity he addressed as Ishtar was the same one fifth century B.C. historian Herodotus called Aphrodite. The author of the Biblical Book of Kings fulminates against her as “the abomination Ashtoreth.” Her name changed with every change of frontier and tongue, but her nature, seductive and violent, stayed the same.“

“In Greece Lilith is the goddess of the black moon …. She was also revered as a fertility goddess, helping to conceive children and grow crops. Legends and myths about Lilith originate in ancient Mesopotamia …. Judeo-Christianity has replaced the old mythology with a new mythology: Lilith as succubus …. the mother of all succubi, a stealer of children and a seductress of men.”

Depiction of Lilith with snake on Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris

“The notion of a lilith as a demon is probably Assyrian (say around 700 BC), incorporated into Isaiah by way of the ancient Israelite contacts with the mythologies of Babylonia and Chaldea. The Assyrians had three female demons, Lilit, Lilu,and Ardat Lilit. There’s little doubt that the Hebrew lilith-demon mentioned in Isaiah was a folkloric adaptation of the Assyrian demons.”

“[Lilith's] clergy is described as being “temple prostitutes” according to some historians. This belief changed over time, with Lilith (or succubi in general) becoming the “divine whore” according to men, described as being a tall beautiful, obsidian-skinned, bat-winged female …. This creature then seduces men and kills them.”

“[Eve] seduces Adam and becomes therefore an ally of the serpent …. The snake [refers to] older mother and fertility goddesses like Ishtar or Astarte. The snake was a very old and powerful symbol of fertility and life.“

Nastassja Kinski

Kenneth Anger on Lucifer Rising (which is on YouTube): “Lucifer is the Light god, not the devil – the Rebel Angel behind what’s happening in the world today. His message is that the key of joy is disobedience. Isis (Nature) wakes. Osiris (Death) answers. Lilith (Destroyer) climbs to the place of Sacrifice. The Magus activates the circle and Lucifer – Bringer of Light – breaks through.”

“The film opens with Isis and her consort Osiris; we also see Lilith, played by Marianne Faithfull, and an adept played by a Canadian biker named Hayden Couts, and Anger himself plays the Magus, abolishing Chaos … all cut with footage of volcanoes erupting and images of Huggins as Lucifer in a rainbow-colored jacket. Here my grasp of the esoteric symbolism fails me….”

Myriam Gibril as Isis in Lucifer Rising

“Head of patron saint of genital diseases to be auctioned in Meath” Ireland. “Saint Vitalis of Assisi was an Italian hermit and monk who died in 1370 and became a saint despite an early life marked by licentiousness and immorality. In a bid to atone for his earlier sins,  he went on pilgrimages to various sanctuaries and eventually became a Benedictine monk and later lived as a hermit, living in utter poverty near Assisi. After his death he became known as a patron against sicknesses and diseases affecting the genitals.”

Queen Shagshag, Babylonian whores and New Zealand transsexuals

Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game

“After being examined by not one, but two, physicians, an Australian named Norrie has become the first person to receive an official gender classification of ‘Not Specified.’ That suits Norrie fine.“

“Women’s tears kill men’s sexual desire“

“Prevalence of transsexualism among New Zealand passport holders“

“The increasing prevalence of male-to-female (MtF) transsexualism in Western countries is largely due to the growing number of MtF transsexuals who have a history of sexual arousal with cross-dressing or cross-gender fantasy. Ray Blanchard proposed that these transsexuals have a paraphilia he called autogynephilia, which is the propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of oneself as female.“

“Blanchard (1991) proposed the existence of … erotic target location errors (ETLEs), involving the erroneous location of erotic targets in the environment. ETLEs can involve preferential attention to a peripheral or inessential part of an erotic target, manifesting as fetishism, or mislocation of an erotic target in one’s own body, manifesting as the desire to impersonate or become a facsimile of the erotic target.“

“Transsexuals tended to place more importance on partner’s physical attractiveness and reported higher scores on Blanchard’s Core Autogynephilia Scale than biological females. In addition, transsexuals classified as autogynephilic scored significantly higher on Attraction to Feminine Males, … Fetishism, Preference for Younger Partners, Interest in Uncommitted Sex, Importance of Partner Physical Attractiveness, and Attraction to Transgender Fiction than other transsexuals and biological females.“

“Ray Blanchard … has proposed a theory that links the sexual orientation of male-to-female transsexuals with the presence or absence of autogynephilia (erotic arousal by the thought or image of “himself” as a woman). … Key studies on which the theory is based will be analyzed and alternative interpretations of the data presented. I conclude that although autogynephilia exists, the theory is flawed.“

“[Researchers] generally find that men tend only to be aroused by stimuli that match their declared sexual preferences and subjective feelings, whereas women tend to be aroused by a broad array of sexual material … irrespective of their declared preferences and subjective feelings. A new study … tests the claim … that this pattern of responding in women is an evolutionary vestige which served in the past to protect women from the genital injury that can come from unwanted sex.“

Natasha Vargas Cooper: “[T]he egalitarian view of sex, with its utopian pretensions, offers little insight into the typical male psyche. Internet porn, on the other hand, shows us an unvarnished (albeit partial) view of male sexuality as an often dark force streaked with aggression.“

From Jerome Robbins' "The Cage"

Angela Carter: “Sexual relations between men and women always render explicit the nature of social relations in the society in which they take place and, if described explicitly, will form a critique of those relations, even if that is not and never has been the intention of the pornographer.” (Quoted on p. 40 of Lynn Hunt’s “Introduction” in The Invention of Pornography)

“For people who regarded fertility as sacred and essential to their own survival, the caring for the gods included, in some cases, offering them sexual services. Thus, a separate class of temple prostitutes developed. … There is historic evidence of religious leadership by royal women. Two of these were Queen Baranamtarra (ca. 2350 B.C.) and her successor Queen Shagshag of Lagash. In the Old Babylonian period, the daughters of kings and rulers were appointed as high priestesses of the Moon-God or of the goddess Ishtar.” More about Queen Shagshag and her friends

“The image of the whore of Babylon in Rev 17-18 has often been used to support the idea of the prostitute as the ultimate sinner. This attitude may be contributing to a lack of involvement by Christians in counteracting contemporary sex-trafficking.“

“This article attempts to read the image of Babylon the Whore in Revelation 17—18 from a postcolonial feminist point of view, assuming that Revelation is written in the context of Roman imperialism with a patriarchal mindset.“

“The mathematics of beauty“

Farrah

“The near-zero gravity of Earth orbit may do serious harm to the male and female reproductive systems, the University of Kansas Medical Center biologist [Joe Tash] has discovered. Sperm counts drop. Egg-producing ovary cells waste away.“

Internal fertilization and live birth may have begun millions of years earlier than we thought

“According to the US Geological Survey, intersex, the presence of both male and female characteristics within the same fish, is being observed in fish in more streams across the nation.“

“Our previous study in frogs demonstrated that chemically-induced intersex animals can display different hepatic profiles of transcript levels than normal animals. In this study, we extend the observations to the developing frog brain.“

“The objective of the present work was to determine if visual depictions of the vulva differed according to their source …. A comparative analysis was conducted by measuring (a) … materials from human anatomy textbooks …, (b) feminist publications … depicting vulval morphology and (c) online pornography …. [L]abial protuberance was significantly less … in images from online pornography compared to feminist publications.“

“Humane images: visual rhetoric in depictions of atypical genital anatomy and sex differentiation“

“The bed bug … has a unique mode of copulation termed “traumatic” insemination … during which the male pierces the female’s abdominal wall with his external genitalia and inseminates into her body cavity …. We conclude that traumatic insemination is probably a coercive male copulatory strategy that results in a sexual conflict of interests.“

“The patient, a man in his late twenties, reported a periodic desire to be injured by a woman operating an automobile. This wish, present since adolescence, he had by dint of great ingenuity and effort, gratified hundreds of times without serious injury.“

“Black exotic dancers: undervalued and underpaid“

“Drawing heavily on the actual experiences of sex workers, Sex Work Matters: Exploring Money, Power, and Intimacy in the Sex Industry, edited by Melissa Hope Ditmore, Antonia Levy, and Alys Willman, features a collection of 14 essays on a diverse set of topics related to sex work.“

“This work argues that a reformulated capability approach expands the horizons established in earlier and contemporary classical rights-based approaches to gay rights and reproductive rights, by raising the threshold from recognizing an individual’s right to non-interference against the state or other entities to recognizing a shared responsibility to support everyone’s capacity to fulfill their potential.“

Barnacle penises: “Naturally, where there are giant penises, there are experts who dedicate their lives to the study of giant penises.“

“‘When you got nothing to do, you do somebody’: A community’s perceptions of neighborhood effects on adolescent sexual behaviors.“

“Does the slut gene exist?“

Sacred prostitutes, sexy books and why sex is worth it

Charlotte Rampling

Another excellent treasure trove of Veruschka pics. An older Veruschka: “My eyes carry more than happiness.“

Western Sexual Mysticism: “The vast range of possibilities for hidden, erotic mysticism demand a closer look.”

Sex in the Dionysian mysteries, and sex in the Orphic mysteries

From a journal on endocrinology and metabolism, “Baubo: a Case of Ambiguous Genitalia in the Eleusinian Mysteries“

Sacred prostitution in Sir James Frazer’s Golden Bough

“Sacred prostitution and Aphrodite“

More about sacred prostitution, and still more

Michael Coogan on “God and Sex”

“Sex and the Renaissance Nun: Why Venetian Nunneries Were Once Hotbeds of Passion“

Dr. Debby Herbenick’s research interests range “from examining attitudes toward vibrator use to investigating the relationship between sexual lubricant and pleasure.”

The Veruschka segment from Blowup:

Rhesus Macaques “pay” for monkey porn (pdf)

“Sex differences in relative foot length and perceived attractiveness of female feet“

“While outbreaks of koro (a culture-specific syndrome involving belief that the genitals are shrinking and retreating into the body) are most common in China and other parts of south-east Asia, sporadic cases have also been reported in other countries such as Thailand, India, and even western nations such as Canada.“

Hooters opens in Japan

Two kinds of Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder

“This mind trick – called the Belladonna effect – is helping the team’s research into attractiveness. Large pupils is [sic] a known signal of physiological arousal, say the authors, so they predicted that making the pupils seem dilated would make a face appear more attractive.“

From almost five years ago, Susie Bright on Playboy‘s list of the 25 sexiest books. Adam Ross recommends James Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime.

Laura Miller against the Bad Sex in Fiction Award

Charlotte Rampling (1974)

“In this review, we summarize neural regulation of sexual function and neurological causes of sexual dysfunction in women.“

“Dr Abecassis performs a “hymenoplasty” as it’s called, at least two to three times a week. Re-connecting the tissue of the hymen takes about 30 minutes under local anaesthetic. … With Chinese manufacturers leading the way, there are now non-surgical options on the market as well. One website sells artificial hymens for just £20 (23 euros). The Chinese hymen is made of elastic and filled with fake blood.“

“When it comes to the age at which boys and girls first have sex, boys are far more influenced by what their peers are doing and by the number of available sex partners than are girls.“

“Several standard sex differences replicated across cultures, including women’s greater valuation of social status and men’s greater valuation of physical attractiveness.“

Hypothesis: “Sexual frequency would moderate the association between neuroticism and relationship satisfaction.“

Sex costs much time and energy. Is it worth it?

Alla Nazimova

“Additionally, the mating dance is another cost of sex. Individuals expend time and energy seeking out mates, and may have to compete and display for the attention of all. Why bother?“

“Men, they’ve found, are less likely to continue a relationship with an unfaithful partner who’s had a heterosexual affair, as opposed to a homosexual affair. For women, it’s the other way around – they’re more troubled by their male partner going off with another man.“

“Some historians have proclaimed that America’s first gay president was really … the now-obscure James Buchanan. (He was the 15th president, serving from 1857 to 1861). Buchanan is the only bachelor to ever have held America’s top office, and his private life raised many eyebrows while he was alive.“

“In Search of Looks, Status, or Something Else? Partner Preferences Among Butch and Femme Lesbians and Heterosexual Men and Women“: “Previous research posited that butch lesbians are physiologically similar to heterosexual men, and by implication, femme lesbians physiologically resemble heterosexual women. The current study sought to compare partner preferences among butch and femme lesbians, as well as heterosexual women and men.”

Porn, safety and tech

"Pornokrates" by Félicien Rops (1879)

“Pornography is the eroticism of others.” – Alain Robbe-Grillet

An LA gallery hosts an event in memory of David Aaron Clark, of the “artporn” elite

“It has been found everywhere it was scientifically investigated that as pornography has increased in availability, sex crimes have either decreased or not increased.” Here’s an older opinion piece defending the same idea.

From down under, an interview with Patchen Barss on porn’s role in stimulating tech advances

From up above, details on the Canadian ruling that liberalizes prostitution; how it has divided feminist groups

Why Charlotte is happy she became a prostitute

Students in sex work: “she conducted a survey of 39 off-street sex workers. Ninety percent of respondents indicated that they had some postsecondary training, while 35 percent had earned a bachelor’s or master’s degree.”

Melissa Petro — a stripper in college and a prostitute in grad school, now a grade-school teacher. Petro wrote a piece in defense of prostitution ads on Craigslist. Now, after being pulled from the classroom, she’s written another article for the Huffington Post. She’s apparently got “her balls back.”

Wikipedia entry on “sacred prostitution”

Trade Secrets — “a blog devoted to health and safety in the sex industry”

A list of movies about prostitutes (with clips)