looks more like a whole roasted chicken than human imho

That shit was not "pornographic"-- it was more religious or even useful. Why do people want to make everything "porn"???


http://www.suppressedhistories.net

If you have FB, join this community and look at a far better sample of archeology photo's and interpretations.

Which reminds me-- I always meant to buy this poster

http://www.suppressedhistories.net/sacravulva.html

whose specialty was India, particularly Tamil Nadu. She was always furious with other male anthropologists who talked about the Indian figurines with full breasts as pornographic. I thank her for changing my youthful mind.

They interpreted what they thought was the natural order. One of the things that alternately cracks me up and irritates me is referring to prostitution as 'the oldest profession' when early prostitution was a religious rite, not exclusive to women, the "Epic of Giglimesh" notwithstanding. (I'm all excited about reading Tolkien's version)There's a lot of anthropological findings that were clearly female centric, and there were societies where inheritance came down the female line, but certainly didn't make them "matriarchies"-- there may have been a few, but there is scanty evidence to support them actually existing as full matriarchies ( oops, I'm going off on a tangent)

Full breasts or multiple breasts often indicate fertility, which may have been a sign of sexual desirability in women, because thy were fertile. The vulva itself had a variety of meanings, life, rebirth, cleansing, safety etc. Here's a kind of touchy feely article (no pun intended) about 'reclaiming the vulva'--back before the times where it's was considered shameful or 'dirty'--and let's face it, one of the problems with labeling things pornographic, it gives things that feeling of looking at the body disrespectfully.

http://cliterallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2009/04/reclaiming-magic-of-vulva.html

The figurines often have round bellies. Some Goddess's, like my favorite Kalima, were overtly sexual in some aspects, as was more recently an aspect of the Morrígan. So sex was certainly involved, in our stories of beginnings and battles, but generally it had a purpose other than pleasure, although pleasure existed, it wasn't a big deal and was definitely not pornographic. I doubt they needed porn.

Even today, if you go to certain Native American Sweat lodges, some are round in shape and represent the womb, you enter one way, and leave another.

She always was much more open to breaking the mold of the old order.

....something like "The History of Pornography"? Sorry, don't have time to look for it now. But the gist of it is; when archaeologists unearthed the ruins of Pompeii they were horrified to discover all kinds of "obscene" artwork, paintings, statues, etc. depicting human sexuality, bestiality (famous statue of Pan, half man half goat having intercourse with woman), and other "perversions".

The whole collection was stored away very hush-hush in the British museum and was only available for viewing by certain privileged "gentlemen" whose superior moral code could ensure they would not be corrupted by such images.

It was an interesting juxtaposition between the repressed and horrified English society and the open an unashamed displaying of these images in an ancient society. I didn't watch the whole thing, but I would like to get back to it; it was fascinating.

Any broad-stroke analyses will be informed by our own prejudices one way or the other.

We can say "that's obviously a fertility totem" or "that's a pornographic idol," but why is one interpretation more authoritative than any other?

They believed in Gods, Goddesses, omen, witches, ghosts, spirits of all sorts. That's the only way they had the interpret their world. They didn't know what caused storms, draughts, babies, good weather, didn't know what death was, exactly---they gave Gods the credit. (Although I just know there was a skeptic or two)

Personally, as I alluded to earlier, you go back far enough, or look at certain cultures you don't think of sex as pornographic. It just is.

But you have to look at a number of cultures; our oldest set of legal rules, the Code of Hammurabi, was clearly patriartical, as well as classist. The two often go together.

Old Celtic cultures-- much has been lost, but there are indications women had some equality, as well as sexual freedom. Unfortunately war and religious conversion brought a sense of shame to sex, as well as destroying many, many cultures, not just the Celts.

Pornagraphy itself, or seeing sex as pornography seems to me a way to control and commodify human sexual behavior.

The word has too much baggage, I guess

Exactly. Which is why the "anti-porn = anti-sex" fallacy is so frustrating. Of course some anti-porn folks, mainly right-wing Christians, do have equally unhealthy attitudes towards sex and the human body, but the idea that an artificial, capitalistic, commercialized distortion of sexuality is all there is, strikes me as incredibly sad.

In the sense that as the the church was growing, there were many "cults" Like Athenian worshipers--that used sex in their rituals. There is some evidence that Paul's sexual moralizing angst was directed toward these cults, which were ultimately wiped out, rather than 'rules' of behavior.

There is also some evidence that the prohibitions against homosexuals as far back as Leviticus came from the same type of competition. Much later, Once the council of Nicea 'codified' the structure of the church the political considerations of what went in the bible went on for centuries.
So it was never questioned since it was Abrahamic, patriartical religion, like Islam and Judaism. So much information was lost, it's hard to say if the prohibition was a mistranslation or an pushback against another religion, or an actual belief--which I highly doubt.

Look at the story of David and Jonathan in the OT--

16:21 And David came to Saul, and stood before him: and he loved him greatly; and he became his armourbearer.

16:22 And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David, I pray thee, stand before me; for he hath found favour in my sight.
16:23 And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. (16:23)
Much Later:

18:1 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
18:2 And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. (18:
And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments ... and his girdle."
18:3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.
18:4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.

It's a huge complicated war story, but I've always thought of it as a love story as well.

the Roman centurion's servant/companion - the two men there could easily be construed as a same-sex couple, which Jesus certainly seems to have had no objection to.

Many ancient cultures either tolerated or outright celebrated what we would now consider romantic companionship between men, even if adult males engaging in anal sex with each other was often a taboo, because the "receiving" partner was seen as lowering himself.

Also an interesting idea RE: the separation of sexuality from everyday life, including religious rites - what we now call pornography could perhaps be seen as compartmentalizing sex (and by extension, the body) as opposed to integrating it with other aspects of one's existence. The stereotype of a fundamentalist's sex life - lights off, missionary only, etc. - seems like an extreme example of this compartmentalization.

You put how I meant to say it. Succinct too. I tend to meander a bit around topics

so I guess I'm used to having to express complex ideas in a concise way. Definitely serves me well in discussing, say, politics. I'm also a fiction writer - my emphasis as a student was creative writing.

"what we now call pornography could perhaps be seen as compartmentalizing sex (and by extension, the body) as opposed to integrating it with other aspects of one's existence"

Very interesting insight there. Thanks

but I see it is an older posting...



Good article though! Thanks for posting!

And who knows the little hash marks may have been an early way of making the moon times to keep track of menstrual cycles.

We knew about procreation before men and it was kept secret until the Patriarchy took over and ruined the planet.

Once they figured out men had something to do with the creation of life the idea of the 'baby daddy' became the only important element in civilization. Only semi kidding here.

I hadn't thought much about matrilineality but I am very curious about the history of it now.