We should praise and defend
reckless teenage girls and young women
who behave badly, dress provocatively,
engage in risky sex, and get pregnant
They are the normal ones
The rest of us are the deviants
They are behaving in the most natural way
Click on image to enlarge
Women accused of witchcraft almost certainly
weren't guilty of anything of the sort
Instead, their treatment at the hands of men,
and the rationales used by those men,
indicate that the oppression of witches
was somehow symbolic of the oppression
of women in general, of women's sexuality,
and of sexuality in general
The Joy of Female Sexuality [Original]
It's time someone praised and defended reckless teenage girls and young women who behave badly, dress provocatively, engage in risky sex, and get pregnant.
They are the normal ones. The rest of us are the deviants. They are behaving in the most natural way. The rest of us are mutants.
There is nothing wrong with pelvic display, push-up bras, Gosford miniskirts, spray-on jeans, low-cut tops, bare legs, bare arms, bare ankles, G-strings or even buttock cleavage, providing the displayer is young enough to get away with it.
A woman's body is at its fertility peak between the ages of 17 and 23. So when young women advertise or flaunt their sexuality they are being driven by a force far stronger than the Judeo-Christian ethic.
They are driven by the power of peak fertility and a million years of evolutionary biology. Nature has programmed them for pregnancy, genetic diversity and keeping the species going. A big job.
Sexually active teenage girls, and sexually promiscuous women of any age, carry the greatest social burden of judgements, punishments, restrictions and risks because we haven't got the child-care equation right. These women are just doing their job.
They are real, while the rest of the equation is artificial. Society is the collective weight of traditions, conventions, laws, habits, fears, tribes, taboos and technologies, permeated by a Judeo-Christian ethic dominated by men and designed to curb female sexual power.
Our norms are also dominated by the ideology of materialism that is moving women further and further towards unnatural behaviour, pressuring them to have babies later rather than sooner.
This is society's real problem. Teenage pregnancy is trivial by comparison to suppressed pregnancy.Did Witches Symbolize Female Sexuality
If witches and witchcraft have become imbued with an identity that reaches far beyond their own existence, if they have become a symbol for something larger for Christians, then what are they a symbol of?
and Power to a Patriarchal Church?
It seems to me that witches served a symbolic role for the male, celibate religious authorities in Europe. Witches were not simply adherents to an alternative religiosity, and they certainly weren't turning whole towns into toads.
Indeed, most of those accused of witchcraft almost certainly weren't guilty of anything of the sort.
Instead, their treatment at the hands of men, and the rationales used by those men, indicate that the oppression of witches was somehow symbolic of the oppression of women in general, of women's sexuality, and of sexuality in general.
I hate to sound Freudian, but I really do think that in this case, the assertions by celibate men about the alleged sexual obsessions of witches are really a clear case of projection.
I think that it was the religious authorities who were obsessed and insatiable with their sexuality, but since their repressive ideology couldn't allow that, they had to project their desires onto others.
If women, sexually evil beasts, were actually responsible for the priests' sexual desires, then the priests could in turn still feel holy -- and better yet, "holier than thou," more righteous and holy than the hated women around them.
When one group is systematically persecuted by others, and especially when the persecutors deliberately abandon normal standards of justice, procedures, and so forth, then it's important to look at whether the persecutors are just reacting to a perceived threat (real or imagined) or if they are instead reacting to something larger and using the victims as a scapegoat for larger fears. Sometimes both may be at work, too.