Kim, Scott and I have had lots of conversations around the so-called "Madonna-Whore Complex," partly because of the upcoming Dances of the Black Madonna workshop I'm leading in December and partly because we're always talking about how patriarchy squashes authentic expression (we're weird like that).
Being a gay man, I'm hyper-aware of the effects of patriarchy on culture. The definitions of masculinity and even gender are frighteningly narrow, only allowing for a set expression of manhood, womanhood, third-gendered-hood, or whatever. I see this extrapolated out into everything from spiritual dogma to advertising, and after even a short period of time, it gets really old.
I'm saddened to see women so tamped down because of current beliefs about what a woman should be, how she should act, and how she should present herself in the world. We do have a Madonna-Whore Complex that says, "Ladies, you can be the good girl in the white dress OR you can be the nasty girl in the pumps and black-lace teddy." What happens when we expect people to be one thing or the other? Total derangement.
A small example is that sometimes when I break out the bellydancing in classes, women get a little nervous about doing, what one amazing yogini described to me as, something "forbidden." It's not a far jump from women stifling their own sensuality to others doing it for them (e.g. genital mutilation).
Why can't a woman be both the Madonna and the Whore, especially when she already is, deep inside?
Look to older representations of women in art and myth. The Venus of Willendorf, a paleolithic stone-carved figure, shows a big-hipped, huge-breasted woman with one arm resting at her yoni and the other flung over her chest. One could suggest she's holding herself at the spots related to sex and love - major places of power - both the whore and the virgin (side note: in pre-patriarchal cultures, "virgin" meant a woman who belonged to no man, not a woman who never had sex).
In yogic traditions, we have the image of Kali, who's no joke. Dark-skinned, full of deep compassion, and also a gal who knows how to have a good time with her consort, Shiva, she's the totality of the Shakti-fied, essential woman, experience.
In pre-patriarchal cultures, there were temple prostitutes, women (and queer men), who would have sex with people in order to bring those seekers closer to the goddess. This act was often sought out by kings, warriors, and holy men who were interested in cleaving to the divine feminine through a really clear, powerful, and beautiful way - the pleasures of the body.
Now, men and women both (because men are just as damaged by all this as women) are cursed with shame, hatred, and disgust over their bodies and the powers of sex and pleasure. Instead of seeing it as a manifestation of divine expression, the body is often a source of mockery, degradation and bigotry. Hell, we can't even talk about these things without someone getting all horrified and offended, because we're tiptoeing into seemingly dangerous territory.
We all have the possibility for the Madonna-Whore expressions within us, but instead of thinking we have to be only one or the other, let's realize that we are the total experience. If we're in touch with our sensuality, that doesn't mean we aren't full of deep compassion. In fact, I'd argue that fully understanding and embodying our totality means we have the greater capacity to radiate love for all beings. On the flip side, just because we pray to God every night or keep an image of the Virgin Mary in our house, doesn't mean we don't like a bottle of wine and someone who knows how to nibble our neck in the right way.
So, let your hair loose (a sign in ancient times that you were a good-time party girl or boy), shake your hips, meditate on the Blessed Heart of the Virgin (old definition only, please) and embrace every single part of your divine embodiment.
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Friday, November 20, 2009
by Greg Marzullo