temple prostitution

[Wayside]

"Hetairai", since you ask. The same word is applied, for example, to Alexander's "Companions" (an elite military unit).

Regards,


Agback

I was referring to another term for the parties however, not the companion women. I know that the plural for Symposia was pronounced het-ai-rae-ah, I just don't know the accepted transliteration. I await your wisdom

 

[Wayside]

Does this mean I should drag in Michel Foucault?

And about sex = power?

-Angel Tears

You could, but as I said, I'd hoped to be rid of this nonsense. I am very well acquainted with Foucault thankyou. He is a mainstay in the graduate English department at Berkeley. I don't find any of the French critical imports to be particularly worthwhile reading, so while we're ignoring Foucault can we please also ignore Saussure, Barthes, Derrida etc. PLEASE.

Also, the severely reduced proposition 'sex=power' can hardly be attributed to Foucault, though it is unclear from your statement what you mean by it.

 

[Wayside]

I'm thinking of doing something similar in a campaign setting that I'm slowly writing up.

The big difference is that the "prostitues" don't charge for "it". They treat it as a mystical ritual that helps them both to rid themselves of the illusion of the self. The women are taught how to break down the walls of the ego. They also help teach new couples who are going to be committing to a marriage how to bring their partnership closer through sex. I don't think they'd "serve" a married person though.

I hate it when the boards eat my nice thought out posts and I have to retype something

Ok, so I said something like: That sounds like an interesting combination of Tantra and Hinduism, but I'd lay off concepts like ego/supergo/id because the conceptual 'self' generally referred to by religions in the tradition of the mysticism of the void is very different, more an amalgamation of 'experiences,' personality etc. (Eliot's theories on poetry were heavily influenced by his readings in Sanskrit mysticism). So practitioners of these religions are attempting to go back of this 'self,' to their true 'self,' the self that they share with every other person as extensions of divinity (god, if you will).

It is a withdrawal from 'self,' yes, but a proceeding into the shared 'self,' so, as you say, the ultimate kind of joining with others. A mystical practice to overcome William James' observation that the division between minds is the most absolute division in nature, and that, living in the world of modern physics, we know that nothing ever really touches.

The normal form for this practice is meditation/mystical experience, but ritual sex is definitely a workable idea.

 

[Wayside]

...a cult that originated in a different society could move into a campaign's current one, acquire protections as a recognized religion and then provide the society with a regulated and legal venue for prostitution. Even if the cult still kept its ritual low prices this would still provide benefits for the society at large by keeping things 'regular' and providing an option for supporting women and men who didn't have many other recourses that is largely tax free.

That does sound workable. I think we really need the campaign specific information to make helpful suggestions though.. we're sort of just groping around in the dark.

And finally, the distinction between sex and gender is made for the sake of theory. At this point the term gender is properly only used in a discussion that presumes the presence of societally constructed divisions of behavior based off of sex. If the conversation assumes that all sexually divisible behaviors are inherent to the sex than you don't really need the distiction that using the different terms suggests.

That's a distinction that's older than Butler. Who's work is very useful in a variety of contexts, even if not necessarily made with those contexts in mind.

I am of course thinking of Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, though there are many sources that preceded her (mostly the French critics that I dislike so much, though, unlike Foucault etc., I do like de Beavoir, and Lacan has his moments). With all the attention she's been paid because of that book she's probably half sorry she wrote, though you are right about her utility. However for me it lies in discussion of the performative, not the sexual identity stuff.

It's just the kind of thing that annoys me, like people who read Shakespeare in terms of Aristotle (Greek Targedy instead of Roman) or don't realize that Dante had never read Homer. I could never stand it when some professor droned on and on about incest themes in a book that was straight as a stick when it came to Victorian morality. Talk about anachronistic interpretations..

 

[Inzae]

matriarchy

I have not read all the arguments here but I am going to this evening and get back to this post. But, diving in waters which I perhaps should mesaure the depth of first. I iwll proceed with a few simple clarifications.

Matrilineal descent means nothing more than one's closest and most meaninglful relatives are on the mothers side of the family and not the fathers.

Matriarchies are those societies in which women, as a group, hold power over men as a socail category. No matriarchy has ever been anthropologically observed nor historically documented.

The presence of a queen or powerful female figure does not indicate a matriarchy.

anr, with regards to the subject of this post's beginning, I would suggest the temple priestesses not be referred to as prostitutes in the first place. Its like calling Geisha prostitutes. Not comparable. back later.

davis

 

[Snoweel]

Yeah, that bit about geisha =/= prostitutes is dead on. They were more like companions.

Of course, men and women spending "quality time" together often ends up in the sack. It's the way things are.

 

[mythago]

Depends on your definition of prostitute, though, doesn't it?

Of course geisha were not simply prostitutes; but it's pretty well-documented that they did enter into "kept woman" sorts of arrangements. Is this prostitution? For that matter, is a kept woman a prostitute? She's not charging by the act, or taking all comers (sorry), but there is an unspoken agreement of a sexual relationship for goodies.

 

[Snoweel]

That was so bad it's funny, mythago.

 

[Kilmore]

Crap!! The topics I'm late on when I go on a road trip for work!! Anyways, the historical discussions are always interesting. Any word on the rituals from the south seas? What about Scandinavia? I'm sure that will be easier for some of us to research than others.

At any rate, I'm interested in seeing how this is best applied to campaigns.

IMC, there is a goddess of Love and Passion: Leathane, which is also the name of the pinkish saturn-like ringed world my campaign world orbits, and is associated with her, of course. There are two main (and numerous minor) sects of this goddess. One, the Sacred Heart, are mainly concerned with the emotions of love and affairs of the heart, but the other (more popular) sect, the Lady of Divine Pleasures, is more concerned with the power of sex, which they see as a divine experience. Relations between the sects are strained.

Anyways, with that big planet in the sky, eclipses of the world's sun, Raxis (named after the sun god of course) are not uncommon. When that happens, you know the mortals gotta talk about what the gods are doing. There is, of course, a huge... um... celebration. If a movie was made, Vin Diesel would not the action star given top billing in this version of Pitch Black .

Sorry. That was itching to be typed. But anyways, I'm pondering adventures for this event. Ideas appreciated.

 

[Alzrius]

Kilmore, perhaps a sect of Raxis gone bad has reinterpreted the meaning of what happens when Leathane eclipses Raxis. Instead of it just being a tryst, they see it as their god ravishing the goddess, and during the next eclipse they swarm down on the nearest temple of Leathane to pillage and rape, and the PCs must protect the Leathanites. That's one adventure idea.

Another one is that members of the Sacred Heart try to disrupt the celebration, since it takes focus away from the sect of their deity. This would be a better adventure for low-level characters, since open fighting is unlikely, and itd be more like pranks and disruptive activities, etc.