Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body--New Paths to Power and Love [9780062502834]

Overview

A profound investigation of human sexuality, tracing how culture severed sex from pleasure and how we can reclaim love from violence.

The inquiry examines how early agricultural societies celebrated the creative powers of nature, treating sexual union as a sacrament of renewal rather than an instrument of coercion.

Nomadic pastoralist invasions gradually dismantled these partnership traditions, replacing life-affirming mythologies of regeneration with warrior pantheons that equated masculine power with the capacity to inflict pain.

Riane Eisler shows us how history has consistently promoted the link between sex and violence—and how we can sever this link and move to a politics of partnership rather than domination in all our relations.

• Prehistoric Archaeology: Discover how Ice Age cave sanctuaries in the Dordogne and Neolithic shrines at Lepenski Vir celebrate female procreative power through sacred vulva carvings and regeneration symbols.
• Cultural Anthropology: Explore field observations of bonobo chimpanzees, whose frequent food sharing and nonreproductive sexual greetings demonstrate how physical pleasure defuses conflict and sustains egalitarian social bonds.
• Sexual Politics: Trace how the Bronze Age civilization of Minoan Crete integrated lithe, joyful bull-leaping rituals and unfortified towns into a high-standard culture where women served as prominent priestesses and equal partners.
• Feminist Theory: Uncover how medieval witch-hunts systematically suppressed female healers and troubadour traditions to dismantle surviving vestiges of Goddess veneration and consolidate church authority.
• Also by This Author: The Chalice and the Blade.