The Whore and the Holy One

holden said Jul 21, 2007, 1:50 AM:

I was looking through the ethnographic record for info. on Kundalini, because it is oftne brought up here and I know nothing about it and have yet to even hear about it beyond integral forums.
I came across this and thought it might be interesting for the women of Zaadz to check out in the spirit of feminist dialogue.

If you want you can just read the abstract and go to the end for the conclusion.

The Whore and the Holy One:

Contemporary Sacred Prostitution and

Transformative Consciousness

Lee Gil more

California Institute of Integral Studies

Abstract

This text explores the intersection of the women's spirituality and sex worker's

rights movements in which a growing body of sex workers describe and experience

themselves as “sacred whores.” In this cultural encounter, the women's spirituality

movement's vision of sexual empowerment has merged with the sex workers rights

movement's recontextualization of prostitution and other forms of sex work as valid,

fulfilling, and skilled labor. These women are establishing themselves as heirs to a

mythology of ancient religious practices in which priestesses made love to men

within temples as a holy rite and a spiritual service. My exploration of this movement

is grounded in an inquiry into the history and mythology of the “temple prostitutes”

of the ancient Near East, and unfolds into an ethnography of the currently emerging

sacred whore movement.

I am the first and the last

The honored one and the scorned one

The whore and the holy one

I am the wife and the virgin

I am the mother and the daughter

1 am the barren one

and many are my sons…

J am the silence that is incomprehensible

I am the utterance of my name

—The Thunder, Perfect Mind, 3rd century AD

(Robinson 1977:272)

Introduction

The contemporary sacred whore emerges at the crossroads of the sex workers'

rights and women's spirituality movements. The growing number of goddess

worshippers in the U.S. and elsewhere, in concert with sex-radical feminist

reconsiderations of sex work, has created a cultural context in which a growing

number of women (and men) draw inspiration from the myth of the sacred whore and

its vision of sexual and spiritual empowerment.1 An increasing body of sex workers

describe and experience themselves as sacred whores and sexual healers, establishing

themselves as heirs to a mythology of ancient religious practices in which priestesses

made love to various men within temples as a holy rite and a spiritual service.

Elsewhere, I delve into the historicity of this legend, summarizing various cultic

roles available to women in the ancient Near East (Gilmore 1998:37-54). I conclude

that although there are several tantalizing indications that some form of sexual

activity did occur within a religious context throughout this region in different

historical periods, the dilemmas engendered by countless layers of biased and

misinformed translations are exacerbated by the paucity of data available, leaving

the roots of the association between priestesses and prostitutes unexposed, and

rendering definitive conclusions impossible at this time. In addition, it is critical to

recognize the extreme unlikelihood that the ancient Mesopotamians conceived of

the roles of both “secular” and “sacred” prostitutes in the same manner as the modern

prostitute is constructed in the dominant Western cultures.

Yet the very possibility that the border between the sacred and the profane was

non-existent in the cultures of antiquity asks us to reconsider this division, turning

back on our own questions and categories. I propose that the circumstances of our

present, postmodern era require a rethinking of the divisions between the sacred and

the profane, the transcendent and the immanent, the spirit and the body.

Contemporary women who identify with and practice as sacred whores embody a

liminalconsciousness as they transgress the boundary between commercial prostitution

and spiritual service.

This paper embarks on an ethnographic overview of the contemporary sacred

whore movement, identifying the common threads that distinguish it from other sex

work communities. This includes an analysis of the sacred whore movements

construction of itself as heir to a legacy of ancient temple prostitution, as well as a

discussion of the spiritual practices of individual sacred whores, which is often

grounded in some aspect of the women's spirituality movement. I also examine the

possibilities for individual and cultural transformation as envisioned and experienced

by the women in this community.

Temple Visions

Contemporary writers, theorists, activists, and practitioners with an interest in

the sacred whore construct the movement as heir to a lineage of ancient temple

prostitution. Merlin Stone, author of the classic feminist text When God Was a

Woman, helped to canonize this mythological history within some branches of

feminist thought, writing:

During Biblical times, it was still customary, as it had been for thousands of

years before in Sumer, Babylon and Canaan, for many women to live within

the temple complex, in the earliest times the very core of the

community… Women who resided in the sacred precincts of the Divine

Ancestress took their lovers from among the men of the community, making

love to those who came to tht temple to pay honor to the goddess. (Stone

1976:153-154)

Stone is frequently credited with having introduced many to the concept of the

sacred whore. Another feminist writer often cited as a source of inspiration around

sacred whoredom is Barbara Walker, whose Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and

Secrets includes a discussion of temple harlots under the heading “prostitution.” She

briefly describes relevant legends from ancient cultures throughout the world,

including Greece, Egypt, Japan, and Mesopotamia, and writes, “Ancient harlots

often commanded high social status and were revered for their learning. As

embodiments of the Queen of Heaven in Palestine, called Qadeshet, the Great

Whore, the harlots were honored like queens at centers of learning in Greece and

Asia Minor” (Walker 1983:820).

This basic motif of sexually and politically empowered priestesses in the ancient

world, especially the in the Near East, who took men of their own choosing as lovers

is repeated again and again within contemporary discourse on the sacred whore. The

current prevailing viewpoint among many scholars of the ancient Near East would

seem to be that temple prostitution never actually existed, or if a form of this

institution did exist, it certainly was not the feminist Utopia that some contemporary

women and men envision (Bucher 1988; Henshaw 1994; Leick 1994). Nevertheless,

the concept of its existence was put forth by so many for so long that the notion has

achieved a certain hegemony within much of the discourse on the ancient Near East,

and other ancient goddess worshipping cultures, that is difficult to displace. The

archetype of the sacred harlot has crept into our cultural consciousness to the extent

that she now appears in popular literature, as in this passage from the novel Skinny

Legs and All by Tom Robbins:

The First Temple [in Jerusalem] had teemed with sexual activity from the

night of its dedication onward, even, to some extent when under strict Levite

(Yahwist) control. A famous pair of phallic pillars guarded its entrance, and

like almost all the temples of the ancient world, it was financially supported

by the earnings of holy prostitutes… .This was sacred sex, conducted with

ceremony and in full consciousness meant to mime the act of original

Creation, to celebrate life at its most intense and crucial moment. (Robbins

1990:96)

Many contemporary women who feel connected to this archetype draw inspiration

for their own practices from the ancient myths. For example, one self-identified

sacred whore, Sunny Owen, said, “I really feel like I'm connected to this old tradition,

the sacred harlot tradition. We don't really know what sort of rituals they practiced

in Sumer, but I would love to recreate those temple practices” (Interview with

author, June 16, 1996).

Catherine La Croix, Executive Director of Seattle COYOTE,2 also sees herself

as recreating the ancient Mesopotamian temple customs, saying:

We have a 7,000 year old history, a very honorable history. There were times

when the sacred whores were the most honored and valued women in our

societies. They were not only sexually oriented, but in many cases they were

also the midwives and the healers… .Ishtar, [the] Babylonian love goddess, is

described as a “prostitute compassionate” sitting in'the window, just like

Amsterdam. (La Croix 1997)

Cosi Fabian, who describes herself as a courtesan, was likely among the first to

consciously draw upon the mythos of the sacred whore for inspiration when she

began working out of her home as a call girl in 1989. Prior to entering the sex industry,

she had studied women's history, mythology, and spirituality for seven years and was

strongly moved by the Inanna myths and other legends of the ancient Near East. She

said, “I was fascinated by the idea of sacred prostitutes. It was very important to me

that autonomous, non-relational, non-fertile women's sexuality had a place in divine

drama” (Interview with author, November 18, 1997).

At the time she began working as a prostitute, Fabian knew no one else in the

business and she stated, “I think my naivete was a benefit because the only model I

had was the sacred prostitutes” (Interview with author, November 18,1997). In the

intervening years, however, Cosi made contact with the vibrant sex work community

in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is currently co-director of the Cyprian Guild, “a

San Francisco based business and social network for adult entertainers interested in

personal and professional development” (Goodsen 1998). The Cyprian Guild was

founded by Teri Goodsen, who presently works under the name “Qadisha,” a form of

the ancient Akkadian word qadistu. This term, and the etymologically related

Hebrew term qadesah, is literally translated as “holy woman” and is commonly given

to mean “sacred prostitute.”

This process of modern myth-making points to the incidence of cross pollination

between the feminist spirituality and feminist sex work communities. I stumbled

upon another interesting example of this in an alternative “zine” article about sex

worker Annabel Chong. In 1995, Chong staged and filmed “The World's Biggest

Gang Bang,” a publicity event in which she had sex with 251 men (each for

approximately two minutes at a time). In order to prepare herself for this event

Chong said, “I fantasized about being a Babylonian temple prostitute. I tried to create

the head space to do it, because a lot of it's psychological. It's not just physical

endurance but psychologically, you have to be able to keep in that mode” (Hallock

1996:82). Chong is also among the growing number of sex workers who are

integrating their academic and sexual work. At the time of the interview, Chong was

a student at the University of Southern California majoring in sex studies:

an interdisciplinary major Chong herself created, falling under the department

of the Study of Women and Men in Society, and incorporating courses form

psychology, sociology, and anthropology. She plans to pursue graduate

studies at the Institute for the Advanced Studies of Human Sexuality in

Indiana and would eventually like to become a professor. (Hallock 1996:82)

Annie Sprinkle, a prominent sex worker who terms herself a “pleasure activist,”

consciously embraces the identity of sacred whore. In her solo performance piece,

Post-Post Porn Modernist, Sprinkle recalls the legend of the sacred whore, kneeling

before a recreated, on-stage temple adorned with candles, flowers, incense, and bowl

of flame, as she prepares to masturbate to climax. (Sprinkle 1994). By keeping a beat

with simple shakers passed out prior to the ritual/performance, the audience is

encouraged to reach beyond the passive gaze of the spectator by actively participating

in the rite. In conversation with author and postmodern philosopher Shannon Bell,

she revealed that, “at the end of the show I tell the legend of the sacred prostitute… I

made this.. .up, but then I found out later it was real” (Bell 1994:186).

December 1998 The Whore and the Holy One

Sprinkle has led workshops entitled “The Sluts and Goddesses Salon,” in which

participants are invited to explore the archetypes of slut and goddess and transgress

the separation between them through costuming and ritual. Bell says, “Sprinkle,

through the Slut/Goddess workshop, is recuperating for the goddess that which

Western philosophy and religion has absented: the sexual. She is returning to the

space of the ancient sacred prostitute” (Bell 1994:150).

Leading sex radical, sex work activist, and sacred whore Carol Queen, spoke

with me about the problems of historicity surrounding the legends, and their

relevance to our present situation. She stated:

More important than the truth of the historical record—although I would

love to know the bottom line of that as well—is that in the late 20th century

alternative spiritual understandings of the world and alternative sexual

philosophies have met and married in this place…. In real life, in the lives of

real people who are doing sex work—which has been a denigrated category

for a whole long time in the West—people are achieving new understandings

of themselves and what they can do, what they are doing with clients, and

who their clients are and what they want. If everybody wanted to look at

these insights and take them seriously, it could lead the whole culture into a

more spiritually grounded and accepting way of looking at sexuality. For me

that's the cultural bottom line. (Interview with author, October 22, 1997)

Cosi Fabian similarly expressed:

I do believe that sexuality has been a part of worship for millennia, probably

from the beginning of time. I believe that sexuality was part of the duties of

the priestesses. I know you say there's been no historical proof of this, and I

would be interested to know why you think that… .What I've noticed over

the years is that whether my intellect is looking at these stories as faith, as

archetype, or as damn good stories, they all work anyway…. I do believe that

these stories hold an expression of a part of women which has been lost for

two thousand years and which is essential for us to regain. (Interview with

author, November 18, 1997)

Although we need to be conscious of the boundary between verifiable and

visionary history, while also recognizing that all history is ultimately filtered through

the personal and cultural lens of the writer, the mythology of the sacred whore serves

to inspire contemporary women who are actively creating new realities. Elsewhere,

Fabian has written of ancient roots as well as personal and cultural transformation:

My inspirations were the Qadeshet, the “Sacred Prostitutes” of our ancestors'

temples. This seven-year experiment has paid off magnificently. By using

prepatriarchal models of female sexuality as a noble, even divine power, I

have constructed a life that is extraordinarily sweet, to say nothing of

confounding most of this culture's preconceptions around both female and

male sexuality. (Fabian 1997:44)

Sacred whores are redefining cultural constructions of prostitution, as Shannon

Bell points out; “Postmodern prostitute performance artists have traced their lineage

back to the sacred prostitute; in doing so they have produced a strategic genealogy

that undermines and displaces the modern construct of the prostitute” (Bell

Anthropofogy of Consciousness [9(4)]

1994:19). Ultimately, the new cultural possibilities being generated by the mythology

of the sacred whore are more relevant to our contemporary situation as feminists than

are the ever lingering problems of temple harlotry's historicity.

Personal (and Professional) Spirituality

Contemporary sacred whores, inspired by this mythological history, weave their

lives and spiritual journeys around these metaphors. Many women in this movement

have long engaged in some form of spiritual practice, and many were motivated, at

least in part, to become sex workers through their involvement in, and readings

about, feminist spirituality.

For example, Cosi Fabian first learned of the archetype of the sacred whore

through reading popular women's spirituality texts such as When God Was A Woman

(Stone 1976), The Politics of Women's Spirituality (Spretnak 1982), and The Woman's

Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Walker 1983). A former executive secretary,

Fabian was led into sex work through a personal exploration of her spirituality and

sexuality as a woman in this culture, as well as by a need to find more fulfilling, less

spiritually draining work. She writes, “I saw that sex work was an obvious area to

investigate, although I knew very little about contemporary prostitution” (Fabian

1997:49).

“Phoenix,” an exotic dancer, first became interested in the sacred whore

archetype through feminist spirituality novels such as The Moon Under Her Feet

(Kinstler 1989) and The Mists of Avalon (Bradley 1992). The Moon Under Her Feet

retells the Christ story as experienced by Mary Magdalene, who is characterized as

a high priestess and sacred prostitute. In a similar vein, The Mists of Avalon is a retelling

of the King Arthur myth from the perspective of Morgan la Fey, who is also

portrayed as a high priestess. In one scene, the young Morgan and Arthur are ritually

joined in the Sacred Marriage (accounting for the “bastard” birth, as it is traditionally

portrayed, of Mordred).

Carol Queen directly credited her involvement in feminist spirituality with her

first introduction to the concept of sacred prostitution. She told me:

I read about the sacred prostitutes as part of the whole women's spirituality

history, like in When God Was a Woman, and other feminist spirituality books

that I got turned onto through my Wicca affiliation, and I wanted to know

more. Those notions are very powerful for anybody who has been brought up

in a Christian affected sex-negative culture, which is almost all of us….I

hadn't put the ancient notion of sacred prostitution onto contemporary

prostitution until it became a possibility for me to do that work, and then I

made the connection almost immediately. (Interview with author, October

22,1997)

She went on to describe her decision to do sex work, and the role which

spirituality played in that decision:

Like a lot of people, I went into it for the money first. But very, very quickly

on the heels of the money was.the thought: “I'm in training to be a sexologist,

this is fascinating…. Wow, it's a lab course!” And not far on the heels of that,

was the protective circle that my spiritual understandings allowed me to go

December 1998 The Whore and the Holy One into it with—from the very beginning. My first experiences, one in

particular, were strong enough that it really reinforced for me that there's a

lot more to this than I ever thought, than most of the culture ever thinks

about, and that this really dovetails with the ideas of sacred whoredom that

I had read in books. (Interview with author, October 22, 1997)

When asked how she came to learn of the ancient temple practices, Sunny

Owen also credited feminist spirituality writers, including Barbara Walker. Owen's

experience is also a good example of the ways in which the contemporary sacred

whore movement is beginning to give birth to itself, as she also credits Cosi Fabian,

with whom she studied early in her career, and Women of the Light, (Stubbs 1994) a

relatively recent book of essays by sacred sex workers, as providing initial inspiration

and information about sacred prostitution.

Unlike most of the women that I interviewed, long time porn star Annie

Sprinkle did not come to the archetype of the sacred whore directly through the

women's spirituality movement, although it quickly found her once she began to

weave spirituality into her performances and writings. In a lecture delivered at the

International Conference on Prostitution, she said:

Then AIDS hit, and that's when my spiritual path really began, although in

my early days of prostitution I really had a sense of being a sexual healer, I just

wasn't conscious of it. When AIDS hit I became involved with a healing

circle to try to cope, and I met Jwala and Joe Kramer.. .and I began learning

about Tantra, breathing, and spirituality. (Sprinkle 1997)

Interestingly, Carol Queen also credits the AIDS crisis with invigorating her

spiritual life, saying:

AIDS was not just about sexuality, it was about life and death. It kicked my

spirituality in the ass. At a time when my spirituality was sort of intellectual,

suddenly I needed it. It was not only implicated with sexuality. For me, it was

also implicated in the big life and death questions that often make people run

to church, run to ritual, run to whatever that helps them understand and gain

perspective about what's going on. (Interview with author, October 22,

1997)

Catherine La Croix is a practitioner of Wicca or witchcraft, a form of Neo-Pagan

goddess worship based on pre-Christian European mythology which has enjoyed

increasing popularity over the past two or three decades. She sees her role as a

facilitator of sacred sexual experience to be that of a Neo-Pagan clergywoman. “We

are clergy. I've been a witch for twenty-five years. I was initiated when I was sixteen,

and I hardly need [right wing Christianity's] approval to be clergy” (La Croix 1997).

La Croix laments the fact that although the Neo-Pagan movement has gained

some official sanction as various groups have organized and obtained status as legally

recognized churches, and although she has training and experience as clergy, “the

situation right now is that it is illegal for me to practice my religion. If I were to open

a temple to Isis tomorrow, I would be charged with pandering or running a disorderly

house” (La Croix 1997).

Despite the fact that prostitution continues to be criminalized in the U.S., there

are a few “legitimate” professions which circumvent the laws, as some sacred harlots

Anthropobgy of Consciousness (9(4)]

also have professional training in sex surrogacy, sexology, psychology, or therapeutic

massage. For example, Carol Queen has nearly completed her doctorate in sexology

from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Sexuality. Another member of the

sacred sex worker community, Carolyn Elderberry, works as an erotic masseuse and

holds a B.A. in psychology, as well as an M.A. in ethics from the San Francisco

Theological Seminary. “Carolyn has also been trained as a sex surrogate and is

certified in massage therapy. Moreover, she identifies as Christian and is an ordained

lay minister in her church” (Stubbs 1994:148).

However, despite the veneer of respectability enabled by this background,

Elderberry was still busted for prostitution in the early 1990s. For Elderberry and

others like her, this training provides more than a potential, albeit flimsy, cloak of

legality. It also imparts additional tools and techniques that can be shared with

clients. She says: “While I'm practiced in clinical therapeutic massage and my

massage is indeed therapeutic, my strokes, rather than being simply clinical, are an

extension of myself and my caring for this human being on my table” (Elderberry

1994:157).

Clinical and other professional training, while providing a modicum of legitimacy

for some contemporary sacred prostitutes, also serves to entrench ever more deeply

the hegemony of psychology and Western medicine as the interpretive template of

our individual and cultural experiences. “The temple must now be disguised as a

psychological or medical clinic. Now a worshipper must have pathological condition;

a sexual disorder classification is the temple entrance requirement. The

psychotherapist and medical doctor have become the new high priest/ess” (Roberts

1994:48).

Transformative Power

Among the common threads that recur within the range of experiences

articulated by women who identify with the sacred whore is the perception that

sacred harlotry contains powerful possibilities for transforming individual and

cultural consciousness. These potentialities are observed for themselves, their

clients, and also for the dominant culture. As Carol Queen states, “I believe sex is

sacred and healing. This idea pervades my work as a prostitute” (Queen 1994:191).

Some sacred whores believe that spiritual energy is generated in an erotic

encounter which can then be employed to transform and empower the client, and

transform and empower the whore. This energy arises from, but reaches beyond, the

pleasurable and cathartic physical response processes of sex. Phoenix described her

experience of this energy saying, “When I dance for someone, I am generating sacred

sensual energy… That energy is coming up my spine, from my groin.' It's Kundalini

energy. It's coming up and it's falling onto [the customer]. That's how it happens for

me” (Interview with author, August 2, 1997).

This energy is then directed to provide enriching and transformative experiences

that go beyond the mechanics of a typical sexual exchange. Carolyn Elderberry

emphasized, “What I am doing is not a 'handjob' or a 'jerk-off.' By including the

genitals, I'm telling the body it is whole and wholesome” (Elderberry 1994:159).

Sacred whores see their work as a service to the community, as a means by which

clients may get in touch with their own deep sexuality and spiritual power, and also

December 1998 The Whore and the Holy One

as a way to heal the sexual problems and violence suffered by many in our sexually

repressed dominant culture. Owen described her experience with her clients as, “like

being a receptive vessel. I say, 'okay, what do you want to pour into me? What do

you want to work off on me? Do it.' And I'm just there” (Interview with author, June

16, 1996). She went on to say:

The service I provide is really simple….It's just to be available for sexual

pleasure.. .whatever that is, for the client without judgment, without shame,

without stuff, without needing anything in return, other than the fee. That's

my part of the energy exchange… .To me that's sacred. That's a sacred job.

(Interview with author, June 16, 1996)

Phoenix also argued for the healing potential of sacred sex work, saying:

Sex workers are so important because there is a lot of sexual violence in our

society, and sex workers can address these issues in a way which can hopefully

be healing, instead of continuing and perpetuating the sexually violent cycle

of our society. It's a fact that there's a lot of sexual sickness in our society…. A

sacred sex worker might be able to help somebody so [that] they wouldn't

abuse a child, because they can deal with that person's deep psychic issues, the

deepest psyche. (Interview with author, August 2, 1997)

Many express that by enacting the role of the sacred whore and leading their

clients through a sexual, spiritual experience, they become a living embodiment of

the goddess. La Croix stated:

I consider what I do to be an art form as well as a spiritual practice… .The fact

is often times what we are paid for is very much a spiritual experience. It's very

healing, it's very therapeutic, it's culture, and it's entertainment….For that

one particular moment I become the goddess incarnate. I am there basically

to provide an intimacy and a tenderness. (La Croix 1997)

Owen similarly expressed, “I really feel like I'm a priestess of Aphrodite.

Aphrodite comes through me and I think that when people look at me and tell me

I'm gorgeous and beautiful, they see Aphrodite….To me, they're worshipping the

divine, the goddess, through me” (Interview with author, June 16, 1996).

Carol Queen argued that clients are often acting out these archetypes whether

they are aware of it or not. She said:

There is a way that the clients keep the archetype even when they don't know

it. They come not just for their own sexual entertainment, or to get their

rocks off, but for an encounter with femaleness that's different from the

encounter with femaleness that they have in their day-to-day life….I was

always really surprised at the ways that clients frequently come to prostitutes

to be open in a way they don't feel they can be elsewhere, and I think integrity

of sexuality is spiritual, whether somebody calls it that or not. I think it's a

variety of spiritual search that some of these men are on, and they don't know

who else in this culture to turn to for what they want. What they want is a

vision of an all-embracing sexual feminine who says,. “Come on in. Yep,

whatever. We can talk about that.” Who doesn't reject them, isn't hard to

talk to, and is maternal in the way that maternal is coded as unconditional

loving and acceptance. Not just, “I wanna play mommy games,” but “I want

10 Anthropology of Consciousness [9(4)]

a female figure who embraces me that way” That's not how “wife” is coded

in this culture. That's not what the job description is any more. So there has

to be a whole other place where men who want that level of acceptance turn

to, and I don't just think it's about their dicks. (Interview with author,

October 22, 1997)

Cosi Fabian expressed a comparable experience, saying:

From the beginning, I was stunned by the tenderness, neediness, and

worshipful nature of my male clients. I was amazed that many of them would

pay $200 to eat pussy for an hour….It seems to be that anonymous sex

provides the average man something they don't get in their personal life, or

do not allow themselves, and what that is I think is surrender. I know if I were

a man it would be great to have just one hour in my life where I didn't have

to be in charge. Which doesn't mean that I'm a dominant at all. But the

sexual pleasure is my responsibility, and the happiness of the couple is my

responsibility… .You get this great sense of their soft vulnerable, “feminine”

side coming through, and that was my experience from the beginning. My

work has given me is an enormous compassion for men which I did not have

when I came into it… .But in dealing with men I realized—is there anything

more vulnerable than a naked man with a hard-on presenting himself to a

stranger? (Interview with author, November 18, 1997)

Fabian also said of her encounters with clients:

I realized after a couple years that one aspect of being a sacred prostitute is that

if I am going to claim sacred lineage for my work, I have to grant sacred lineage

to the clients. If men came to the temple to worship through sex as a sacred

act, and I was drawing on that memory, I had to grant that memory. If I

represent the wondrous vulva, they represent the sacred phallus. For a while

I was very conscious of that. Each phallus was just that, a sacred phallus.

(Interview with author, November 18, 1997)

Owen discussed a similar concept of providing a non-judgmental space in which

clients are able to work through their sexual issues, and relates this to feminist debates

around objectification.

I never understood the whole thing about objectifying women. That was the

big issue. If you have a picture of a naked woman and you masturbate to it

then that woman has become an object. Well, there's actually something

exciting about being a sexual object to an extent. This is what I finally figured

out—I always wanted to be objectified on some level. Not by everybody, not

by my partner, not by my lover. But I have no problem with being a sexual

object, because all you really are is a screen for someone's projections, for their

desires. A lot of times, these people look at me and say, “oh, you're so

beautiful, your body is so perfect, you're gorgeous,” all this stuff. And I think

okay, two years ago no one called me gorgeous. I was not beautiful. I would

never have thought of myself as beautiful Where is all this coming from? This

is just about me being available to carry the projections. That's all it is. And

I don't mind doing that. I enjoy doing that. (Interview with author, June 16

1996)

December 1998 The Whore and the Holy One 11

This experience of carrying archetypal projections and embodying the living

goddess is a profound spiritual journey for these women, leading to positive

transformations of consciousness not only for the clients, but also for themselves.

Owen found the experience of being with her clients to be empowering and

enriching, stating, “this is the thing that I realized not too long ago, which is that to

the core of my being I am a whore. I love it, I eat it up, it keeps me going, it's my juice”

(Interview with author, June 16, 1996).

Carolyn Elderberry wrote of seeking personal, spiritual transformation through

her work, “I wanted ongoing client relationships so I would be able to grow while also

helping my clients. Profound encounters should change us. I was not seeking

shallow or superficial experience in my work If that was what I wanted it was

available in the sexual play world” (Elderberry 1994:154)-

Carol Queen also spoke of the positive and transformative experiences which

sacred sex work has meant for her.

The personal bottom line in my life—in my real day to day dealings with the

sexual desires and wants of clients—is that this archetype has let me feel as

though I was connected to the goddess, dispensing healing and comfort

which I believe everyone deserves, and it's helped me occupy my body and

my position vis a vis sex work in a more powerful and positive way. (Interview

with author, October 22, 1996)

Beyond these individual experiences of shifting consciousness for both client

and sex worker, many sacred whores believe that their work contains possibilities for

positive transformation of the dominant culture. Owen conjectured:

If [sacred prostitution] was considered a legitimate profession how would that

change the world? How would that change the relationship between the

sexes? And I have no idea what the answer to that question is. What I do

know is that I'm utterly fascinated by the possibilities and I know it's changed

my life. So it makes me want to go and show this to other people and say,

“Look, this is what's going on! It's not what you think! There's something

happening here!” (Interview with author, May 28, 1997)

Carol Queen offered a lengthy answer to this question of how sacred prostitution

could transform our culture.

I think it would entail mainly three things. One piece is that we would have

to be more willing as a culture to let people speak up and talk about their

experience, and learn from that. We would have to be much less dependent

on what the shrink says, or what the academic says….Listen to the sex

workers. Start to look at what sorts of diverse experiences they have, and ask

yourself what that means….

Another piece is that the culture would have to understand sexuality from a

more sex positive perspective. It would have to give off this notion that

there's one normal way to have sex, or maybe two, and the way in which

people are rigidly stuck in gender role expectations… .Sex positivity is also

about casual sex, that sex outside of a relationship can be honored. As a

matter of fact, casual sex can be one place where people take really archetypal

desires, or parts of themselves that are deep and meaningful and that they

12 Anthropobgy of Consciousness [9(4)]

don't feel safe telling a partner about….The sex positive perspective, if

arched over this whole question, would change our experiences deeply

within prostitution. For every prostitute to open the door to a client, or to

lean into the window of a client's car.. .knowing in her or his heart that this

is an honorable, good, positive service period would be so different from what

we're are having to struggle with now, both internally and externally.

The third piece would be the understanding of eroticism and sexuality as

connected to spiritual reality, spiritual strength, and spiritual exploration…. It's

not just about getting your rocks off, it's about going into the heart of sexuality

as a journey, to try to experience something that's bigger than yourself,

something that's transcendent. Sex can be that for people. (Interview with

author, October 22, 1997)

Phoenix also expressed her views about the healing potential of sex work for the

culture:

Sexual violence, I feel, is like a chain reaction, it comes down and winds up

creating environmental violence as well, how we treat our planet. Because

our planet, in my opinion, is a metaphor to our bodies, and that also has to

do with sexuality and the sacred whore. It's like the mother goddess—these

feminine archetypes of the goddess are synonymous and parallel to the

planet's body. Our bodies are on a continuum with the planet's body. So if

we are violent to our bodies, if we sexually abuse our children instead of

educating them about sexuality, if we don't explore everything we need to

explore as consenting adults, if we repress and oppress ourselves, it will impact

the whole planet. There's a lot of healing that needs to be done, and that's

why sex workers could have a very positive role in our society. (Interview

with author, August 2, 1997)

Conclusion

The contemporary sacred whore movement is a merging of the women's

spirituality and sex workers' rights movements, both of which have grown out of the

larger feminist movements in the U.S. and elsewhere. The cultural awareness of a

sacred potential within sex work has reached the point where these communities are

now beginning to give back theoretically to one another. The two groups inform and

sustain each other, and many individuals have roots firmly planted in both

communities. Sacred whores believe that their work has the power to transform

consciousness for themselves, as a personal spiritual path, for their clients, as a means

by which they can explore forbidden aspects of their own sexuality, and for the

culture, by providing alternative models of sexual expression. Contemporary sacred

whores draw upon the legends of temple harlots in the ancient world for inspiration

and spiritual nourishment, and some are attempting to recreate those traditions. It

is the belief of these women that whether or not temple prostitution was a factual

historical event, the myth and its attendant sacred whore archetype contains

powerful possibilities for shifting cultural consciousness.

December 1998 The Whore and the Holy One 13

Notes

1 Although there are a number of men active in the sacred whore movement, I found it necessary

to limit the present project to women in order to narrow the topic to manageable size.

2 A prominent sex workers rights organization, first founded in San Francisco in 1973 by Margo St.

James. COYOTE stands for “Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics.”

References

permalink

The Integral Pod > Chapel Perspicacious

The Whore and the Holy One

Re: The Whore and the Holy One

Re: The Whore and the Holy One

Gaia Community

Explore

Inspire

Subscribe