Taking the Apology Out of Being a Woman

      Women have been apologizing for thousands of years for having a vagina, or vulva, for being sexual, for being powerful, clever, smart, creative, for being a woman with a body that is sexual by nature. It is this apology that is actually part of our collective consciousness and in every woman and man whether they are aware of it or not.
     Today in our society it may look like women have made huge strides in the world of men. This is true in so far as a few legal wins, being able to vote, and sexual freedoms. But, the culture in which we all live in, the collective field, still holds the belief that it was a woman that caused the downfall of man.
        Lilith has never been forgiven for holding her own and refusing to lay beneath Adam and Eve has never been forgiven for the sin of being a woman who took a bite out of the apple off of the Tree of Knowledge.  The message is loud and clear in advertising, movies, music and in many of the sacred religious texts all over the world. Women are too powerful and must pay and pay dearly for that one mistake. 
     The sexualization of women and the repression and control of our sexual power was the answer, and is big business. The kidnapping of thousands of young girls into sexual slavery as well as the sex industry whose predominant workers are women has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Kathleen Barry calls this the 'prostitution of sexuality'. The fact that women themselves exploit their own bodies for money and are not aware that by doing so they are supporting the very system that they say they are free from is in itself proof of the depth of this belief and there seems to be no end in sight. 

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In the Beginning

  The story of Adam and Eve has been interpreted differently by many historians and theologians. It was an orignal Sumerain myth about the Great Goddeses that the Christian Patriarchs fundamentally changed so that the concept of the Great Mother, the Goddess, was seen as less than God or man. Woman was created to be less than man, from his rib, subservient to him
      All myths reflect the times in which they were created and it was at this juncture in time that man had most recently discovered his role in procreation. Patriarchy and the role of men became more elevated and the shift from a Mother Goddess and Creatrix of life to Father God and the Creator became predominant.
    The eventual discovery that a woman needed a man's sperm to fertilize her eggs gave the early Christian patriarchs just the tool they need to turn the Goddess on her head. The most prevalent belief of the day soon became that it was man who created life and woman who incubated it thus reducing woman's role from Creatrix to host.
     This belief over time was reflected in every myth, text, and religious scripture throughout most of the world. Women were in essence demoted from their role as "Earth Mother, the Great Goddess" to a subservient role to man.
        The goddess was now a woman who, because of her sexuality and her power over men was not to be trusted. The body, in general, became evil and dirty, but women's bodies were specifically evil and so was woman’s sexual power and so women were forever condemned to apologize for being a woman.

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Reclaiming Your Innocence

      Today we have a choice whether to continue to believe in this myth. By reclaiming your innocence as a sex, we can each begin to stop apologizing for having a female body and for being sexy and sexual. We can stop hiding our bodies behind layers of fat. We can stop internalizing the messages that music and the media are telling us. We can stop rejecting our bodies the way they are and see our bodies only as something to please men, to fulfill their fantasies of what they think is sexy. 
     We can instead begin to value whom we are rather than just for how we look, to begin to appreciate our totality as a human being. We can learn to see ourselves more holistically and to love our bodies whatever shape they are in. We can take pride in being born a woman with a natural sexual allure and a healthy sexual appetite.
    So, I invite you as a representative of womankind and of humankind to step forward and reclaim your sexual innocence, your body's innocence and all of womankind's innocence.



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