 I have always found that the origin of a word reveals so much about a culture or the times of which it once lived. The words prostitute and whore in our culture today, as mentioned in Part I, are derogatory and have no relation to their origin. The adjective “sacred” is often used to describe something worthy of religious veneration, something declared or made holy. Prophetic texts are called sacred, as are a variety of rituals and icons. The word prostitute has its origin in the Latin word prostituere which means to stand in for another. This is one of the definitions and for my purposes here it states that a prostitute is someone who stands in for another, such as a wife or girlfriend, someone who uses the act of lovemaking to gain a deeper connection with the Divine, God/Goddess, and to attain enlightenment. The sacred prostitute stood in on behalf of the Goddess. She was there to allow her body to be used as a sacred vessel of divine sexual energy and love in order to reconnect her partner with the Divine Feminine within himself.  Queen Ishtar, also known as the Goddess Har, was the mother of the Harlots. These Harlots were not prostitutes as we know them today, but priestesses, sorceresses, prophets, and healers. The Hebrew word Zonah means both prostitute and prophet. The Hora, a dance done at Jewish weddings is said to have its origins in the circle dances that the holy harlots did as brides of God. In Egypt before clocks were actually invented, it is said that the holy whores or the horae would come out and dance the hours of the day. Sacred Whores were sometimes known as the “Holy Virgins” of Goddesses such as Ishtar, Asherah, or Aphrodite. The famous Vestal Virgins art thought to have practiced secret sex-magic rites in honor of the Vesta the Roman Goddess of hearth and home. The word virgin did not mean that the hymen was intact but rather that the woman was an unmarried woman who claimed ownership of herself. Again, you can see how the meaning of words are changed depending upon the culture in which they are being used. “In Barbara Walker’s Dictionary of Woman’s Myths and Secrets, the Hebrew word hor means a cave, pit, or dark hole. The Spanish word for whore is puta, derived from the Latin term for a well and pit. But the Latin term, for grave (a hole in the Earth) was puticuli, meaning womb of rebirth…" "The Latin had its root in the Vedic wherein Puta is defined as pure and holy. The cave, the hole the bottomless black lake were metaphors synonymous with the Great Goddess—She who is unnamable, that darkness primordial from which all life (light) is born.” ~ Musings on the Sacred Whore by Diana Rose Heartwoman Over time the meanings of these words changed to reflect the culture that they were being used in and to reflect its views of women. Once the Goddess cultures were overtaken by the hordes of nomadic tribes of the Middle East that worshipped a warring God and the doctrine of the Christian Patriarchs was established as law, the world that once was, was turned upside down and on its head.
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“We cannot become the means for the resanctification of society unless we are willing to become the priestesses once more who serve the divine not in theory and empty practice, but from our very nature.” Deena Metzger  Over time, tribal life turned into larger communities where the Temple was the center of life. All religious ceremonies, yearly celebrations and dedications to the Goddess as well as life transitions such as births and death were presided over by the priestesses of the Temple.
In many cultures young girls came to the temple for education and many stayed to serve as a priestess. Often the youngest female of a family was given to the Temple to serve as a priestess as was the custom. These young women were trained in many of the healing arts as well as developing many of their spiritual gifts. They were taught to read and write and given a comprehensive education. Once they reached puberty and were initiated into their womanhood they were often able to decide on a specialty to focus on such as; herbology and being a healer, working with younger initiates and being a teacher, dancing or playing music or being an artist, working with the sciences, becoming an oracle or becoming a sexual healer to name a few. A priestess who wanted to specialize in sexual healing began their training in the Tantric arts of love and in being able to attain very high states of consciousness to literally let go of her own identity and allow herself to be used by the energy of the Great Goddess. They also used their healing arts and spiritual gifts as needed. Some of the temples had names for these sexual healers such as The Priestess of the Flame and Keepers of the Flame. When a Holy Whore or Sacred Temple Prostitute made love with a man, the heart and genitals were brought into alignment, especially if a warrior was returning from war and needed a place where he could reconnect again with his feminine nature. Actual sexual intercourse was not always what was called for. A Sacred Prostitute stood in for the Goddess in bringing a man back to wholeness and this could be done in a variety of ways. It has been said that a man would go to the Temple and receive sacred sexual communion or a healing with a Sacred Prostitute and then when he was ready, he would return to his family restored and balanced within himself. The act of lovemaking was literally an act of the divine, it was considered sacred and thus the body of a woman was considered sacred.  It has always been of interest to me to understand the Herstory of the women who were called Sacred Prostitutes. Who were these women, where did they come from and what happened to the cultures that they were revered and honored in? That is why I have decided to write a series of three articles on the Sacred Prostitute and the Holy Whore so that we might discover what happened to cause their story to go untold and their gifts to us forgotten. The time for us a women to reclaim these forgotten aspects of ourselves is now and I invite you to do so if you choose. When God Was a Woman Imagine a time when God was a woman 15,000 – 5,000 BCE, and women were considered holy and their bodies sacred. These cultures were connected to the Earth and called her the Great Goddess and were primarily peace loving and depended upon the land to survive. Most of these cultures during this time period were matrilineal that means that the mother passed on her wealth to the daughter. Women’s roles often combined motherhood, gathering food, seeds, nuts and berries, herbs for healing and were the ones who sustained the community and provided its’ foundation and center. They are often thought of as partnership societies because men and women’s roles had equal importance and neither sex overpowered the other. Women were seen as the mediators between the Goddess and the tribe. A woman could access the power of the Goddess and it was thought that she could identify more easily with Her. Women were considered a mystery and most like Her because they could give birth to new life and bleed without dying. They seemed to have magical abilities and their womb, and their bodies were considered sacred. They were considered nearer the Divine and the act of sexual intercourse with a woman was the closest thing a man could do to be with the Divine. Inanna's Daughters The first women sexual healers were called Inanna’s Daughters of Heaven. They were also called nu gig, the pure and spotless and qadishtu, holy women. They were the handmaidens of Inanna and they followed Lilith who was thought of as the original archetype of woman.
"Lilith is considered an original archetype as the “natural woman” who solidified tribal cohesion and unity through sexual bonding and appeasement." – Lilith Keepers of the Flame They understood the healing power of their sexual energy and the right use of sex. They would gather the male members of the tribal community and conduct sacred rituals that would teach them how to use their sexual energy correctly. They did this by offering a connection to the divine through their bodies and sexual intercourse. Sexuality with a woman evoked within a man the sacred and opened his heart to divine love. It was thought that a man needed a woman in order to give birth to the potential Goddess/Divine Feminine within himself. This was called apotheosis and because of this all women had a high status within their tribe/community. These women were also called the Keepers of the Flame for the understood that within the womb of woman the original blueprint of humanity. They knew that within them lived the sacred flame of the divine self and they kept this knowledge sacred. They were also the fire keepers of their tribes and so kept alive the sacred magic of light and the warmth of the heart and to this day we still use the symbol of the Red Light in the Catholic Church, in airplanes and in the Red Light districts.  I recently revisited the growing fad of what is commonly called, labiaplasty as I did an article on some years ago. I wanted to see where things are today and because I also teach about sexuality to women and girls. Since 2016 there has been a 39% increase in labiaplasty surgeries. which can roughly be estimated at more than 12,000 women. This fact still astonishes me and saddens me at the same time. Recent research done by Refinery 29 who took a poll of 3,670 women stated that 48% of them were concerned about the way their vulvas looked. “A third (32%) of women told us they had been made to feel that theirs were not "normal", and when we gave them the chance to expand on this, their accounts made for a disheartening read. Porn was cited time and again, with 72% of women who compare their vagina or vulva to others' referring to it. One woman described her labia as "larger" than she has seen depicted by the industry, another said hers "doesn’t look like what [she sees] in porn," while another summed up the problem perfectly: porn, she said, depicts "vaginas that all look basically the same". (Refinery 29) As a writer and teacher about women's sexuality, and founder of a new program for teen girls, Sasse Girls, (Sexually Aware, Smart and Savvy Girls), I have to do my research and keep up with the times. With more and more young girls and boys being exposed to porn and learning about sex and body image from this medium, the damage to girls self-esteem and the demands of physical perfection that are projected on to them is on the rise. The lack of adequate sex education in most states including many schools in California is appalling, and kids are turning to what is available to them to learn from about sex. The fact that the porn industry has taken over this job by default is a fact and is something that could be changed. There are much better ways to learn about sexual intimacy and all that it encompasses. "Porn also feeds body-image woes indirectly via partners' viewing habits. Time and again, research has flagged its pernicious effect on heterosexual male viewers – links have been drawn between viewing porn and issues ranging from erectile dysfunction and unprotected sex to potentially even the shrinking of the male brain – and judging from our survey, women’s self-perception is a major piece of collateral damage. Men's views of the female body appear to have been severely skewed by porn, with many respondents telling us they’d been made to feel their vulva or vagina was "abnormal" by an ex-partner." ~ Refinery 29. What Can You Do?
 "What makes a woman her most alluring? Is it her brains, beauty, wit, charm or sex appeal? What are the elements that create feminine sexual empowerment?" Some might say that for a woman to be sexually empowered she must be experienced. Others might say she must know how to be charming and have great sexual charisma, but true female sexual empowerment includes all of this and more. The truth is that what makes a woman truly powerful and what makes her sexually empowered are not as different as you may think. One of the primary keys to being a powerful woman is learning how to use her natural goddess given gifts and talents. Those things that make you the funniest, smartest or wittiest, and to learn how to cultivate these talents and attributes whether they be beauty, wit, brains, sex appeal or all of the above. Betsey Prileau author of the book, Seductress, Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love, tells us that the archetype of the seductress has been given a bad rap. "She has been villainized as the terrible goddess {who} rules over desire and seduction, a bloodthirsty ball breaker like Salome and Circe, and the antithesis of virtuous femininity." Throughout history, there have been women who have indeed taken their God/dess talents and ravished the world in which they lived. Without these sex goddesses, we would not have known what true female sexual empowerment looked like, felt like or acted like. What made these women different from the rest of the women of their time? Many lived during eras where women had no choices of any kind, no education or way to earn a living other than what was dictated to her by the male politics of the time. Why were these women unafraid to step out of the mold and dare to be true to themselves? By understanding this we can learn how we can do the same today. Dressing sexy or having a lot of sexual experience doesn't give you true sexual empowerment although it may give you self-confidence. It is what our current western culture would like us to believe but it falls short in describing and demonstrating what authentic feminine sexual empowerment is. I say sexual, because, women are sexual by design. We can't help but be sexual or be seen in relation to sex because of our biology. All women have a womb, breasts and have for thousands of years during the reign of the Great Goddess, been seen as the Creatress of all life. In the ancient religions of the Goddess men and women have envisioned goddesses of sexuality and worshipped them. The everpresent symbol of that being the yoni or triangle. Women today need a new roadmap to learn how to become more. This new roadmap can be found through the study of seductresses both old and new as well as in specifically designed programs such as the ones on this site. Women today have the advantage that many of these women did not have. Today we have permission to explore our sexuality, to dress with a flare that expresses our own sense of style, we are independent, self-supporting and have more sexual experience than our predecessors were ever allowed. Learning how to embody and integrate a few more of the essential arts of seduction is not such a far stretch if it will round out what you already know and assist you in stepping more fully into our authentic feminine sexual power.  "The Sirens of old knew that to be a woman who understood the art of seduction you had to first be true to your own self. They were brave, courageous and weren't afraid to break the rules." ~ Women Who Ravished the World and Their Lost Art of Love"
10 ThingsYou Can Do To Embrace the Art of Seduction
 Which aspect of the Goddess of Love and Sexuality do you most identify with?
Is it Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty, and sensuality? Or perhaps Shakti, the Primal Goddess of creation, the life force? Or do you see yourself more as a Sacred Courtesan or a Sexual Healer? The Goddess of love and sexuality has many names and aspects. She represents a side of the Divine Feminine that depicts women’s sensual and sexual nature as well as their abilities to heal and transmute sexual energy. These goddess archetypes have often been seen from a very narrow point of view based on the time that they were created in. The mythology of any culture always reflects the values of that culture and so do the pantheon of gods and goddesses that are created. What was once said about Aphrodite in Greek society is not necessarily what she represents for modern women today. Archetypes must change and reflect the current the age that they live in. An archetype is a universally understood symbol, term, statement, or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated. Four Archetypes of the Goddesses of Love and Sexuality I have delineated three basic archetypes of the Goddesses of Love and Sexuality: the Goddess of Beauty and Sensuality, the Primal Goddess, and the Sacred Courtesan or Sexual Healer. Of course, each of these archetypes has many different names, some of which are, for the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, Venus, Innana and Oshun; Lilith, Shakti, Pele and Brigit for the Primal Goddess; Ishtar and Astarte for the Sacred Prostitute/Courtesan and Sexual Healers. Embracing the Goddess of Love and Sexuality in You In our modern world how women are seen is still greatly influenced by these images of the feminine. Although most women do not know this, they too have allowed themselves to be seen and to see themselves through the lens of one or more of these archetypes. We fear, hide, are ashamed, or exploit our sexual power. Very few women fully use and embody their authentic feminine power, standing in their feminine strength, love, beauty, intelligence, grace, and sexuality. When we do, we take the apology out of being a woman. What I have come to realize is that women need to embrace all of these aspects of themselves if they truly wish to feel whole, integrated and stand in their full authentic feminine power. This includes learning how to use their sexual power not to survive but to thrive. To change the current paradigm which is thousands of years old and by which we still live. Understanding how to be and use this magnificent power is key if we wish to create a world where women are safe to be women and where we can live in partnership with men How You Can Do This? The first thing is to begin to understand who these images of the feminine are to you personally is to take the time to find out who you most identify with. Ask yourself these questions:
Through getting to know the various archetypes of the goddess which represent feminine sexuality and love you can begin to learn more about yourself and our sexual expression. We can also begin to embody more of the qualities we wish to express. Through getting to know those aspects you wish to embrace, you will have a better understanding of your own nature. By practicing ritual, creating an altar and invoking the energy of that aspect to be with you, you will begin to own more of the wholeness of your feminine nature, as a sexually powerful woman. We can also begin to explore what new archetypes of the goddess of love and sexuality we wish to create for a new world that is no longer afraid of the feminine, but rather honors, reveres and celebrates her power. If you are ready to explore more of these aspectsn yurself please join us in the What's Your Sexy playshop on April 27th. “To be authentic, we must cultivate the courage to be imperfect -- and vulnerable. We have to believe that we are fundamentally worthy of love and acceptance, just as we are. I’ve learned that there is no better way to invite more grace, gratitude and joy into our lives than by mindfully practicing authenticity.”— Brené Brown  Authentic is defined in the dictionary as:“not false or copied; genuine; real.” “representing one’s true nature or beliefs; true to oneself or to the person identified.” Being authentic is not always easy because we often feel confused by all the mixed messages that are projected onto us by our families, friends, our profession, school, and popular culture. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish what we want from what we are told we should want, or how we should dress, look, especially for women in this culture, where we are constantly bombarded by the media from a very early age . We are told that if we only buy this product or dress a certain way, we will be more popular or sexier or happier …We are never told that it is ok to just be ourselves. The message is that being yourself is not enough and you and I know that the bottom line is that dissatisfaction sells hopes and dreams and creates desire to be different from who you are. The primary goal of all of these messages is to make money by the companies that are trying to convince you and me that we need to be something other than our authentic self. So then how do you begin to know how to become an authentic person? Becoming authentic is an inside job that everyone must do to learn for themselves who they are and what they stand for. What You Can Do to Cultivate Authenticity
I choose to live my values and to be as authentic as I can at home, at work, at play and with all of my communications as much possible and you can too. Remember this is a continuous learning process and we are never really done. We are here to grow into more aware, awake and conscious versions of ourselves and one of the first steps of this journey is to learn how to be more authentic.  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. 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. 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.  Have you ever wondered what it might feel like to live in a world where women are honored and respected? A world where girls can run freely to play and express themselves and where sex is something that is natural and considered sacred regardless of how you choose to express it. Where womena and girls feel safe in their bodies and empowered.
I have, many times, since my mission you might say is to help establish such a world or at least help to bring it forth. I have wondered what would it take to create this type of world and how we might go about it? Establishing a new paradigm is no easy task and it cannot be done by just wishing and hoping. What it takes is a definite concrete plan of some sort which includes new ideas and new ways of thinking and being. So before I speak about what you can do to help us create this new paradigm, I want to review where we are now in the culture that we are living in. For as we establish a new paradigm for women, men will change too. I want us to take a look at what women, you and I perhaps, have been told and accepted as the norm over the decades even when we knew it did not feel right.
Maybe you have felt some of these things or acted in some of these ways and not realized how dysfunctional it was and how easily you may have fallen into this type of behavior or had these sorts of feelings. Even if you see yourself as a fairly liberated woman, independent and self-sufficient you can not escape the climate and tenor of the environment of misogyny and sexual objectification. The only way to escape this is to create a new way of living, thinking and feeling about women and women's sexual power. If you, as I do, want to live in that world I briefly described above, then together we must take a stand for the things we do want and begin to take the action necessary to create that world.  For centuries women have been classified into categories of being either good or bad. Good being virginal, (her hymen intact), a woman that does not sleep around or who is not promiscuous; bad meaning, just the opposite, a “whore”, slut, seductress/seducer, a woman who enjoys sex with many men who steals other women’s men or who just enjoys sex. Although today in Western society, women have more freedom than ever before, these old attitudes still remain. In many other countries throughout the world a woman’s virginity is still considered a prize possession kept only for her husband and if a woman is found to not be virginal when she is of a marriageable age she is ostracized and considered ruined and unclean. These attitudes have been accepted by the collective field of humanity, and therefore passed down from generation to generation. Women, in particular, have taken these attitudes to heart as they have been passed down from great-grandmother to grandmother, to mother and daughter. They alive become entrenched within the collective psyche of all women and within the cellular memory of our bodies. These ideas have become so prevalent and accepted as the norm that one of the worst things you can call another girl or woman is a “whore”, this word being an all-inclusive “bad” girl who sleeps around. As a result of this women have felt split between the two. Am I a good girl or bad girl, Madonna or whore these being the only two choices we have had. Although today, we have to some degree shifted some of these old ways of thinking about women’s sexuality, you can still see the effects of these entrenched beliefs played out in our media and on advertising, music, and videos. Especially hurt are young girls who are still being told that their primary value is to be beautiful and sexy at any age.  "The separation into priestess and prostitute, or sacred and profane polarities, occurred for western civilization when the early fathers of Christianity claimed power by abolishing goddess worship and other nature-based pagan religions. In actuality, the bipartite woman, both whore, and Madonna, was a construct of the early Papal Councils around 600 AD.”
This separation was designed to diminish the power of the Goddess and her representatives, the priestesses of Her temples. Priestesses were eventually regulated to perform only certain tasks by the priests who were now given full range of power. The Origin of the Word WhoreThe term "sacred whore" is not an oxymoron. If we explore the etymology of the words "whore" or "harlot," we find that the split between "priestess" and "prostitute" is a relatively recent one. In her book When God Was A Woman, Merlin Stone informs us that the Hebrew word zonah means both prostitute and prophetess. Barbara Walker, in her Dictionary of Woman's Myths and Secrets, points out that the Hebrew word hor means a cave, pit, or dark hole. The Spanish word for whore, puta, derives from the Latin term for a well, but the Latin term for grave, literally "a hole in the earth," is puticuli, meaning womb of rebirth. These terms for whore were not derogatory. The Latin term had its roots in the Vedic, an early Sanskrit language, wherein the word puta is defined as pure and holy. The cave, the pit, the hole, and the bottomless black lake were metaphors for the Great Goddess, She who is unnameable, that darkness primordial from which all life (light) is born. She is the Everything and The Nothing -- Hole-y, Holy, Wholly. The Sacred Whore at work was, in fact, the manifestation the Great Goddess. Today these ideas are not completely lost. The Hebrew folk dance named the hora, a tradition at Jewish weddings is named after the circle dances of the sacred harlots. Such holy harlots were often "brides of God" similar to modern nuns, the "brides of Christ." The holy harlots were set apart to give birth to Sons of God. In other words, these women had the job of changing human-animal into human-god. It is time for women everywhere to reclaim their Herstory and to take back the original meaning of this word. The change must come from women first in order to effect a change in how the word is used. Just like the word cunt was reclaimed, women have the power, you have the power to reclaim the holy sacredness of your sexuality and your sexual power. By taking back the word Whore, and restoring it to its original meaning not only will you and I benefit but so will your daughters and all women everywhere. |
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