Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality

the Hindu and Buddhist communities, so do the main

body of Jews ostracize the Kabbalists. Now they are

considered to be freaks —they have been viewed as

heretics. And heretics they are, for in recognizing the

Androgyny: The Mythological Model

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androgynous nature o f the godhead they undermine

the authority o f God the Father and threaten the power

o f patriarchy.

It remains only to point out that Christ also had

some notion o f androgyny. In Gospel to the Egyptians,

Christ and a disciple named Salome have this conversation:

When Salome asked how long Death should prevail,

the Lord said: So long as ye women bear children; for

I have come to destroy the work o f the Female. And

Salome said to Him: Did I therefore well in having

no children? T h e Lord answered and said: Eat every

Herb, but eat not that which hath bitterness. When

Salome asked when these things about which she questioned would be made known, the Lord said: When ye trample upon the garment o f shame; when the Tw o

become One, and Male with Female neither male nor

fem ale. 11

In the next chapter I am going to pursue the implications o f androgyny myths in the areas o f sexual identity and sexual behavior, and it would be in keeping

with the spirit o f this book to take Christ as my guide

and say with him: “When ye trample upon the garment

o f shame; when the Tw o become One, and Male with

Female neither male nor female. ”

C H A P T E R 9

Androgyny: Androgyny, Fucking,

and Community

Nothing short o f everything will really do.

Aldous Huxley, Island

The discovery is, of course, that “man” and “woman”

are fictions, caricatures, cultural constructs. As models

they are reductive, totalitarian, inappropriate to human

becoming. As roles they are static, demeaning to the

female, dead-ended for male and female both. Culture

as we know it legislates those fictive roles as normalcy.

Deviations from sanctioned, sacred behavior are “gender disorders, ” “criminality, ” as well as “sick, ” “disgusting, ” and “immoral. ” Heterosexuality, which is properly defined as the ritualized behavior built on

polar role definition, and the social institutions related

to it (marriage, the family, the Church, ad infinitum)

are “human nature. ” Homosexuality, transsexuality,

incest, and bestiality persist as the “perversions” of this

“human nature” we presume to know so much about.

They persist despite the overwhelming forces marshaled against them —discriminatory laws and social