Appreciating and embracing our sexuality is a key part of flourishing. All life is, after all, sexually transmitted. Most of us were conceived with an orgasm, even if it was just your father’s. The main reason why sex sells everything from cars to shampoo is that we are naturally drawn to life-sustaining and pleasurable energy. Our cells recognize it just as instinctively as a bee recognizes honey. Sure, you can sublimate sexual energy into other areas of life besides actually having sex. But your body will respond to the erotic until the day you die. We are hardwired from birth for sexual pleasure. It is our birthright. Humans are the only primate whose sexual desire and functioning are not necessarily related to the reproductive cycle. Women’s ability to enjoy sexual pleasure is virtually limitless, which is why marriage and family therapist Pat Allen, Ph.D., refers to women as “orgasmatrons.”
This book should be on the night table of every woman, especially one with a daughter. It’s so insightful, intuitive, and wise about the woman’s body. The best part about the book is the connections she makes between our physical bodies and our spiritual energy and emotions. When I read it I feel a sense of . . . connection and peace with my body and an excitement about being a woman, especially the beautiful creative phases that comes with it.
I grew up Mormon so I have an historical interest in polygamy. I even have some limited personal experience with it. My father’s great-great’s were polygamous. Legend goes his great-great grandfather was polygamous when polygamy became outlawed in Utah in 1890. This caused a fracture in The Church, where many families continued to live by The Principle and the majority abided by the law. My dad’s great-great remained married to the youngest and prettiest wife and divorced the others, causing resentment from the rest of the wives, his great-great grandmother included. I could have this wrong. It’s only what I recall of family lore.
Added to that, one of the first boys I dated in Junior High in Orem, Utah came from a polygamist family. Two of the wives had divorced by the time I dated him, but he had 19 sibling-cousins. His father had married two sisters.
At times I watch Big Love or read books like this and think, “This might have been my potential future.”
Reading this book, what struck me was the common thread of men using religion and “the Word of God” to get what they want from women. The author, Irene Spencer, speaks in great detail of her personal feelings as a wife. So many of the justifications she used to convince herself to participate in things her own heart, soul, spiritual intuition and her own inner voice told her not to do, she did because her husband told her to and she believed he had to obey him to get into heaven and avoid hell.
The thing is, I’ve heard the exact justifications used by men to control women in every religion. This pattern of women ignoring their own innate spiritual guidance systems, their own promptings from the Holy Spirit, or whatever terminology different religions use, is a common thread in religion and the history of religion.
The other connection I made is her willingness to do anything for the promise of love. Not actual Love – just the promise of it. This is a common thread of women and girls in abusive situations. Love – it’s our Achilles heal. This desperate need for love must have been what the authors of Genesis referred to as “The Curse” when Eve was told she “would love her husband.” That’s why women will consent to abuse, tyranny and inequality in their relationships. In my opinion, the point of the story is to warn women NOT to do this – to overcome her curse – only then will she save herself. This same verse has tragically been used in countless congregations to convince women they should submit to their husbands.
Irene reminded me of Biblical figures like Sarah from Genesis. Following their husbands and prophet to the ends of the earth, often times to disastrous ends.
The fact that these stories end in disaster makes me question whether we’ve been reading The Book wrong. Many of these stories, in fact, appear to me as “what not to do” warnings. Still, we hear it preached from the pulpit as the example to follow.
I read Irene Spencer’s account of being enslaved by the dictates of male religious authorities, social orders of a legalistic religious nature, and blindly doing what her husband commands of her – ignoring what her own spiritual authority and divine connection is telling her – as an account of “what not to do.”
The real tragedy is that women don’t trust their own spiritual authority and divine connection more than they trust male authority figures.
Think of the profound, divine insight the planet has missed out on.
There are times during the month when women naturally feel a pull inward.
If we fight it – we end up feeling like crap.
If we don’t, maybe we feel lazy or guilty.
There are other times during the month when women naturally feel like they can run 10 miles, get everything in the world done, conquer new projects and kick-ass at everything.
I’m guessing most of like those times the best. I do.
I’m reading this book by Miranda Gray, The Optimized Woman.
It’s the only book I’ve read that describes these shifts in mood and abilities as a secret super-power that only women possess.
It describes the woman’s feminine monthly cycle in terms of Creativity, Reflective, Dynamic and Expressive Phases. It outlines the phases and shows women how to best use this cyclic nature as an invaluable resource to become their most productive.
I am so glad I found this book before my own daughter starts her period. I can only imagine how much more relaxed and enjoyable my own cyclic nature might have been had I found this book as a teen. Or if I had heard a different message than the one constantly promoted in “dirty vagina marketing” – otherwise known as the sale of tampons, douches, pads, Midol and other PMS medications, feminine sprays and wipes.
I highly recommend this perspective on our natural abilities, innate to us as women. It’s an interesting experiment in a shift of perception.
The story, every interpretation of the story told about the conversation about Jesus confronting the woman at the well . . .
5 husbands.
What a whore.
Except this implies women had rights to divorce.
Which, according to every other thing you say about women in this era, they didn’t. And in many middle-eastern countries they don’t now.
Reminds me of the time a woman stood up in a room full of people and said, “I’ve been married three times, so I want to give you advice about marriage.”
Everyone immediately stopped hearing her – divorced three times. Whore. Loser.
“Two died. Still married to the last. Happy during every one,” she said.
Everyone’s perception of her shifted immediately.
I once asked a preacher what the other alternatives and theories were about this woman who Jesus spoke to.
“There are none.”
That’s what he said.
“There are none.”
That just proves your utter lack of imagination about the power of women.
How bout this one . . .
She was a trusted mystic.
People died a lot in her day. Animals, the sun, wars, disease and little knowledge about medicine. . .
Maybe she was a highly sought after woman – highly desirable.
So when her husbands died – she remarried. Four times.
She was courting the last. Or independent enough not to want to get married again.
And people listened to her tell of the prophet who knew everything about her – not because it was a profound act of God for any group of humans to listen to a woman as I’ve heard in several sermons, for God’s sake – maybe it was because she had a reputation around town for being. . .
by Irene Spencer.
