{"id":1302,"date":"2010-02-05T06:15:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T06:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1302"},"modified":"2010-02-05T06:15:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T06:15:00","slug":"what-a-difference-the-suffix-ess-makes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1302","title":{"rendered":"What a Difference the Suffix ‘-ess’ Makes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following a link from another religion blog, I dropped into today on Beauty Tips for Ministers <\/a>(subtitled “Because you’re in the public eye, and God knows you need to look good.”)<\/p>\n

I read this<\/a>:<\/p>\n

SO many of you have written to let me know that TLC will be airing an episode of \u201cWhat Not To Wear\u201d this Friday during which they make over a young, beautiful Episcopal priest<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I was thinking, “Well, this is going in a homoerotic direction” when the truth hit me.<\/p>\n

But I suppose if you want to be chased out of an Episcopal church by a bishop swinging his crozier<\/a>, start talking about the “young, beautiful priestess.”<\/p>\n

What difference that “-ess” makes. You know why, don’t you?<\/p>\n

Sex.<\/p>\n

It does not matter if you are speaking of the Vestal Virgins<\/a> of ancient Rome or someone more contemporary. To the monotheistic mind, the word “priestess” seems to conjure up “fertility rites,” flowing hair, and orgiastic drumming. Ishtar<\/a>! Jezebel<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Traditional Episcopalians and other Christians opposed to the ordination of women<\/a> have used “priestess” as a slur<\/a> before–and maybe they still do.<\/p>\n

No, having women in sacramental, priestly roles is pretty scary, and so the only thing to do is to pretend that they are men under those robes. <\/p>\n

Never before has a chasuble <\/a>looked so much like a burqa.<\/p>\n

(And one Episcopal priestess-in-training fears that vestments designed for men make her butt look too big<\/a>–but that is a separate issue.)<\/p>\n

The issue is that religion can be very sexy. Religio-magical power can be felt as erotic power, which why clergy often get into scandalous situations.

<\/a>
Female beauty <\/a>plus sacramental (i.e., magical) power? There is nothing in the Book of Common Prayer<\/a> about handling that!<\/p>\n

So must they just pretend it’s not there?<\/p>\n

And what do we Pagans do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following a link from another religion blog, I dropped into today on Beauty Tips for Ministers (subtitled “Because you’re in the public eye, and God knows you need to look good.”) I read this: SO many of you have written to let me know that TLC will be airing an episode of \u201cWhat Not To […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[10,24,5,42],"class_list":["post-1302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-american-religion","tag-christianity","tag-paganism","tag-sexuality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-l0","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":304,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=304","url_meta":{"origin":1302,"position":0},"title":"One Druid Down","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Fr. William Melnyk, the Episcopal priest in Pennsylvania who was also an active Druid, has resigned.. His wife, Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk, also a Druid and Episcopal priest (no \"-ess\" allowed), faces disciplinary action.My last post on this issue is here. Notice that the man must suffer more; women lead us into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":293,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=293","url_meta":{"origin":1302,"position":1},"title":"Pagan\/Christian clergy Christianity Today's blog\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Pagan\/Christian clergy Christianity Today's blog continues to be vexed by Pagan ritual in the Episcopal Church. With Matt Drudge-like glee, the blog notes that the two married Episcopal clergy involved are also contemporary Pagan Druids. (Let's capitalize Pagan, please, Mr. Olsen.) Their Druid group is here. I have seen people\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":291,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=291","url_meta":{"origin":1302,"position":2},"title":"Idol-worshiping Episcopalians Christianity Today reacts\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 26, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Idol-worshiping Episcopalians Christianity Today reacts to Pagan aspects of an Episcopal Church experiment with women's liturgy. Other conservative Christian bloggers chime in: check out the \"comments\" section of this blog. The ordination of women led to \"sexual narcissism,\" you see. It's been a long time--like 40 or 50 years--since the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":411,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=411","url_meta":{"origin":1302,"position":3},"title":"Episcopalians and Druids, cont.The saga\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 16, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Episcopalians and Druids, cont.The saga of the two married Episcopal clergy who were denounced by their denomination's conservative wing for participation in Druidry has a new twist. After resigning his pastoral post last November, the husband, William Melnyk, has decided that Druidry is more welcoming. (Registration may be required to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10778,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10778","url_meta":{"origin":1302,"position":4},"title":"Pagan Children & the Anglican Death Spiral","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 12, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Photo: The Very Reverend Jane Hedges rides the 55-foot high \"helter-skelter\" inside Norwich Cathedral in England.((While her official biography says she was ordained a \"deaconess\" in 1980, she was elevated to \"priest\" in 1994. You can't say \"priestess\" in the Anglican church \u2014 evidently the word makes them think of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/helter-skelter.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/helter-skelter.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/helter-skelter.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":297,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=297","url_meta":{"origin":1302,"position":5},"title":"More on the 'Episcopagans' The\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 30, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"More on the 'Episcopagans' The Druid-Episcopal Church controversy has now moved from the blogosphere to the serious religion journalists at GetReligion, who summarize the whole scandal here. I do see some bloggers gleefully tossing out the term \"Episcopagan\" as though they cleverly just invented it. Within the Pagan community, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}