{"id":2390,"date":"2011-02-23T21:48:46","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T04:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2390"},"modified":"2011-02-23T22:28:28","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T05:28:28","slug":"another-case-of-sacred-prostitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2390","title":{"rendered":"Another Case of ‘Sacred Prostitution’?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Phoenix, Arizona, the Phoenix Goddess Temple<\/a> is offering erotic massage, etc., in return for “offerings.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Women at the temple take names like Magdalena, Shakti, and Devima. There’s also a high priestess named Gypsy, and a tall, lithe blonde named Leila, who advertises her measurements (36-26-37) on her page at the temple website,<\/a> which includes photo galleries of each goddess.<\/p>\n

The goddesses practice techniques that include genital touching for a “religious offering” of money that generally ranges from $204 to $650. Their advertisements go in the adult sections of local newspapers, including New Times,<\/em> but Phoenix Goddess Temple founder Tracy Elise<\/a> says the temple is not a brothel \u2014 it’s a church, and the services offered are religious rituals to enrich people’s lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This gambit has been tried before in other states and not ended well. Our cultural-legal system has no place for “sacred prostitution,” even when presented under the banner of freedom of religion.<\/p>\n

British writer Robert Graves<\/a>, author of The White Goddess<\/em> <\/a>(one of the most influential books of the Pagan revival), included a similar sort of temple in his fantasy novel Watch the Northwind Rise<\/em>, also called Seven Days in New Crete<\/em><\/a> (1949).<\/p>\n

I do agree that sexual healing can and does take place. But the legal deck is stacked against offering it openly\u2014you might suspect that when even the “alternative” newspaper calls it “New Age prostitution.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

Classics scholar Stephanie Lynn Budin, author of The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity<\/em><\/a>, has weighed in elsewhere about the Phoenix Goddess Temple.<\/p>\n

What drives me really nuts is that this tends to promote the idea that pagan religion is libertine; that this is what you get if you don’t honor some anti-material, anti-body, generally male deity codified in a book somewhere.\u00a0 This then makes it easier to exploit people seeking new spiritualities, claiming that this is part of the deal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Her argument, as I understand,\u00a0 is that we interpret the writings of Herodotus<\/a> and other ancients through our own sexual preoccupations and that the reality of the Pagan past was something different.<\/p>\n

(Hat tip: Caroline Tully<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Phoenix, Arizona, the Phoenix Goddess Temple is offering erotic massage, etc., in return for “offerings.” Women at the temple take names like Magdalena, Shakti, and Devima. There’s also a high priestess named Gypsy, and a tall, lithe blonde named Leila, who advertises her measurements (36-26-37) on her page at the temple website, which includes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,42],"class_list":["post-2390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-sexuality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-Cy","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6714,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6714","url_meta":{"origin":2390,"position":0},"title":"Missing Sekmet Statute Mystery Solved","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"When the statue from the Temple of Goddess Spirituality in southern Nevada disappeared last April, many Pagans wondered if it was a hate crime or what. \"It was foolish kids doing foolish things,\" said Candace Ross, temple priestess. Kids who freaked out and smashed the statue. But a new one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3210,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3210","url_meta":{"origin":2390,"position":1},"title":"Mother Goddess Temple or Brothel?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"From the fascinating\"mortuary archaeology\" blog Bones Don't Lie, diverse explanations for the collection of babies' skeletons in a ruin from Roman Britain. Dr. [Jill] Eyers continues to argues for the brothel hypothesis, finding that further research and the combination of the human remains with archaeological evidence only further supports her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11887,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11887","url_meta":{"origin":2390,"position":2},"title":"Why Is the Hippo Goddess Holding a Bull by a Chain in the Northern Sky?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This carving comes from a Greco-Roman-era Egyptian temple in Esna,where decorated walls are being carefully cleaned and original colors seen again. As workers in Egypt remove soot and dirt from the temple, sometimes with a mixture of alcohol and distilled water, the original painted carvings and hieroglyphics beneath are so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/bulls-leg.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1092,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1092","url_meta":{"origin":2390,"position":3},"title":"Death by Self-Castration?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The bones of a priest of Cybele who lived in Roman Britain suggest that his career as a devotee of the goddess might have been short.Experts in Roman religion believe that the Yorkshire cleric belonged to the officially sanctioned and important religious cult of a mother goddess called Cybele, who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5070,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5070","url_meta":{"origin":2390,"position":4},"title":"Should Pagans Show “Solidarity”?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"At The Wild Hunt, you can read a second group of excerpts from various Pagan writers and bloggers on topics of community and solidarity, but this post is different. If you scroll to the bottom, there are links to everyone's full remarks in PDF form. Yes, one of them is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3734,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3734","url_meta":{"origin":2390,"position":5},"title":"Some Recent Publications Available Online","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Some recent publications in or related to Pagan Studies: \u2022 The first issue of Goddess Thealogy: An International Journal for the Study of the Divine Feminine is available for download (PDF, 3.17 MB) \u2022 Videos and PDF files of lectures from the \"Demons in the Academy\" session at the recent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"esotericism\"","block_context":{"text":"esotericism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=esotericism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390","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=2390"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2393,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2390\/revisions\/2393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}