Reclaiming Goddess Sexuality is a book that challenges the norm on the Divine as well as sexuality. Linda Savage promotes a new way of looking at sexuality to include a spiritual and more broadly sensual dimension ie women’s contribution to sexuality.
She looks back into the past when female sexuality was revered with the vagina (yoni) as the portal into life on earth for humans. Women were more elevated in society due to this and were respected as having a unique connection to the Life Force in the Universe. They were equal and complimentary players in the spirituality of early societies. She uses fiction to compare the life of a girl in one of these early societies in Crete, to that of a typical girl of today in the west. Although I can see what she was trying to put across and completely empathise with her view of a new society, I found the stories too simplistic.
However I did like the division of life into the three blood ceremonies of First Blood, Birth and Menopause that correspond with the Maiden, Mother and Crone phase of a woman’s life. I was challenged by the idea of life culminating in a healing role to all those who have yet to tread the road thus far. Could eldership possibly include dispensing a lifetime’s wisdom and sexual healing and instruction to those trying to find their way?
I found that her exercises and explanations for women wanting to reclaim lost desire in patriarchal defined relationships to be very useful. At the outset I doubted that she could dedicate a whole book to the topic but was delighted to find that she held my attention. She explains in detail the road back for a woman to discover her sexuality and fully enjoy her capacity for pleasure. She convincingly presents the idea of mankind finding healing through women fulfilling their potential for pleasure, which would necessitate them being more accepted and assertive. The healing of mankind would also effect a healing of the planet.
I think that this book makes a major contribution to the underlying need for women to give themselves permission to discover themselves and their sexual potential and from that point of view is a worthwhile read.
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