Sex in the palaeolithic period

[Minimalist]

Hmph....we ELECTED one!

[Ishtar]

Only half of you elected one. The other half, around the coastline, had more sense.

[Minimalist]

They won....we lost.


I lived in NY in 2002.

[daybrown]

There – that title got your attention, didn’t it?

But I sometimes wonder if any of you have ever asked yourselves why there are so few women on this forum. Even Michelle hardly comes on to say anything.

My own opinion is that the moderators’ allowing sign-offs like DayBrown’s on the sniffing and tasting of women’s vaginas constitutes a passive aggressive stance against females. It was not so long ago that another of you had, as his picture, a stripper doing the splits in a G-string. And DayBrown’s fetid fantasmagorical musings and constant narrow minded obsession with how people had sex in history runs rampant, completely unchecked, through so many threads.

Guys, if you are going to continue in this fashion, you will end up with what you’ve practically got – a males only locker room in a frat house or cat house where few females dare, or would even want, to tread.

That’s fine, if that’s what you want. But you might be missing a lot of really useful input from women who know what they’re talking about – in fact, I’m sure that you are.

I am deliberately over the top to point out how often archeology is blind sided by Christian socialization.

I've read a translation of Epictetus that was full of "Thee" and "Thou" and other such formalisms found in the Bible, as if to give his words some authority. However, the Stoics were knowns for the crudeness of their vulgar and profane language, and they detested the stilted victorian sensibilities as much as I do.

Gimbutas, in "The Goddess and Gods of Old Europe" and elsewhere shows us lots of phallic wands; but I've seen porn flix, and I know dildos when I see them.

Petronius, in the "Satyricon" has a main character who is a 12 year old boy slave of one of two fairy frat brothers, who the audiences just loved because of the way he was able to manipulate the feelings of his master, and sneak away with the other frat just to create, as we now say, "issues".

The prudery of the archeological community blinds it to an accurate understanding of the many ancient cultures that used sex in ways that the academic, in loco parentis, has a hard time dealing with.

There have always been two ways to control men: sex or violence. Pick one. History is all about "his Story" and focuses on the latter, trying to dismiss any evidence of the former, which we know was the tool of women. If women are going to be empowered, they will havta get over it.

Some, that I know, already are. I expect some to come up tomorrow. Since they already know of the herbs in my garden for birth control and abortion, they know my tagline is more than a joke. In fact, some of the Cherokee gave me some of the herbs to grow. They too, had non-Christian values, and dont have any problem with the crudity of my language.

When you watch for it, there is an awful lot of really kinky shit out there in the collection of artifacts and art. You know what a Kucha belt is?

[kbs2244]

Ishtar:
If my paragraph about female participation sounded patronizing to you, then it proves my point!
I had no intention for it to be.
But you read it from a entirely different point of view.
We need that difference.

Once those things were pointed out about the statuettes it opened a whole new point of view as to both the technical ability and the social structure of the culture that made them.
Discussions that never would have been even started if those things had not been noticed and commented on.
And it took a woman to do it.

I am glad to have you around here. Your expertise in the mystical side of history is something I know nothing about. Each of your posts is educational.

But then, I do have to say the same thing about daybrown. His obsession with the way sex is viewed and it’s importance in different cultures is just as new and possibility educating to me.

I have to try and verify both of your points of view on any subject since I don’t have any prior exposure to what either of you are saying.

Does this sometimes make me uncomfortable?
For Sure.
Although I believe in both angels and demons, the concept of ancestor worship troubles me. But evidently not most of the rest of the world.
And as the product of a white, middle class, mid-America upbringing, some of daybrown’s observations are also troubling.
But that doesn’t make them untrue

[daybrown]

I piss off a lotta people KBS. I'm usta it. No biggie. Dr Freud noted that neurotics cant tolerate ambiguity, and ambiguity in sexuality heads the top of list. Just look at the passion over gay marriage.

But when you look at the other pack animals, you see some are breeding stock, and others are just there to help broaden the resource base for the young without ordinarily breeding themselves. Hominds are no different.

I've read that the average age for women in the graveyard at Varna was in the early 40's, men in their late 30's. at the time of the report I saw, 75 men, 75 women. This does not seem strange to us now, but 5000 years ago, it was a biggie. Men went away to war and died on the battlefield, so in the patriarchic cultures all over the rest of the world, there's lots of women, but many fewer men.

I suggest this means they lived without war, which disturbs neurotics who like to keep things simple by thinking that all men always went to war. I find it interesting too, in the report that all the skeletons were well nourished. I dunno if they didnt discuss the kids because they didnt find any. Again, in sharp contrast to the rest of the world, which even now, has such high death rates for kids.

But in any case, if abundance makes for peace, having this many older adults on hand to help raise the food suggests why there was no sign of malnutrition. The longevity also seems related to the craftsmanship and innovation of Cucuteni culture.

Archeology has so long been so engaged in the study of the activities of the warrior class, acquiring some high degree of professionalism in it, that they dont want to see work being devoted to peaceful cultures and the less glamorous ways of life that would distract attention from their field of expertise.

I grant that they know a lot about warriors, generals, and kings, but they dont really know anything about brothels and madams, and therefore cannot imagine how a power structure could be built on that base of sexual services.

While I could never afford those services, I did live in New Orleans, in the Quarter and Storyville, and some of these ladies were friends of mine. The dispassionate way they were able to carry on challenges the whole alpha male view of the way that women could behave. Not that most women are not as they say. But the others, rise to the top of matriarchic power structures, and are doing so again today.

Case in point was the trophy blonde in the SCOTUS 14 months ago to receive some small part of the *billions* she inherited for making the last few years of life for some old lech happy. And now, she runs a multi-billion dollar business empire. I think she made at least 50 million a year for having sex with the old man. Not bad work if you can get it.

[Ishtar]

Hello Daybrown

Thanks for responding to this discussion. A lot of what you say is interesting and has its place but not necessarily in this thread. I think you may've missed the point of this discussion which is about sexual mores now, not hundreds or thousands years ago.

This community (the Archaeologica forum) exists in 2007 and is made up primarily of those who come from a society that has certain standards around how women's sexuality is treated in the media. Admittedly, those standards have changed slightly since the Sixties, but they haven't changed that much.

Now my point was this. By ignoring these standards, and falling below them, you have (even possibly unwittingly) sent out a hostile message to women who might otherwise want to come on this forum. There are very few women who contribute to our discussions here and imho, this is a factor. I certainly wouldn't invite any woman I know on to this forum because of this.

So this isn't about right and wrong, or sex being regarded as a "bad thing", or prudishness or even in my case, Christian socialisation.

I'm a practising pagan who sometimes uses sexual energies in shamanic healing practises (which is probably why I'm so hot on its sacredness). The last time I had anything to do with Christianity was when I was thrown out of Canterbury Cathedral in 1971 for being so high on mescaline and so overjoyed that I couldn't stop laughing!

As for not being able to handle sexual ambiguity, my boyfriend is bisexual and two of my best friends are gay, one lesbian and one male homosexual.

Neither am I prudish. In fact, do you remember that bit in Four Weddings and a Funeral where Andie McDowell tells Hugh Grant how many partners she's had? Well, I'm like her. A serial monogamist and, at the last count, I'd had 44 partners.

So let's keep to the point of the discussion. If I came to your house and stole your computer, you would regard that as a violation and a hostile act. In the same way, many women would regard your tag line as hostile to them. It's just the way things are.

[Ishtar]

Ishtar:
If my paragraph about female participation sounded patronizing to you, then it proves my point!
I had no intention for it to be.
But you read it from a entirely different point of view.
We need that difference.

I apologise kbs2244. I wasn't being fair on you. I was trying to make a joke at your expense, to make the point that women are good for more than hairdos and fashion. Sorry!

By the way, your point on ancestor worship....'Ancestor worship' derives from shamanic practices, but it has become much misunderstood. It's not about worshipping the ancestors. It's about working in equal partnership with the spirits of your ancestors, who become present to help with family illnesses that are handed down the generations. (Alcoholism is a good example of one of these 'family illnesses', where there is a genetic propensity towards it that can stretch far back into the ancestral line.

When a shamanic healing is done in this way, it not only heals the problem for the patient, but it also heals the whole ancestral line.

Hope this helps.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Afaik the title of this thread is "Sex in the palaeolithic period", but for some reason you guys – Ishtar especially – seem to confuse that with the 21st century AD's gender war.

[Minimalist]

with the 21st century AD's gender war.

I'd like to be taken prisoner.

[War Arrow]

Michelle (assuming it was you) as the forum has recently expanded beyond the traditional guest book, discussion forum, and events, sections - how about an everything else, all-encompassing off-topic section in which we can have polls on avatars, discussions such as this one, football, hairdos, off-topic, gags and funnies, cool links, fave films or whatever - a sort of run-off valve for this section if you see what I mean. Just a thought.

[Ishtar]

Afaik the title of this thread is "Sex in the palaeolithic period", but for some reason you guys – Ishtar especially – seem to confuse that with the 21st century AD's gender war.

Rokcet - you're kidding me! You don't really this thread is about 'sex in the palaeolithic', surely?

ROFLMAO

[MichelleH]

Michelle (assuming it was you) as the forum has recently expanded beyond the traditional guest book, discussion forum, and events, sections - how about an everything else, all-encompassing off-topic section in which we can have polls on avatars, discussions such as this one, football, hairdos, off-topic, gags and funnies, cool links, fave films or whatever - a sort of run-off valve for this section if you see what I mean. Just a thought.

Not a bad idea at all.......

[daybrown]

A large part of the problem we have in understand paleolithic and other non-christian cultures are the family values we grew up with that they did not have. Sex, drugs, rock & roll was a real big part of their lives.

That went on so long it became instinctive, and is still with us, creating cognitive dissonance with Christian family values. We see the rising power of women now, so when we look back at those cultures which were run by women, we have a good idea of what to expect now.

Its beyond counting the number of times I've been flamed for promoting 'drugs' by self described wiccan, pagan, and archaeological posters despite the abundance of archaeological data on the use of psychedelics and the anthro reports of *real* witches and shamen that still use their ancestral potions to this day.

I read Wasson's work on Soma, then made the potion and tried it myself, and one of the effects is a far greater understanding of the artwork left by the ancients who used it. Another has to do with their sense of what time is, and the impossiblity of describing the experience of the direct presence of the divine. That enlightenment has a lot to do with why, unlike the Bible, there is so little expressed on what the nature of the divine was. There was no need. Everyone who'd used the potion, been there and knew that, and they knew as well how inadequate words or text are in communicating what that was all about.

In sharp contrast to the Biblical idea of preaching the gospel, or those online who try to speak with the same voice of authority, the initiates of Soma and the authors of the Vedas knew that those who speak do not know, and those who know do not speak because they know how useless that is.

Since I am neither trying to sell a book or found a religion, I can express myself more freely, and make no claims of authority. Make whatever you want of whatever I post, and plagiarize, clip, or distort it in anyway you like. I know the original content of what we say sits on hard drives, and can be fetched up by those wanting to look into it. Lotsa folks dont like the message, but I'm just one of the messenger boys. Dont look at it.

[kbs2244]

Well.... We do have an off topic thread.
But I think Istar started this one for a silgular reason.