You know what? Well, maybe it's just another form of an
old Irish custom...
And while I'm at it...another ambiguously genital religious sculpture in Toronto. The first one is Our Lady of Lourdes. This one is a modern steel sculpture on the back of what used to be a seminary for the members of the Society of Mary. (I lived a block away). The Virgin's arm, which reaches down to grasp the Child...you can see it as her sleeve, or Him with a huge hardon! Our Lady of Oedipus?
Sex and religion can't really be separated. In the monotheisms, eros is sublimated, but present. I used to enjoy (aesthetically and theologically!) the triple plunging of the big Easter candle into the water of the baptismal font during the Paschal Vigil. And then, of course, we have Bernini's St. Theresa in Ecstasy...
2 comments:
Now that I look at it again, I am struck with the paradox of the statue, Bernini's, that is. All that shows of the saint's body is her face, a hand and a foot. Because she is so heavily clothed, these three physical elements are actually enhanced and emphasized and become highly sexual. Less here is very much more. And then the clothing itself. She is voluminously covered...but the massive rhythmic agitation of the folds which envelope and overwhelm her...well, I think I may have just seen a female orgasm in marble!
I don't know from marble, but womengirls in the flesh can feign these phenomena. ... Of course, Kantian theory holds that the male ego experiences no difference between a fake and a real orgasm in his wife or girlfriend.
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