Coincidance - Principia Discordia

C01NC1DANCE
Whether Homer was a feminist, a male chauvinist or a woman himself
(herself?), he (she?) has all the qualities found in recent male poets, who are
notoriously antigovernment, antiwar, antiauthority and fond of women
children, nature and sexuality. Obviously, he was in Freudian terms an oral
personality. In any case, his values (and those of later poets like Euripides,
Sophocles, the anonymous authors of the Greek Anthology, etc.) were always
compatible with sexual love, however much the relationship between men
and women had been rendered problematical by the patriarchal system,
which had reduced women to second-class citizens.
With the coming of Christianity, this last vestige of the old matrist system
crumbled. Women became less than second-class citizens: They became outcasts,
pariahs, tools of Satan to be feared and dis'rusted. Their breasts became,
not a proof that the high gods loved the world and deliberately graced it with
beauty, but a sly trap designed by Satan to lure men into fleshly sin. Women
were "sacks of dung," according to Origen: they deserved to be treated like
untrustworthy slaves, Augustine reasoned, because it was a woman, Eve, who
had brought evil into the world; they were inclined to fornicate with devils,
according to Sprenger the Inquisitor, because their lusts were too extreme to
be satisfied by mortal men. If they were not all witches, the Fathers agreed
solemnly, they certainly needed a lot of careful watching.
Considering that the current women's lib writers largely share the
antisexual bias of the church fathers, it is curious that they haven't yet
revived Augustine's celebrated argument that sexual feeling is itself a curse
imposed upon us as punishment for the sin of Adam and Eve. According to
the bishop's curious reasoning, Adam and Eve, before the Fall, had no sexual
feelings at all, and this is the way God intended us to be. To the question,
how did they manage to reproduce without sensation, Augustine gave an
answer that is worthy of the consideration of ladies like Ti-Grace Atkinson:
The organs of generation, he says, moved by "Will Power." His defense of
this assertion, probably the most influential flight of reasoning in the whole
history of Christian theology, is worth reproducing:
There are persons who can move their ears, either one at a time, or both
together. There are some who, without moving the head, can bring the
hair down upon their forehead, and move the whole scalp backwards and
forewards at pleasure. Some, by lightly pressing their stomach, bring up an
incredible quantity and variety of things they have swallowed, and produce
whatever they please, quite whole, as if out of a bag. Some so accurately
mimic the voices of birds and beasts and other men that, unless they are
seen, the differences canot be told. Some have such command of their
bowels that they can break wind continuously at pleasure, so as to produce
the effect of singing.*
*St. Augustine, The City of God (New York: Modern Library, 1950)
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