Re: Ancient Figurine of Voluptuous Woman Is Found | Forum

Ancient Figurine of Voluptuous Woman Is Found

tjj May 17, 2009 17:57:16

Replying to moss

moss wrote:

Well as one who trogs through the news most days, I read she was a pornographic piece of neckware, that presumably males wore beneath their 'cloaks' on a string, she had'nt got a head but had two rings for attachment....

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090513/full/news.2009.473.html
(that link is respectable)

there again today someone was speculating in the news that homo sapiens polished off the neanderthals by eating them.. mind you he had only found one piece of evidence to support it!....

Handofdave, I've just read your most recent comment which was well argued. When I saw the inital post I was surprised that only one person had answered because it is very interesting.

Moss mentions reading that the figurine was a piece of pornographic neckware, which again seems to throw a very 'last century' approach to the matter. Pornography surely is a modern concept where the human body (usually female, though certainly not exclusively) is exploited for sexual titillation. I can't get my head round 'hunter-gatherer' clans being into pornography somehow.

There is an interesting comment on the link which was not there when I first saw it - worth a read.

Zariadris May 17, 2009 18:31:57

Replying to tjj

tjj wrote:

[quote="moss"]Well as one who trogs through the news most days, I read she was a pornographic piece of neckware, that presumably males wore beneath their 'cloaks' on a string, she had'nt got a head but had two rings for attachment....

Exactly. Think about how ubiquitous phallic symbols were as well. I don't think there is any feminist vs. misogynist dynamic at play here. Consciously or not, we're just projecting our own issues of sexual politics. I think our figurine represents something positive, beneficent, life-engendering, magical, and divine.

handofdave May 17, 2009 20:40:13

Replying to tjj

tjj wrote:

I can't get my head round 'hunter-gatherer' clans being into pornography somehow.

Why not?

There's multiple examples of cave paintings from prehistory that depict explicit images of female and male genitalia.

The general definition of pornography: images that are designed to arouse.

I don't think it's a stretch (no pun intended) that males off on hunting trips for days on end would create images of sex. Have you ever met a teenager who wasn't into sex? It's a biological imperative.

Sexual imagery in the modern age has a stigma of being anti-feminist. Obviously, some is misogynistic, but most is merely fetishistic. And as we know, fetishes are a common element in animist societies.