Chapter 10 Chapter 9 Dreams, Terror and Idolatry (Part 1)-1

Chapter 9 Dreams, Terror and Idolatry (Part 1) History shows us that men have always held all concrete power.From the very beginning of patriarchal society, they realized that it was best to keep woman in a dependent position; they made laws against her, and she was made his elder.This arrangement is in the men's economic interest, as well as with their ontological moral claims.As long as the subject wants to assert his rights, the Other - who limits and denies him - remains necessary to him: he can realize himself only through that reality which he is not, which is different from himself.This is why a man's life is never rich and peaceful.It is lack, it is activity, it is struggle.The conflict between man and nature unfolds before him, and he has a certain power over nature, which he strives to shape according to his wishes.But nature could not meet his needs.Either it is only an impersonal opposite, an obstacle, always a stranger; or it is passively subject to man's will, allowing assimilation, so that he can possess it only by consuming it, that is, by destroying it.He is alone in both cases.He is alone when he pinches a stone, and he is alone when he eats a fruit.There is no otherness unless this otherness is also in itself for itself: that is to say, the real otherness - otherness - is the otherness of consciousness which is both separate from self-consciousness and Generally identified with self-awareness.

It is the very existence of other men that yanks each man out of his immanence, enables him to realize the reality of his being, and to realize himself through transcendence, through flight to a goal, through aggression.But this kind of freedom that does not belong to me also conflicts with it when it guarantees my freedom.Because of the tragedy of man's unfortunate consciousness, every separate conscious being aspires to establish himself alone as a sovereign subject.Each wants to fulfill himself by reducing the other to a slave.And the slave, despite his labor and fear, somehow considers himself the primary; and, by a dialectical inversion, the master becomes the secondary.If everyone can frankly recognize the other and see himself and the other as both object and subject, then it will be possible to transcend this conflict.But friendship and generosity--in fact they admit of such recognition only to free men--are not easy virtues; they are undoubtedly the highest achievements of man, by which he may be discovered in his true nature .But this true nature is the nature of a struggle that is constantly beginning and undoing; it asks men every moment to break the records they have set.Let us put it another way: man acquires a genuinely moral attitude when he renounces mere being and thus assumes the role of an existent; by this transformation he also renounces all possession, for possession is A way of pursuing pure existence.But the transformation by which he attains true wisdom is never complete, it must go on forever, it requires a perpetual tension.So, since man is utterly incapable of realizing himself in isolation, he is always in danger in relation to his partner, and his life is a difficult enterprise, in which success or failure is uncertain.

However, he does not like difficulties, he is afraid of danger.He longs paradoxically both for life and for peace; for both existence and existence.He fully understands that "spiritual trouble" is the price of development, and his distance from the goal is the price of his approaching himself.And yet he was dreaming of peace in restlessness, of inexplicable but still endowed with conscious fulfillment.The embodiment of this dream is woman.She is what man wants, the intermediary between nature, the stranger, and his kind as one with him.She opposed him in the manner of neither the hostile silence of nature nor the demandingness of the relationship.Although she is a conscious person by virtue of her uniquely privileged position, it seems possible to possess her physically.Thanks to her, there is a way to escape the ruthless dialectical relationship between master and slave that arises from the reciprocity of free men.

We have seen that initially there was no enslavement of free women to men, nor even gender-based hierarchies.It is a mistake to think of women only as slaves; yes, there were women among slaves, but free women—women with religious and social dignity—had always been there too.They recognize the sovereignty of man without feeling threatened by him to rebel, to turn him, too, into an object.Thus, woman seems to be a secondary who does not want to be the primary at all, an absolute other, for whom there is no reciprocity.This creed, dear to men, is expressed in every creation myth.Among them, the creation theory has been kept alive in Western civilization through Christianity.Eve was not created at the same time as that man.She was not made of any other substance, nor of the clay from which Adam was made: she was taken from the rib of the first man.Even her birth was not independent, God did not make her on a whim for herself, but to be directly worshiped by her and in return for that.She was sent by God to man; God kicked her to Adam in order to save Adam from loneliness, her origin and her purpose were in her spouse.She is his complement, similar to the lesser.So she appears as a privileged prey.She is Nature exalted as transparently conscious; she is a conscious being, but submissive in nature.Therefore, man often places strange hopes on the literati: he hopes to possess a person physically to realize himself as a person, but at the same time, through the tameness of this free person, he can prove his sense of freedom.No man wants to be a woman, but all men need a woman. "Thank God for creating woman", "Nature is merciful, because it gave woman to man".In such phrases, man declares again and again, with naive arrogance, that his presence in the world is a fact, a right, and that the presence of woman is a perfectly still—once very pleasant—event.Although woman is the Other, she is at the same time a fulfillment of being that contrasts sharply with the existence that man himself feels.The other, because it is the object in the mind of the subject, is regarded as being in itself, so it is regarded as a kind of existence (bet it).Women clearly reflect the inner needs of the survivors, and men hope to achieve self-realization in the process of pursuing perfection through her.

For men, however, woman is not the only incarnation of the Other, she has not always been equally important throughout the course of history, and there have been periods in which she has been overshadowed by other idols.When the city-state or state engulfs the citizen, it becomes impossible for the citizen to concentrate on his personal destiny.Because of her devotion to the state, the Spartan woman stood above other Greek women.But in reality, she wasn't glorified by any male dreams.The cult of the leader—whether it be Napoleon, Mussolini, or Hitler—excludes all other cults.During the military dictatorship, under the system of power, women ceased to be an object of privilege.It is understandable that women should be deified in rich countries where citizens are not deeply convinced of the meaning of life, as is the case in the United States.On the other hand, the ideology of socialism, which insists on the equality of all men, does not and will not allow any class of man to become an object or an idol; no place is left for the Other in the truly democratic society proclaimed by Marx.However, men rarely fully fit their chosen image of belligerence and discipline.They are still individuals in a way, and women retain a special value in their minds.I've seen letters written by German soldiers to French prostitutes.Despite Nazism, the letter still insists on the deep-rooted tradition of virginal purity.Communist writers such as Aragon (Amp) in France and Vittorini (Italy) put women first in their writings, whether as mistresses or mothers.Perhaps the myth of the woman will disappear one day, and the more women insist on being human, the more the uncanny quality of the other will disappear from them.But today it still exists in the heart of every man.

A myth always contains a subject who projects his hopes and fears into a transcendent sky.Women do not make themselves subjects, and so do not create masculine myths that reflect their designs.They have no religion or poetry of their own: they are still to dream through men's dreams.The gods created by men are the gods they worship.To enhance themselves, men fashioned great masculine figures: Hercules, Prometheus, Pareifal.In the fate of these heroes, women play only a secondary role.Undoubtedly, in the relationship between man and woman, he also encounters his traditional images: father, seducer, husband, jealous lover, good son, wayward son.But these images are all created by men, and they lack the dignity of mythology and are downright pedantic.Woman is completely defined by her relation to man.The asymmetry of the two categories (male vs. female) is expressed in the one-way form of the sexual myth.We sometimes call woman "sex"; she is the body, his pleasure and his danger.Man is also flesh to woman, but this fact has never been announced because no one has.Representing the world is as much a man's job as the world itself.They paint it according to their point of view and confuse that point of view with absolute truth.

It is always difficult to describe a myth, it is impossible to grasp it as a whole.It haunts the mind, without fixed form.The mythology is so diverse, so contradictory, that from the outset no unity can be seen: Delilah and Judith, Aspasia and Lucretia, Pandora and Athena (2)— ─A woman is Eve and the Virgin Mary.She is the Idol, the Servant, the Source of Life, the Power of Darkness; she is the Truth of Majesty and Silence, she is the Manipulator, the Gambler, and the False; she is the Healer and the Sorcerer; she is Man's Prey and His Destroyer; She is all that he cannot be and desires, his negation and his raison d'être.

Kierschauer (h for ship with d) said in the stages of his life: "Being a woman is a thing so strange, so confusing, so complicated that no single attribute can come close to expressing it." What is it about women; and those composite attributes that people like to use are so contradictory that only a woman can tolerate being a woman." This is not because of actively seeing a woman as what she thinks she is , but by negatively seeing her as what men think she is.Even if woman is not the only other, she is actually always defined as the other.And her ambiguity is precisely the ambiguity of the concept of the Other: it is also the ambiguity of the human situation in so far as it is defined as its relation to the Other.As I have said, the other is evil; but because it is necessary for good, it is also good.Through it the "I" reaches the whole; but it also separates the "I" from the whole. It is the access to the infinite and the measure of the finite nature of the "I". This is how women fail to embody any stable concept through her, the transition from hope to frustration, from hate to love, from good to evil, and from evil to good is constantly going on. Whatever side we may examine her, we first encounter This contradiction.

The other that man seeks in woman is both nature and his kind.But we know what ambivalence there is in man's heart toward nature.He exploits it, but it squeezes him; he lives in it, and dies in it; it is the source of his haing, and the kingdom he conquers at his will; nature is made of rough things The blood vessel that imprisons the soul is also the supreme reality; it is chance and it is the idea; it is the finite and it is the whole; it is against the spirit and it is the spirit itself.It is now an ally, now an enemy, as if it were a dark swamp from which life springs, as if it were life itself, as if it were a distant place to which life was heading.Woman summarizes nature as mother, as wife and idea; these forms are sometimes mixed, sometimes conflicted, each of which has a double face.

Man is deeply rooted in nature, he is as produced as animals and plants.He knows very well that he can only exist if he is alive.But after the emergence of patriarchy, life has a dual characteristic in his mind: it is consciousness, will and transcendence, that is, spirit; it is also matter, passivity and immanence, that is, body.Aeschylus, Aristotle, and Hippocrates all declared that, on earth as on Olympus, it is the masculine principle that is truly creative: from it arises form, quantity, and motion; Growth and increase are aided by Demeter, but the origin of the grain and its authenticity lies in Zeus. The fertility of the woman is considered to be of a passive nature only.She is the earth, and man is the seed; she is the water, and he is the fire.Creation is often thought of as the union of water and fire; it is warmth and moisture that give rise to living beings.The sun is the husband of the sea; the sun and fire are the male gods; the sea is one of the most general concepts in which maternal symbols abound.Water is passively fertilized by fiery radiation; so is the meadow, when it has been plowed by the farmer, passively receiving the seed in the furrow.But it serves an indispensable function: it nurtures the germ of life, protects it, and supplies it with the substances with which to grow.This is why men worshiped the Fertility Goddess even after he had dethroned the Mother Goddess.He was grateful to Sebile for his harvest, his herds, all his possessions, and even attributed his own life to her.He sang of water as much as of fire.Goethe exclaims in the second part of "Faust": "Glory to the sea! Glory to the waves that surround the holy fire! Glory to the waves! Glory to the fire! Glory to the strange adventure." Men also worship the earth, as Blake ( Blake called "housewife's serene soil".A Hindu prophet exhorted his disciples not to dig the ground, because "any injury, any cutting or breaking, in plowing, to the mother of us all is a sin... Shall I take a sharp knife and pierce my mother's breast? ...shall I chop and chop her to pieces...how dare I cut off my mother's hair?" In central India, the Baidys also believe, "plow open the breasts of their earth mothers" is a sin.Aeschylus, on the contrary, says of Oedipus that he "dare to sow in the divine furrow that formed him."Sophboles spoke of the "fatherly furrow" and "the plowman interviewed only once at the time of sowing, master of the vast field".In an Egyptian poem, the beloved proclaims: "I am the earth!" Islamic scriptures also refer to women as "fields...vineyards."St. Francis of Assisi (St. Fwris of Assist) mentioned in one of his hymns: "Earth, you are our sister and our mother; as a blooming flower, the green grass guards us and cares for us. Bear us and bear all kinds of fruit." Michelet shouted at the Akki mud bath: "Dear Mother of All, we are one! From you I come and to you!  …" The same was true during the heyday of vitalist romanticism, which longed for life to triumph over spirit.The inconceivable fecundity of the land and of woman seemed at the time more admirable than man's artificiality; and man dreamed of being completely under the umbrella of motherhood again, in order to be able to rediscover the true source of his being.The mother is the root root deep in the universe, capable of drawing its essence; she is the spring from which springs the water of life, which is also nourishing milk, the warm spring, the mud mixed with water, rich in Fitness effect entry

Man alone often rebels against his corporeal state, and he sees himself as a fallen god: from the heaven of light and order, into the chaotic and dark womb of his mother, which is his bane.That fire, that pure and active upwelling that he wanted to adore himself with, was buried in the soil by the woman.He would have been necessary, like the pure Idea, like this, the whole, the Absolute Spirit.However, he finds himself locked in a body with limited capabilities, in a time and space that he cannot choose; thus he is superfluous, useless, sloppy, and ridiculous.The contingency of the whole body is his own contingency, tormented in abandonment, in inexcusable futility.She also doomed him to die.He shuddered at the vibrating gelatinous body that formed in the womb (which was hermetically sealed like a tomb) and which could only invite rotting corpses.Wherever life is thus created, its growth and fermentation are repulsive, because it is formed only in destruction.The cycle that begins with the viscous embryo is completed in the corruption of death.Frightened by his futility and death, man is also terrified by his own being.He prefers to deny his connection to the animal kingdom, the murderous nature that controls him through the fact of his birth. Among primitive man childbirth is shrouded in an extremely strict taboo.In particular, the placenta should be carefully burned or thrown into the sea, because whoever possesses it will control the fate of the newborn.The membranous body, on which the fetus grows, is the mark of fetal attachment; once it is destroyed, the individual can break free from the living slime and become an autonomous person.The uncleanness of childbirth is attributed to the mother.The Book of Liben and all ancient scriptures force women to perform Dharma body benefits after giving birth.In many rural areas, christenings (postpartum thanksgiving) continue this tradition.We know that children, teenage girls, and men can't help but feel embarrassed at the sight of pregnant bellies and breasts, often masking this embarrassment with ridicule.In museums curious eyes fixate on wax fetuses and soaked fetuses with the same morbid interest that they see in deserted graves.For all the respect showered by society, the function of pregnancy evokes an innate aversion.If the little boy is emotionally attached to his mother's body as a child, this body can be horrifying to him as he grows up, socializes and pays attention to his low individual presence. ．He will dismiss its existence, thinking that his mother is only a spiritual being.If he was eager to believe in her purity and faithfulness, it was not from erotic jealousy, but from his reluctance to seep her into a flesh.If the adolescent occasionally encounters his mother, his sisters, any of his female relatives on walks with his companions, then he is also embarrassed and ashamed: for their presence brings him back to the inner three kingdoms he wants to get rid of, exposes He wants to break free from the foundation.The little boy's anger when his mother kisses and coaxes him has this meaning; he does not recognize his relationship to the family, to the mother, to her breasts.He would love to leap into the world fully grown, fully armed and invulnerable like Atheno.To have been conceived and to be born a baby is the bane that threatens his fate, the uncleanness of his standing, and the herald of his death.The superstition of life is always connected with the superstition of death.The Earth Mother devoured the bones of her own children.They are the women who weave the fate of mankind—Parche and Moirai.But it was they who cut the threads.The most popular version is that death is a woman; and women mourn the dead because death is their work. So the woman-mother-god has a dark face: she is the ethereal, from which all things come, and to which they will one day return; she is nothingness.In this long night, the multiple faces of the world revealed by the day are muddled together; this is the long night of the spirit of generality and turbidity restricted by matter, the long night of sleep and nothingness.This is the long night in the depths of the sea: the woman is that dark siren that once dreaded the navigators; this is the long night in the interior of the earth.Man fears the long night because it is the other side of fertility and threatens to engulf him.He yearned for the sky, for the sun, for the bright peak, for the pure coolness of the blue sky.But beneath his feet was a wet, warm, dark abyss that wanted to drag him down.In many legends we do see the hero disappear forever when he falls back into the maternal darkness—caves, abysses, and hells. But here again the paradox comes into play: if life and death are forever linked, death and fertility are also always linked.The abominable death seems to be a new birth, and so it is praised again.The dead hero is revived every spring, like OSiris; he is regenerated through new birth.In The Metamorphosis of the Libido, J.M. Jung said that man's greatest hope "is that the dark sea of ​​death can be transformed into the sea of ​​life, and that death and its icy embrace can be transformed into the warm embrace of a mother." , like the ocean, which engulfs the sun and yet lifts it up from the depths." A common theme in many myths is the sun god's perishing in the ocean and his confusing reappearance.Man desires not only life, but peace, sleep, and nothingness.He doesn't wish he could be immortal so he can learn to love death.Nietzsche wrote: "The inorganic matter is the mother's chest, and getting rid of life is to become real again, to achieve perfection. Whoever wants to understand this problem should understand that it is a kind of joy to return to the dust of insensibility." Josh passed a From the mouth of an immortal old man said this prayer: "Day and night I beat the earth with my stick, and at my mother's threshold I cried: O dear mother, let me in! A man is willing to prove his individual existence, proudly relying on his "essential difference", but he also hopes to break through the barrier of ego, and integrate with water and night, with nothingness, and with the whole.Woman judges man to be finite, but she also enables him to go beyond his own finiteness.So her magic is ambiguous. In all civilizations woman still terrorizes man to this day: it is his horror at the contingency of his own body which he sees in her.The prepubescent little girl is not threatening, she is not bound by taboos, she has no divine qualities.In many primitive societies, her gender seemed innocent: sex games were permitted at an early age for both boys and girls.But as soon as a woman is fertile, she is unclean, and strict taboos surround menstruating women.Leviticus made detailed regulations on isolation and cleansing, and many primitive societies also had similar practices.In a matriarchal society, the magic of menstruation is contradictory: menstruation can disrupt social activity and destroy crops, but it can also be used as a love potion.Even today some Indians put a piece of fabric soaked in menstrual blood on the bow of a boat to keep the river monster out.But after the patriarchal era, it is believed that women's menstruation has only evil magic power.Pliny says that a menstruating woman destroys the crops, destroys the garden, kills the bees, etc.; if she touches wine, it turns into vinegar; if she touches milk, it turns sour, etc. .A poet in ancient England also expressed this view in his poem: O menstrual woman, you are the devil, Everything in the world will be separated from you to avoid harm! This belief has survived into modern times with great force. In 1878, the "British Medical Journal" publicly declared: "It is an undoubted fact that meat will rot when touched by a menstruating woman", and cited examples of personal observations.At the beginning of this century, there was a regulation in northern France that women who "bring harm" were not allowed to enter the bran mill, otherwise the sugar would turn black.These concepts have always been stubborn in rural areas.All rural cooks know that mayonnaise cannot be made if a woman is around.Some country people believed that the cider would not ferment if the women were around, others that the bacon would not be brittle and spoiled.A few plausible reports may provide some evidence for this belief.But it is evident, from the importance and universality of this belief, that it must have a superstitious and mysterious origin.There is indeed a reaction to the blood here, larger than usual but equally sacred.But menstrual blood has its own uniqueness, it represents the essence of women.Therefore, if it is abused, it may cause harm to women themselves.Levi.Among the Chago, says Strauss, girls are warned not to let anyone see any signs of menstruation; clothing must be hidden, etc., so that the omens will be avoided.Lebenji likened menstruation to gonorrhea, while Vigny linked the concept of impurity with the concept of disease, writing "women, sick children, and twelvefold uncleanness". A woman's menstrual cycle strangely coincides with the moon's cycle, so the moon is also considered unlucky and capricious.Woman is part of the terrible machine that keeps the planets and sun in motion. She is prey to the cosmic energy that governs the fate of the stars and the tides, whose unsettling radiation men must endure.But menstrual blood should also be between life and matter, and it has an effect on organic matter in particular: it sours dairy products, spoils meat, causes fermentation and decomposition.This is not because it is blood, but because it flows from the genitals.People have not realized its exact function, but it has been recognized that it is closely related to the reproduction of life: the ancients did not know the existence of ovaries, and even regarded menstruation as the replenishment of sperm.It is true that menstrual blood does not make a woman unclean, but rather it is a sign of her uncleanness.The horror that woman's fertility arouses in men is expressed through menstrual blood. It is one of the strictest taboos not to have any sexual relations with women who are menstruating unclean.In various cultures, the offender himself was considered unclean during a certain period, or was subjected to strict asceticism in order to atone for his sin.It is believed that male energy and vitality can be destroyed by the female being at the height of her power.The man feels vaguely that it is repulsive to see the terrible nature of the mother in the woman he possesses, and he resolves to separate these two aspects of womanhood.Hence the general law against incest, which takes the form or in more recent forms of the regulation of interracial marriage.This is why men tend to avoid her when she is particularly preoccupied with her reproductive roles—menstruation, pregnancy, and lactation.Oedipal emotion (which should be reinterpreted) does not deny this attitude, but implies it.As long as woman represents the hidden roots of the world and of vague organic development, men are on the defensive against her. But it is also through this guise that woman keeps her group separate from the universe and the gods while remaining in touch with them.She still maintains the fertility of the fields among the Bedouins and Iroquois today.In ancient Greece, she could hear voices underground and understand the language of wind and trees: she was Pythia (hasa, witch, seer; through whom the dead and gods spoke. She still maintains the The magic of this prophecy: she is the witch, palm reader, poker fortune teller and clairvoyant, she is the inspiration; she can know the wishes people want to say, she can see ghosts. Plant and animal life, if Antaeus touched the earth to restore strength, they turned to women. In the rationalist civilization of Greece and Rome, the cult of hell was always present. These cults are generally far from formal religious life, such as In Eleusis, at last, there is even a mystical form: their meaning is the opposite of that of the worship of the sun. In the worship of the sun, man insists on his own independent, spiritual will. But these two This worship is also complementary. Man tries to escape solitude through ecstasy: this is the result and purpose of mystic rituals, Dionysian carnivals, Dionysian worshipers. In a world reconquered by men, is a male god, Di DiOnysis, usurping Ishtar's. Astarte's unbridled and inconceivable power; but they were still women who reveled around his idols: Madwomen, Dionysus Priestesses and Dionysian women kept men in a state of divine intoxication, in a state of divine ecstasy. Religious prostitutes played a similar role: it was a matter of releasing and channeling the magic of fertility. Folk shows today are still characterized by lust .Woman is here not only an object of pleasure but also a vehicle for the attainment of a state of arrogance and dissoluteness in which the individual transcends the limits of the ego. G. Bataille writes: "A man in the What is deeply possessed in the deranged, tragic, 'blind wonder' self is not to be rediscovered anywhere but in bed." In the act of libido, the man embraces his lover, wanting to revel in the infinite mystery of her body.But we have seen, on the other hand, that his normal libido tends to sever the mother from the wife.He resented the mystical powers of life, while his own life had been nourished with the earth's sweet-smelling fruits, which brought him joy.He wishes to make them his own; he longs for Venus to reappear in the sea.For the first time patriarchal society reveals woman as wife because the supreme creator is male.Before being the mother of mankind, Eve was Adam's companion.She was given to man so that he could possess her and fertilize her, just as he owns the land and fertilizes it.Through it he makes all of nature his kingdom.What a man pursues in sexual behavior is not just a subjective short-term pleasure, he also hopes to conquer, acquire and possess.To own a woman is to conquer her.He penetrated her like a plowshare into a furrow.He possesses her even as he possesses and tills the land; he labors, he cultivates, he sows: the images are as old as writing.Thousands of examples can be cited from ancient times to the present: "The woman is like the field, and the man is like the seed", says the Code of Manu.In a painting by André Masson, a man with a shovel is digging in a garden shaped like a woman's vulva.A woman is prey to her husband, possessed by him. The male hesitates between fear and desire, between the fear of being at the mercy of uncontrollable forces and the desire to overcome them.This hesitation is most clearly reflected in the virgin myth.Sometimes feared by man, sometimes desired and even needed by him, the virgin seems to be the most perfect form of feminine mystery.She is thus both its very disturbing expression and its enthralling expression.Whether a man wants his wife to marry him a virgin depends on whether he thinks he can conquer this enclosing force.In a primitive society where women are in power, fear governs him, and it is appropriate for a woman to lose her virginity before the wedding night.Marco Polo said of the Tibetans, "None of them wants to marry a virgin girl." This refusal can sometimes be explained logically: a man does not want a woman who has not yet attracted the attention of men. desire wife.The Arab geographer El Bedri (EIBedri) said of the Slavs, "If a man finds his wife a virgin when he marries, he will say to her: 'If you have any merit, the man will court you, and your virginity will be taken from you.' So he cast her out of the house and abandoned her." It is even said that some primitive people only married women who had proved their fertility by being mothers . But the real motives behind these widespread customs of devirtuous virginity are mysterious.Some people imagine that there is a snake in the vagina, which will bite the husband when the hymen is just broken.Others attribute the monstrous magic to the blood that comes out of the vagina, which is associated with menstrual blood and can also destroy a man's fertility.Such imaginings express the idea that the feminine essence is more powerful and more threatening when it is undamaged. Some instances do not raise the issue of devirtuous virgins.For example, among the islanders of the Trobriand Islands described by Malinowski, the girls were not virgins at all, because they were allowed to play sexual games from an early age.In some cultures, a mother, sister, or some married woman systematically destroys a young girl's virginity, enlarging her vaginal opening throughout her childhood.In addition, virginity destruction may also be performed during puberty, and the woman pierce the hymen with a stick, bone or stone, but this is only considered as a surgical operation.In other tribes, a girl is subjected to savage initiation at puberty: men drag her outside the village and take her virginity by rape or property.一种常见的礼仪是，把处女赐予过路的陌生人——不论是认为陌生人对只威胁该部落男性的超自然力满不在乎，还是认为何种魔鬼将在陌生人面前被释放出来。祭司，或医师、酋长、族长，在新婚前一夜夺走新娘的处女贞操，更是司空见惯的。在马拉巴尔海岸，婆罗门教徒就负有这种义务。听说他们在履行这种义务时没有快感，所以要求有很高的报酬。众所周知，所有圣物对俗众都是有威胁的，但被奉为神圣的人都完全可以触摸它们。因而可以理解，祭司和部落首领能够征服丈夫必须加以防范的邪恶力量。在罗马，这一习俗残留下来的只是一种象征性的礼仪：让未婚妻坐在普里阿普斯（Naplls）石像的阴茎上；这样做也许是为了达到双重目的，即增强她的生育力和吸收她身上所携带的两种有魔力的（因而也是邪恶的）液体。丈夫可以用一种不尽相同方式来保护自己：他自己去破坏处女的贞操，但这要在礼仪中进行，以使他在日后关键时刻不受伤害。例如，他可以当着全村人的面，用木棍或骨头来做这件事。在萨摩亚，他用裹着白布的手指捅破处女膜，然后把这带血的布撕成碎片，分给在场的人。或者也可能允许丈夫以正常方式破坏妻子的处女贞操，但3天内不能在她体内射精，这样生殖微生物便不会被处女膜破裂时流出来的血所玷污。 由于得到重新评价（这一评价在宗教领域是经典的），在不那么原始的社会，阴道里流出来的血成为一种吉祥的象征。在法国，有些村落仍保持着新婚后第二天早晨在亲友面前展示有血迹的床单这一习俗。在父权社会，男人成为女人的主人，而野兽和未被征服的自然力的那种令人毛骨悚然的力量，对于可以将其驯服并且拥有它的人来说，也就成为很有价值的特性。男人把野马的奔放激情，把电闪雷鸣，把飞流直下的瀑布所具有的不可抗拒的力量，变成了通往幸福的手段。所以他希望原封不动地占有女人的所有财富。在少女必须保持贞操的强制性要求中，无疑有合理动机在起作用：和妻子的贞洁一样，未婚妻的清白也是不可缺少的，只有如此，父亲以后才不会冒着把自己的财产留给他人的孩子的风险。但是在男人把妻子看成他个人的财产时，对处女的要求还有更直接的理由。首先，积极实现占有观念是永远不可能的；的确，一个人根本不可能拥有任何一个物或任何一个人，于是他便想以消极方式确立所有制。坚持某物归他所有的最可靠方式，是阻止别人使用它。在男人看来，没有什么比从未属于过任何人的东西更值得向往的了：所以征服仿佛是唯一的、绝对的事情。处女地永远令探险者人迷；由于想攀登天人攀登过的顶峰，甚至由于仅仅想开辟一条向上攀登的新径，每年都有登山者丢掉了性命。好奇使他们冒着生命危险，下到尚未查明的地下洞穴的深处。男人已使用的物品成为一种工具，它被割断了与自然的联系，失去了十分深刻的性质：在奔腾不息的洪流中，比在常见的泉水中有更大的希望。 处女的身体有一股僻远山泉般的清新，一副欲放蓓蕾般的娇容，一种太阳永远照不到的珍珠般的光泽。洞穴、神殿、神秘的花园——男人如孩子一般都深深地迷信于那些还不为人所知的。封闭的、幽暗的地方，而这些地方也在等待着奉送：他应当单独去获取、插入的地方，好像的确是他创造的。而且，所有欲望的追求目标之一，便是耗尽这个被渴望的客体，这含有破坏的意味。和让处女膜完好无损的插入相比，男人破处女膜时对女性身体的占有更为直接。他以破坏处女贞操这一必然行为，把那个身体毫不含糊地变成了被动客体，证实了他对它的获取。这种观念清楚表现在骑士传说中。骑上艰难地穿过丛生的荆棘，要去摘下一校至今尚未飘逸芳香的玫瑰；他不但找到了它，而且毁了它的根；正是在那时他才把它归为己有。这一形象是如此清晰，以至在大众语言中，从女人那里“采花”就是指夺走她的处女贞操。这种表达方式当然是“defindion”这个词的起源。 但是，处女性只有和青春相联系才具有这种性的吸引力，否则它的神秘性又会令人不安。今天，许多男人对老处女深感性的厌恶。人们认为，不只是心理原因使“老处女”变成自私的、遭人怨恨的女性。祸根在于她们的肉体本身。这个肉体是不为任何主体而存在的客体，任何男人的欲望都不曾指向它；虽然它已花开花落，却未在男人世界上找到一席之地。它离开了自身的适当目标，变成了一个怪物，和无法与其沟通思想的疯子一样令人心烦。在说到一个40岁时仍很漂亮、但也许是个处女的女人时，我听到一个男人粗鲁地说：“'她心里肯定布满了蜘蛛网。”的确，地下室和顶楼，若不再有人问津便毫无用途，就会充满不适当的神秘，幽灵就很可能常去光顾。若是房子被人遗弃，也会成为幽灵的住所。除非将女性的处女贞操奉献给一位神，否则人们就很容易认为它含有某种与魔鬼联姻的意思。未被男子征服的处女，以及摆脱男人控制的老妇人，更容易被人视为女巫。因为女人的命运就是受另一个人的奴役，她若是逃避了男人的支配，就要准备接受魔鬼的支配。 在举行夺取处女贞操的礼仪从而摆脱了恶魔的支配以后，或在彻底清除了她的处女性以后，看样子，新婚妻子就完全有可能成为非常令人称心如意的猎物。丈夫拥抱她时，他要占有的是生命的全部财富。她是大地上的全部动物和植物；是瞪羚和雌鹿，是百合和玫瑰，是毛茸茸的桃子和香气扑鼻的浆果；是宝石和珍珠蚌，是玛瑙、珍珠和丝绸；是蓝天、清爽的泉水、空气、火焰、陆地和大海。东方和西方的诗人都把女人身体比做鲜花、果实和小鸟。而且，从古代的、中世纪的和近代的作品中，我们信手拈来的东西准会汇成一本内容丰富的集子。有谁会不知道《雅歌》呢？歌中情夫对情妇说： 你的眼睛似鸽子…… 你的头发如一群山羊…… 你的牙齿像一群剪了毛的绵羊…… 你的鬓角宛如石榴…… 你的双乳恰似两头小鹿…… 蜜汁和奶水从你口中流出…… 在《神秘的岁月》中，安德烈·布勒东也进行了这永恒的赞美：“在梅留辛第二声啼哭那一刻：她从她细长的腿腰跳了出来，她的肚子是八月所有的麦子，她的躯干如爆竹一般从弯曲的腰部进出火花，形似燕子的双翼；她的双乳是刚会叫时就被捉住的小貂，它们那燃烧着的嘴，犹如炽热的火炭，灿灿的光辉令人眼花缭乱。而她的双臂是溪流的双胞胎，在歌唱，在飘逸着芳香……” 男人在女人身上重新发现了明亮的星星，梦幻般的月亮，太阳的光明和洞穴的黑暗。反过来，灌木丛中的野花，美丽花园里的玫瑰也是女人。山林水泽中的仙女，楚楚动人的海妖和小妖，常出没于田野、树林、江湖、大海以及荒原之中。没有一种理论能像泛灵论这样深入人心。对于水手，大海是一个女人，它危险，背信弃义，难以征服；但他对努力降服它借有希望。那难以就范的、处女般的、险恶的、傲然耸立的大山，对于拼命想攀登上去的登山者来说也是一个女人。人们有时坚持说，这些比喻揭示了性的升华。但宁可说它们表现了与性本身同样重要的女人同自然力的密切关系。男人期望，通过占有一个女人，能够获得有别于满足本能欲望的东西：她是一个他借以征服大自然的、有特权的客体。但是其他客体也能起到这种作用。有时男人想从少男身上，重新发现海边的沙滩，柔和的黑夜，忍冬属植物的馨香。但性的插入并不是完成对大地进行物质占有的唯一方式。斯坦贝克（Steinbeck）在他的小说《致未知之神》里描述了一个男人，他选择了一块长满苔踪的岩石做他本人与自然的中介。柯莱特在小说中，写了一位年轻的丈夫，把他的爱集中在一只他特别喜欢的猫身上，因为通过这个又野又柔的动物，他把握了他妻子的过于人化的身体所不能给予他的肉欲世界。和女人一样，大海高山也可以成为他者的完美化身。它们同样在消极地反抗男人，这种难以逆料的反抗同样使他能够实现自我。它们是一个需要加以战胜的不驯服之物，一个需要加以占有的猎物。如果大海和高山是女人，那么女人对于她的情人也同样是大海和高山 但是，不论什么东西以这种方式来充当男人与世界的中介，都没有把它送给任何一个女人。男人并不仅仅满足于发现他的伙伴的性器官是他自己性器官的补充。她还必须是生命开出的神奇之花的化身，同时又要将其若明若暗的神秘之处隐匿起来。首先她要年轻健康，因为他压在所怀抱的一个活人的身上时，只有忘却死亡永驻于生命，才可以对她感到陶醉。而且他还要求得更多：即他的爱人必须美丽。女性美的理想千变万化，但某些要求也是永恒的。首先，既然女人注定要被占有，她的身体就必须表现出客体所特有的惰性与被动性。男性美是身体对活动的适应，是力量、敏捷和灵活。赋予肉体以活力的超越现象，决不应当重现于肉体本身。只有在斯巴达、法西斯意大利和纳粹德国那样的社会，女性理想才是对称的。那些社会把女人派给国家，而不是派给个人；把她专一地看做母亲，未给性冲动留下任何位置。 但是，一旦把女人作为男人的财产移交给他，他就会要求她纯粹为了肉体本身代表肉体。她的身体不是被看做主观人格的放射，而是被看做深陷于内在性的一个物：这样一个身体是不会和世界其余部分有关系的，不必对有别于自身的事物怀有希望：它应当结束它所唤起的欲望。这种要求的最质朴形式，表现在霍屯督人（theHOttentot）对于臀部肥突的维纳斯的理想中，因为屁股是身体神经最少的部位，那里的肉体是无目的的证据。东方人对于肥臀大乳女人的爱好也有类似性质。他们喜欢让这种可笑的脂肪大量增生，它的活力不靠任何设计，除纯粹存在没有任何含义。即便是在对肉欲较为敏感、具有礼节与和谐之观念的文明社会，乳房和屁股也还是讨人喜欢的部位，因为它们的风韵是多余的，不必要的。 习俗和时尚常致力于割断女性身体与任何可能的超越的联系：裹足的中国女人步履艰难，好莱坞明星的优美指甲使她们的手不能活动自如；高跟鞋、胸衣、裙撑、鲸骨衬箍和有衬架的裙子，与其说是为了突出女性身体的曲线美，不如说是为了增加它的无能。女人的身体，由于胖得成了累赘，或相反，瘦得弱不禁风，由于被不方便的穿戴及繁文得节搞得麻木不仁，于是在男人看来，它是他的财产，他的物品。梳装打扮和珠光宝气也加深了表情的这种呆滞，身体的这种僵化。装饰性服饰所起的作用十分复杂，在某些原始人当中它有一种宗教的含义，但更常见的是意味着把女人变成偶像。这是一个有歧义性的偶像！男人希望她是肉体的，她的美能有如鲜花水果之美；但他也希望她是平滑的，坚硬的，固定不变的，能有如鹅卵石一般。装饰物的作用在于，让她更直接地涉足于自然，同时又可以摆脱自然的属性；在于给颤动的生命带来一种对人工雕饰的冰冷紧迫感。 由于她的身体和花朵、裘皮、珠宝、贝壳混在了一起，女人成了植物、豹子、钻石和珍珠母。在她身上散发着百合与玫瑰的芳香。但是羽毛、丝绸、珍珠以及香料也在起着掩饰她肉体与气味的动物原始性的作用。她在嘴和面颊上涂抹化妆品，给它们戴上了十分固定的面罩；她的眼睛周围被深深涂上了黑眼圈和睫毛油，如彩虹一般五光十色；她的头发是辫着的，卷曲着的，整过形的，失去了其令人不安的植物般的神秘性。 经过梳妆打扮的女人，本性仍然存在，但受到约束，人的意志被改造得接近男人的欲望。女人的表现较为称心如意，她的本性在某种意义上既得到较大的发展，又受到较严的限制：“老练的”女人始终是理想的性爱对象。对于自然美的爱好，往往只是老练的一种华而不实的形式。莱米·德·古尔盖希望她的头发能逐渐变形，宛如小溪和草原的自由波浪；但只有做成维罗尼卡·莱克那样的发型，而不是任其蓬乱，人们抚摸它时才有水中波浪和地里庄稼之感。一个女人，越是年轻健康，她那崭新的光彩夺目的身体就越是有永久的新鲜感，就越是不需要人工雕饰。但向男人隐瞒他怀抱中猎物的肉体弱点以及危及它的退化，却永远是必要的。由于他对她的偶然性命运感到恐惧，也由于他认为她是固定不变的、必然的，男人想从女人的面容，从她的身体和四肢找到理想的确切表现。在原始人中，这种理想只是一种大众型的完美理想：一个厚嘴唇、扁鼻梁的种族，造就了一个厚嘴唇、扁鼻梁的维纳斯。在以后的一些时期，对女人采取了较为复杂的审美原则。但一个女人的相貌以及身体各部位的比例越是不自然，她就越是深受到男人的喜爱，因为她似乎摆脱了自然物的兴衰。于是我们进入了这样一个奇怪的矛盾境地：男人希望发现女人的本性，但由于他想发现的是理想化的本性，于是他注定要让女人进行人工雕饰。她不但是自然生成的，而且也是非自然生成的。这种情况不仅仅在实行“电烫”的、用发蜡及乳胶发带理好多余头发的文明中存在，在女人戴“口轮”的黑人国度、在中国和世界其他地方也同样存在。 斯威夫特（Swif）在他著名的《西莉亚领》中，痛斥了这种故弄玄虚的做法。他怀着憎恶的心情描述了卖弄风情的女人的随身用品，并不胜厌恶地想起她身体的动物性要求。他的愤慨是很不适当的，因为男人既希望女人是动物和植物，也希望她藏在一种人为的表面下面；既喜欢她出现在大海，也喜欢她出现在时髦裁缝做的衣服之中；既喜欢她的裸体，也喜欢她穿上衣服，裸露于衣服之内——正像他在人性世界发现她时那样。城里的男人寻求女人的动物性；但对于在服兵役的年轻农民来说，妓院也突出了城市的所有魔力。女人是田野和牧场，但也是巴比伦。