Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth and the Politics of the Body

by Riane Eisler

Riane Eisler shows us how history has consistently promoted the link between sex and violence—and how we can sever this link and move to a politics of partnership rather than domination in all our relations.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Sexuality, History, Gender, Philosophy, Mythology

838 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Riane Eisler is internationally known for her bestseller The Chalice and The Blade, now in 26 foreign editions and celebrating its 30th anniversary with a new 2017 epilogue in its 57th US printing, as well as for other award-winning books. She keynotes conferences worldwide, with venues including the United Nations General Assembly and the US Department of State. She is President of the Center for Partnership Studies and has received many honors, including honorary Ph.D. degrees, the Alice Paul ERA Education Award, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's 2009 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, and is featured in the award-winning book Great Peacemakers as one of 20 leaders for world peace, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King.

She can be contacted at center@partnershipway.org.
Her websites are http://www.centerfor partnership.org, http://caringeconomy.org,
and http://www.rianeeisler.com

Reviews

[Artur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me begin with a series of quotes that I (and science) do not necessarily agree with.

1. To maintain relations of domination and submission, the natural bonding of the give and take of sexual pleasure and love between the female and male halves of humanity has to be distorted. Where does this authoritative statement come from? There's no footnote included so I assume it's an author's subjective feeling. Also, isn't it possible for regular, non-coercive relationships to engage in domination/submission scenarios – and also interchangeably – to gain that sexual pleasure the author refers to and simultaneously uphold higher emotions, such as love?

2. For while some of what it [the modern pornography industry] markets is erotica – that is, materials depicting the giving and receiving of erotic pleasure – it tends to dehumanize both women and men and to confuse sexual pleasure with the sadomasochistic inflicting or experiencing of pain. Again, no reference. Also, I'm not a psychologist but the inflicting or experiencing of pain by both men and women might, in some cases, create exactly what the author says it can't, namely, the sexual pleasure. If by sexual pleasure we mean the triggering of certain regions of the brain, such as the hypothalamus or orbitofrontal cortex, that produce certain hormones (e.g. oxytocin, vasopressin) responsible for the experiencing of pleasure (vide: Principles of Neural Science), then some people 'get off' precisely by engaging in this kind of activity. Also, I think the author mistakes the cause for the outcome, for any pornographic content undergoes the same socio-economic process of supply and demand: there wouldn't be any pornographic content, if the people didn't want it. I wouldn't go so far as to say, then, that it's the cause of producing sexually non-traditional behaviour. Of course, it amplifies its proliferation but it's another matter.

3. For there is mounting evidence from archaeological excavations that for thousands of years women and men lived in societies where the norm not only for sexual relations but for all relations – from those between parents and children to those between humans and nature – was not domination and exploitation. Where is this mounting evidence? Again, no footnote. (To be clear, there are footnotes in the book, but the author seems to have missed them precisely in all those places in which she makes such bold claims.) What's more important, paleo-anthropological and archaeological evidence suggests something to the contrary (vide: Sick Societies, Homicide, The Adapted Mind, Biological Bases of Human Social Behaviour, Noble Savages). There has always been the overwhelming majority of societies that subscribed to the dominator model. And how would this romantic harmony between humans and the rest of the world even look like? In our evolutionary history, we certainly weren't herbivores, for we evolved teeth and gestational system necessary to handling (raw) meat. Also, there has always been an exploitation of nature on our part but since we lacked technology, the nature could maintain the state of homeostasis. German philosopher, Max Scheler, called us constitutively ill animals, because, unlike other animals, we don't have any natural predispositions to get by and not disturb the equilibrium; due to our mental faculties, we exploit the nature to the point of obscene.

4. Eisler's claim that the Augustan myth of a sexually and politically doomed humanity is unique to Christian tradition is stretched to the limits of validity. I'd risk a thesis that St. Augustine was rather mellow in comparison with other patristic writers, such as Tertullian or Jerome. Also, medieval textbooks were full of prohibitions and punishments for not observing these prohibitions (vide: Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe).

5. Ours will not be a linear course, either in time sequences or in themes. For sacred pleasure is above all a book about connections…. This reminds me of a Douglas Adams' novel-based TV-series, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Funnily enough, the author keeps hippie-talking about holistic approaches and interconnections throughout the book, so my initial reaction is only amplified.

The thing is, I generally agree with the author's point of view, even though it might look like I don't. There still is a problem of male dominance in the modern world. We don't need to, however, apply our wishful-thinking to change historical facts in order to alleviate and annihilate the issues that we face these days. I also agree that an equal partnership is needed to discard the dominator model and create an equal society with equal opportunities. The book is very Freudian in that it repeatedly tries to ascribe some non-conscious repressive mechanisms to us, which is a bit far-fetched since there's zero evidence to support this thesis (vide: Psychology Gone Wrong). Anything used to support it is only conjectural and belong to the realm of values, not of facts. Interpretive framework of phallic and vaginal representations is also a conjecture and cannot be extrapolated as representative of clear-cut facts.

Eisler's opinion about pornography as being derogatory to women and sex is very narrow, because the whole industry nowadays is content-specific and, as stated above, is subject to the economic law of demand and supply. Also, women, just as much as men, have to give their consent to star in a pornographic shoot. Non-consensual, coercive sex is considered an aberration and is subject to punishment under the criminal law.

In general, I recommend the book as it's very important to overall awareness of our modern word. The author makes her case most vividly when there are statistics and police-reports concerned. One of them, cited in the book, that every 6 minutes a woman is raped in the U.S., still remains valid, which is most frightening. That's what should strike the reader in the book; and that's what needs the immediate repair.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a very important book, which is a must read for every woman and man who are not happy with the dominators and the pain they have caused for centuries. I like the terminology she’s been using, dominator and partnership models. I hope we can achieve to have a kind society based on partnership and equality soon.These values are going to bring up the peace to our planet naturally and eventually.

[Katherine Ripley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book completely changed how I view the world. It provides a broader context within which I could connect so many things I'd already learned about: feminism, feminist politics, social justice, racism, post-modernism, the list goes on. When it comes down to it, every single thing that's wrong with the world can be connected back to the theories and arguments in this book. I think this should be required reading for every college student.

[Elizabeth Magill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a great while, you read a book that shifts your entire perspective—a book that changes how you live in the world, because it changes how you perceive reality. Riane Eisler’s Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myths, and the Politics of the Body—New Paths to Power and Love was such a book for me. This book simultaneously made more sense than any cultural analysis I’ve ever read and blew my mind. It is a book that allowed me to further reclaim the feminine aspects of spirituality and to understand biology, culture (from prehistory to the present day), politics, pleasure, pain, and sexuality in ways that felt both new and ancient, as if the knowledge had been waiting for me to discover it, buried somewhere between conscious and unconscious thought. This book is now a cornerstone of my feminist understanding.
Eisler presents two modes of organizing society that can be traced back to prehistory: the dominator model (in which a few people hold power via fear and violence—a society based on pain) and the partnership model (in which men and women work together as equal partners—a society based on pleasure). By presenting evidence of prehistoric societies that modeled partnership and valued female sexuality and revered it as sacred, Eisler lays the groundwork for her cultural transformation theory. This theory, which the author introduced in her book The Chalice and the Blade, posits that “…many beliefs and practices we today recognize as dysfunctional and antihuman stem from a period of great disequilibrium in our phrehistory when there was a fundamental shift from partnership to dominator model ascendancy.” (p. 11) Eisler believes that our time is one in which it is possible to shift from a dominator model to a partnership model. To do so, we must understand the full context of our current dominator society and the ways it functions, both consciously and unconsciously.

At 400 pages and full of references, the book is not a quick or an easy read, but it is a vital one. Again and again, I underlined passages that spoke to the truth of our cultural existence. Here is one I found at random, just now: “…the truth is that our entire culture is permeated by the erotization of cruelty and brutality to women, so much so that we have learned to take it for granted.” (p. 233). Eisler makes her case for this so thoroughly, and places it so exactly in the context of both history and prehistory, that I feel like singing those lines from Amazing Grace: I once was blind, but now I see.

Some of what I see I was already seeing, of course—magazines and movies and billboards and ads in which women and violence and sex form an unholy trinity. But some I didn’t know—brutal songs from the military, for example, that call women bloody names and keep men dominating the world by linking the erotic with killing, particularly the killing of women. A “classic” cover of a porn magazine in which a woman’s upper half is coming out of a meat grinder. And that’s just our current culture, just a few fragments of what Eisler presents as evidence of the dominator culture in which we all live.

Despite the often depressing evidence of our current state—and, indeed, the state of cultural affairs for thousands of years—Sacred Pleasure is a hopeful book. It is a book which believes in the possibility of returning to our partnership roots, of seeing both sex and the female form as truly sacred—not just some of the time, not just in conjunction with reproduction under a certain set of religious restrictions which keep dominator cultural patterns dominant and keep women and sex subservient to male power structures—but all the time. Because a woman is naturally endowed with the sacred power to make her own sexual choices, in conjunction with a partner who respects her as an equal in the ancient dance of work and play.

Eisler organizes the book in two parts. The first, “How Did We Get Here?” examines our prehistory, in which Goddess worship was not a pagan thing, full of witchcraft and sorcery, but a natural thing—as natural as the moon and sun and sex. She discusses the partnership cultures of the past, such as the Minoans, who had a partnership culture that including sexual equality. And she emphasizes that in Minoan art “…we have a vivid picture of a highly sensual, erotic, pleasure-oriented way of living inextricably intertwined with the sacred.” (p.83) The Minoans—and other partnership cultures—were conquered by nomads who left their lands when the environment became too inhospitable for survival. And so it went—violent cultures in which women were subservient, pain was linked with sex and the sacred rather than pleasure, and to mention the word Goddess was to sound like a heretic conquered peaceful cultures in which sex and women were revered. And in the conquering, sex, the sacred, and woman’s role in society was rewritten. As Eisler traces this cultural shift, she draws on the work of historians, archeologists, biologists, psychologists, theologians, and other experts—in short, Eisler presents the history of sex and the sacred and human experience from a perspective that is as broad as it is deep.

In Part Two, “Where Are We and Where Do We Go From Here?” the author discusses the shift toward a partnership society that we have been undergoing for the last few hundred years, as women have slowly gained the right to vote, own property, hold jobs, and control our own bodies. Here, she discusses matters that are vitally important to our current cultural state—the definition of masculinity and the ways in which a dominator culture hurts and stunts men, the myths we tell our daughters that keep them searching for Prince Charming, power and politics and the female body, and the urgent need to create new myths and rituals to support spiritual and sexual growth and healing. Eisler’s conclusion is that to change our society, to return to our partnership roots, we need spiritual courage and a shift in consciousness. We need an awakening.

The good news is, we are waking up—and have been for quite some time. To read Sacred Pleasure is to participate in that awakening, to honor ideas that have long been buried, and to understand—on a deep level—the spiritual and sexual significance of the work that lies ahead.

[Elena Skoko · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gave me the clue to so many questions I had unanswered about female and male sexuality, about traditions and history of our species. Though in some points a feminist twist seems to shout out the anger and overshadow the presumed neutrality of a scholar's work, I like it. I didn't like some other statements used as facts, like the overpopulation theory, the family planning (from the one-sided western perspective) or the AIDS epidemics, while there is too much controversy about it to simply take them as facts. Also, being the author a holocaust survivor, many times in the book we are reminded about the atrocities suffered by the Jews, while some other ethic groups suffering abuse are mentioned with less emphasis or unmentioned. Yet, my conscience was enriched by so much new knowledge and fresh points of view that I felt a genuine pleasure in reading it. I highly recommend this book to every woman who likes to search for why and because of her feeling there is more about sex and pleasure then the society wants us to think. I took off one star for the feeling that this splendid work is still not free from bias of different kind. I left four stars because of the amount of interesting and documented perspectives that are being offered that can inspire further research and considerations in many fields. (You can skip the last 40% of the book)

[Katja Vartiainen · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5 stars. This book is very important. When I was reading Simone de Beauvoir's 'The Second Sex'' at 19 years old, I was asking myself, well, how did we get here?And Eisler's book shows us how our world of double standard and domination culture, including sexuality came to be.

It's a great analysis of the western religious heritage and it's influences. If you ever wondered how it's affected to us having images of tortured martyrs, and a mislocated father figure, you should read this book. We are in Europe suppose to be proud of our Greek heritage, but as I learned it was a highly excluding society with cruel traditions. personally I've never been interested in the Greek mythology that much, maybe because it hasn't rang true?

There are really interesting tales, and it well build a picture of how our sexuality has been molded by societies an religions made to serve a few, and how this has lead mostly to the mistreatment of women, children and in the end men themselves. It describes the absurd shift from pleasure to pain, in many aspects.

The end is a bit dull and outdated with lists of people and groups active in making a change. But i appreciate that it tries to find a solutions and much needed alternatives.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is dense, and it's taking me forever to read it, but that is not a criticism! Even if I stopped reading now, about 1/3 of the way through, I would know more than I've learned over years of feminist and feminist spiritual studies. Well-researched and diplomatic, this book offers real anthropological answers to the question that other books, documentaries, etc. left me with: how? How did everything "get this way"? Was it because women are physically weaker than men? Was it because of some human nature I wasn't sure I even believed in? Eisler answers these questions and so much more. And her terms "dominator" and "partnership" societies are very useful in explaining the issues. I can't wait to finish the book!

[Crystal Morningstar Kinistino · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would be immensely difficult to convey how profoundly this book affected me. I had to read this book in increments as it was heavy subject matter, however the author, a Holocaust survivor, outlines the importance of working together in partnership as opposed to the system of domination we have been inundated by for thousands of years, which has been a system of avarice, malice, and harrowing violence, especially for the oppressed classes and for women and children. What the author does best is to lay the groundwork for what the solution to this problem would look like, by describing in depth the examples of previous partnership societies whose lives were much more peaceful in comparison. What struck me was how this book was written in the nineties, yet how relevant this subject is as we face a crisis among the sexes and under capitalism, which tells us about the price of everything and the value of nothing. It's about how these systems of domination from political to familial permeate our lives on all levels. It speaks of the power structures of systemic and institutional abuse versus the power at the heart of the people, and how we are now in urgent need of change as we witness a system and environment on the verge of collapse. This book altered my way of viewing the world in such a way that it made sense of the most senseless aspects of life and humanity. It didn't necessarily describe why people are so cruel, as it depicted the root of what leads to these cruelties in people and societies, and the ways in which we can individually and collectively work to overcome this problem in order that we might have more peace and partnership among us in our lives and in our environment by shifting our focus and way of living to one of pleasure rather than pain.

[Jason Carr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book about 18 years ago. There are ideas in the book that I still think about. The idea that there is inherent risk in a society that does not face sufficient survival stress. These societies often develop along a relatively more egalitarian, nurturing bent.

Societies on the edge are forced to innovate and develop a more dominating, authoritarian, aspect which gives them a competitive military edge.

Eventually, the dominator societies drive out the nurturing societies.

Also fascinating is the Middle Age drive of the Catholic Church to wipe out women healers by branding them witches (see The Malleus Maleficarum). This effort was motivated to instill their male healers who were largely ineffective. In the process, literally thousands of years of wisdom regarding the healing properties of local flora was lost. The cost to western civilization-immeasurable.

Not perfect, but one of those books that has the potential to permanently shift your conceptions.

[Hiba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally I'm done after months and months of reading not because it is boring; it's everything but, it's because of the load of studying and work I had and I wanted to savour every page. Sacred Pleasure is overwhelming, captivating and mind-blowing. It traces how our concepts of sex and pleasure have changed throughout thousands of years from that of partnership to that of dominance and how that change have influenced and is influenced by politics, religion, human relationships among other things. It calls for a return to a partnership that will bring us a happier and more balanced life.

[Moyokoyani Armando · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro es una de las grandes maravillas que he tenido oportunidad de leer este año; muy bien documentado, derrumbó bellamente un par de supuestos de los que yo partía para explicar la imposición de la teología androgénica-violenta sobre la adoración de la mujer y la perspectiva del sexo como educación y comunión con el cosmos alrededor del 4000 a.C.

Las primeras tres cuartas partes del libro son una maravilla, Eisler merece todos mis respetos, es una escritora brillante y con un excelente manejo del lenguaje a pesar de ser historiadora-antropóloga; generalmente estos libros son complejos pero Riane tiene un estilo simple, fluido, y excelentemente bien fundamentado; difiero con su interpretación del mundo griego, y me parece que hace mal uso de antropólogos modernos para explicar la cotidianeidad de Atenas, considero que si hubiese consultado directamente las fuentes (y hay muchas) tendría una perspectiva más amplia.

Parte de la perspectiva feminista y propone un nuevo modelo de interacción masculino-femenino, con el cual concuerdo enteramente. Sin embargo, Riane no está exenta de las críticas moralinas propias de su cultura y se suelta muchas veces en críticas derivadas de su interpretación de lo masculino y lo femenino, criticando a culturas lejanas desde la perspectiva moderna. Considero estas críticas (como su queja por la no aplicación de los derechos humanos en culturas antiguas) totalmente fuera de lugar; empero, esto sucede únicamente al final del libro, todo su desarrollo anterior me parece genial.

Sin duda, un libro ampliamente recomendable.

[Elizabeth Hoffmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will become a classic on my shelves. I thoroughly enjoyed the journey through history to learn the roots of our misconceptions within our cultural norms and how narrow "norms" are anyway. I have to say her ability to carry a reader from place to place as well as idea to idea is seamless and overall Eisler creates a plausible, radical, equitable vision for a possible future cultural structure. One that would not include such violence, misogyny and racism as the current vision of the world contains nor would people so readily believe this "developed" culture is the inevitable product of evolution.
I don't want to delve too deeply into the concepts in the book as Eisler explains them so well, I will not do them justice. The themes involved aside from sex, myth, and politics include our cultural norms of violence, intersectionality, racism, homosexuality & heterosexuality, trauma, natural disasters, religion, spirituality, agrarian and pastoralist culture differences, partnership model and dominator-dominated model.
It's absolutely worth the read! This book has changed the way I look at myself, the world around me and my most interpersonal relationships.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

a 1995 book envisioning a revolution in human relationships of all sorts which may be more hopeful than I am that such a change is forthcoming, but which does such a good job of analyzing the problems that I couldn't put it down. Her knowledge and research in archeology, history, science, religion, and many other areas are extremely informative. And her division between the dominator-dominated model in which we have been experiencing life for the last 2500 years at least, and the partnership model which she posits existed earlier, and to which she thinks we can recreate, is devastatingly clear and useful. I think she falters a bit in her understanding of how people can move in and out of fantasy worlds (from sex to literature to film), but I am also much more aware of ways in which the dominator paradigm is present where previously not noticed.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sex is politics - and not only in White House, mind you. In her masterpiece Eisler invites reader to a thought provoking journey throughout cultural history. This book is about sex and how sexuality, especially women's sexuality has been abused for centuries (but hey, can you actually abuse a woman without abusing her man?) and how politics of the body affect our everyday lives on most basic levels. At parts it was pretty discusting to read the book and one might feel like never ever having sex again (joke!) while exploring all the actual brutality we have socialized to consider as a norm. Still, I would recommend to read Eisler and certainly BEFORE you head to 50 shades of... smth.

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book exceeded my expectations.

It has helped me to identify dominator and partnership models of interacting.

It has helped me to see that there can be another way.

It has helped empower me to speak up on behalf of women and partnership societies everywhere.

Though a bit dry and academic at times, the way it has shifted my view has been extraordinary.

I would absolutely recommend.

[Sharon Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timely, relevant, revelatory. If you want answers to the situation we are in, well it starts in the Neolithic. (I have said personally, on more than one occasion.) I will reread this one, maybe memorize some of it. Reason for hope, much to do.

[Bethany Beeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to know why the world is the way it is? Want to understand how it’s been taken off the tracks for 4,000 years? Want to know how to heal it? Bring peace, hope, and the environment back? Read this. ❤️

[Jerris Hogue · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very different way to look at male/female sexuality that reflects a more equitable experience for partners

[Sunganani · Rating 5 out of 5]

everybody should read this book so that they can understand how gender roles and all that nonsense came about and how we can change it. I loved it.

[Steig · Rating 5 out of 5]

a heavy, thorough but interesting read I had for my class on Human Sexuality

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

more good stuff from Eisler, the end of this is more hopeful than The Chalice and the Blade, but the new paths are still not clear to me

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important books I have ever read.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book, excellent research into the history of the building of our society as it is today with the added question of 'how to we proceed from here'.

[R.L. Terrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a revelation. With scientific accuracy Riane Eisler shows us the path from patriarchy to partnership.

[Trudie Barreras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riane Eisler’s “Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth, and the Politics of the Body” is an extremely detailed and thorough follow-up of her classic “The Chalice and the Blade”. The present book expands greatly on her basic theme discussed in the former, that there are two fundamental ways of organizing human culture: based on a partnership or a dominator model. The latter, of course, is the familiar hierarchical arrangement which seems to have existed in most human communities during Neolithic times, because by then pastoral people from the less hospitable areas of the globe invaded the agrarian regions around the Mediterranean and Old Europe. These invasions occurred in consecutive waves, and eventually the “might makes right” hierarchical (and usually patriarchal) ethos overwhelmed the more egalitarian and matrilineal cultures who typically practiced female-centered Goddess worship and a more cooperative or partnership-oriented cultural ethos.

The title of this book expresses the author’s contention that the earlier partnership cultures, for which she coined the world “gylanic” to signify the linking of feminine and masculine values, were far more egalitarian, less warlike, and developed the technology of peace (arts, agriculture, architecture, and so on) rather than of war. In addition, (and this is the real point of the book), the dominator model extended not only to taking over the lands and property of others, but established violent and oppressive modes of interaction all the way from gender and sexual relationships in the family to the structure of society. Myths (religious precepts) which deny autonomy and sexual pleasure to women, establishing the “blame and shame” morality with which we are all familiar even into present times, also sanctified other dominator abuses such as war and the rape not only of fellow humans but of the environment.

Eisler “leaves no stone unturned” when it comes to discussing the explicit responsibility of the major world religions in sustaining the dominance of men by subjugating and devaluing women, children, and "lesser" peoples. She uses terminology which I have long ago learned not to include in my reviews because they serve as “triggers”. However, suffice it to say that if the reader is looking for a comprehensive discussion of topics of sexual oppression and abuse within the current cultural framework, and how this is directly related to other social ills such as poverty, disease, and ecological catastrophe, this book is extremely thorough and completely accurate. Although originally published in 1995, the present Kindle edition renders it more than accessible. I recommend it highly.

[Andrea Brantomio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo è un libro importante che si pone l’ambizioso compito di ridisegnare il nostro futuro.
Se la crisi della politica è anzitutto la morte dell’utopia , perché senza utopia fare politica diventa nel migliore dei casi tecnocrazia, nel peggiore commercio della cosa pubblica, sfidando il modello della “dominanza” e della patriarchia, Eisner indica una nuova utopia possibile, quella della partnership.

Il libro parte da una suggestiva lettura storica, che suggerisce una cultura più orientata alla “partnership” e più equilibrata nei rapporti tra i sessi ( se non apertamente matriarcale), soppiantata con violenza dalla cultura patriarcale e violenta delle tribù indoeuropee all’inizio della nostra storia.
La tradizione greco-romana che riteniamo la parte nobile della nostra cultura viene dimostrata essere profondamente intrisa di misoginia, violenza e culto del dolore.
Questa analisi suona straordinariamente suggestiva quando fotografa nel culto cristiani il culto della sofferenza, che trasforma il piacere in colpa e la donna in un essere demoniaco.

Nella nostra società contemporanea, dove lo slogan “no pain no gain” esprimere in termini aggiornato il valore mitivo che ancora diamo al dolore, Eisler ci chiede di osare e di volgere i nostri sforzi verso una cultura del piacere, positiva e equilibrata nei rapporti verso i sessi.

Il confronto tra la rappresentazione quotidiana sella violenza a cui viene esposto chiunque, appena capace di intendere, e la repressione dell’atto sessuale, suprema espressione di piacere e di creazione, è una immagine potente.

Il libro è ricco di spunti su cui discutere.
Alcune interpretazioni possono essere forzate nella misura in cui situazioni vengono forzate dentro un sistema culturale, ma mai banali.
Probabilmente una esposizione più stringata avrebbe reso un migliore servizio alla potenza delle teorie espresse.

[Ladyfilosopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A harbinger in its day, of the times we live in today
This is the 4th of her books that I have read, I started with her latest, went back to the earlier The Real Wealth of Nations, realised that I might want to start with her initial groundbreaking work "The Chalice and the Blade", which preceded Sacred Pleasure.

My copy is alive with highlighted lines, pencilled discussions in the margins and the random blank pages, along with annotated endnotes and index. (e.g. I added 24 missing occurrences for the term RAPE? though mentioned, FGM had no index voice P.301? Sacred Pleasures but ecstasy was missing in the index, p 12 , 17; personal passion with labyrinths added p. 81; 'sharing' missed 5 mentions; trance p 15, 189-92...)
I purchased several books from both endnote references and bibliography.
Yes, it took longer than I had expected to read this book, and was a learning experience every step of the way.
I had to keep checking the publishing date; it was as if she were describing the current events of 2019 and 2020. Ecological and cultural.
The book is well researched. The science arising soon after corroborates what she describes about the brain, psyche, societal ills and potential for well being.
Sacred Pleasure inspires to learn more about our HER-story (called pre-his-story by androcratic societies). Women have a source to acknowledge that spirit that stirs in us. The generosity of soul and body that has been the envy of men, "Womb-envy" as I have called it for over 30 years. Creation is sacred. The Earth is our body's Mother, and we are alive thanks to women honoring, sharing, weaving and, as of this latter period, managing to survive androcratic torment.
Any aspect of this book that feels harsh, is NO harsher than the reality of what she dares to bring to the fore. Her razor lawyer-honed logic finely fillets the bio- psycho-social strata to be scrutinised.
The book stands the test of time. Science confirms so much of what she offers us to consider. For us? "Better late than never" to read this and do what we can to shift away from gratuitous pain in service of harmful socialisation.

[Chloe Noland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much about the history of humanity reading this book. I really enjoyed the linear history the author laid out, starting with the ancient Goddess societies of earlier cultures, where sex was a sacred act and the vagina was a sacred object, all the way up past the Christian doctrine which led to our contemporary cultures of sexism, domination, pain and power. What was most interesting, I think, was to find that this cultural shift usually takes place during periods of natural scarcity or emergency, such as a global pandemic or climate change. Sound familiar? Anyone wanting to get more in touch with their basic creativity, sexuality, and psychosis outside of the context of our homogenic stereotypes should check this out.

[Isabel Davison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A massive improvement on the perspective-altering Chalice and the Blade, as it is far more grounded in reality with a stronger philosophical and practical framework for visualizing and enacting the partnership model. This work has created irrevocable change in me as an artist, feminist, and person. A read that should be essential for all people. I would love an update on this book with recent statistics.

[Henry Le Nav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in the 90s, the events of course, are outdated, but the principles and theories still hold. I enjoyed the book and hope the events of today November 7, 2020, specifically the election of Kamala Harris to the Vice Presidency of the US, is a step in bringing about the partnership future for which Ms. Eisler and I so fervently hope.

Excellent book even if outdated.