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Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy
This title is a journey into the interior of language. The author reveals the patriarchal construction of language and religious imagery, and offers alternatives.
470 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
14 people are currently reading
602 people want to read
About the author
Mary Daly
44 books161 followersMary Daly was an American radical feminist philosopher, academic, and theologian. Daly, who described herself as a "radical lesbian feminist", taught at Boston College, a Jesuit-run institution, for 33 years. Daly consented to retire from Boston College in 1999, after violating university policy by refusing to allow male students in her advanced women's studies classes. She allowed male students in her introductory class and privately tutored those who wanted to take advanced classes.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 25, 2015
Wow, that was hard work. Not a light bed-time read - her way of changing language to create new meanings can be confusing. At first I was put off by that - reminded me too much of inspiring facebook posts about e-motion and ill-lusion - but her playing with language is actually admirable. She has a remarkable way with words.
Still, I wouldn't put that as the main point of her book, as the description at the top seems to do. This is a book about Elemental Feminist Philosophy, indeed. It's very eighties, and sometimes goes way over the top, but sometimes that's needed to make you see reality as it is - I know I realized some points about society that I'd never before considered. It's philosophical - it could have done with a few more examples and less theoretical speak for me; I do feel I missed a lot because it was all getting too abstract to follow without putting more effort into it than I was willing to. It's definitely a book that could do with a second read.
Still, I think that this is a book worth reading for everyone, just to see 'civilization' from a very different point of view. This is a man's world, created by men for men, and the great achievement of the past century is that 'liberated' women get to play at being men too.
Someone actually smiled at me on the tube while I was reading this book - deeply unsettling for a Londoner! As I smiled back as I got off she asked "How's the book?" I said "Hard work, but very fascinating," and I stand by that. Take your time, read it, think.
Still, I wouldn't put that as the main point of her book, as the description at the top seems to do. This is a book about Elemental Feminist Philosophy, indeed. It's very eighties, and sometimes goes way over the top, but sometimes that's needed to make you see reality as it is - I know I realized some points about society that I'd never before considered. It's philosophical - it could have done with a few more examples and less theoretical speak for me; I do feel I missed a lot because it was all getting too abstract to follow without putting more effort into it than I was willing to. It's definitely a book that could do with a second read.
Still, I think that this is a book worth reading for everyone, just to see 'civilization' from a very different point of view. This is a man's world, created by men for men, and the great achievement of the past century is that 'liberated' women get to play at being men too.
Someone actually smiled at me on the tube while I was reading this book - deeply unsettling for a Londoner! As I smiled back as I got off she asked "How's the book?" I said "Hard work, but very fascinating," and I stand by that. Take your time, read it, think.
February 27, 2015
I read this book many years ago when I was studying at university. Fifty Shades of Grey, it ain't. I remember this being a challenging read, but intresting. Might be worth a revisit in the current climate.
Read
February 8, 2024Had to DNF this book
This was my introduction to Mary Daly and
I have to admit that I was excited to read this but due to Daly’s nomenclatures it was hard to decipher but ultimately it was Daly’s transmisia that made me recoil.As a queer person myself Mary’s disdain for transwomen is something I cannot align with.It is very obvious that she wasn’t in relations with the queer/trans community.
This was my introduction to Mary Daly and
I have to admit that I was excited to read this but due to Daly’s nomenclatures it was hard to decipher but ultimately it was Daly’s transmisia that made me recoil.As a queer person myself Mary’s disdain for transwomen is something I cannot align with.It is very obvious that she wasn’t in relations with the queer/trans community.
June 27, 2025
AN EXTENSION OF HER ‘ELEMENTAL’ PHILOSOPHY
She wrote in the Preface to this 1984 book, “This book is being published in the 1980s---a period of extreme danger for women and for our sister the earth and her other creatures… [This book] is a sister-work to my books ‘Beyond God the Father’ and ‘Gyn/Ecology.’ In some ways, [this book] can be seen as the parthenogenetic daughter of those earlier works… in the sense that [it] continues the Otherworld Journeys of Exorcism and Ecstasy… In case the title of this book should seem misleading to some, I hasten to explain that [this book] is not primarily a work of feminist eroticism… Chiefly, it is a Work of Feminist Erraticism. Lusty women will understand this immediately upon reading the following definitions of ‘erratic’: ‘having no fixed course… no fixed residence.’ … For Lusty women are Wanderlusty, and we are known for fierce resistance to being fixed.” (Pg. ix-xi)
She continues in the Introduction, “The title ‘Pure Lust’ is double-sided. On one side, it names the deadly dis-passion that prevails in patriarchy---the life-hating lechery that rapes and kills the objects of its obsession/aggression… Its refined cultural products, from the sadistic pornography of the Marquis de Sade to the sadomasochistic theology of Karl Barth, are on a continuum: they are essentially the same.” (Pg. 2)
After quoting Paul Tillich, she explains, “I have selected Tillich as an example precisely because of the vast scope and rigor of his thought, which sometimes inspires thinking beyond such limitations… because his work is worth studying and criticizing by those who would embark upon the adventure of dis-covering Elemental philosophy (provided, of course, that we employ his writings only as springboards for our own original analysis).” (Pg. 29)
She contends, “[Gandhi] psychically raped women, many of whom addressed him as ‘Mother.’ At the same time he conned them into behaving toward him in a ‘maternal’ way. He got the best of both deals, receiving not only the respect due to a male ‘mother’ but also the mothering… which he recognized women alone as capable of bestowing.” (Pg. 43)
She asserts, “The sado-ideology that thrives on female degradation extends itself to destruction of nature… Not surprisingly the strategy of spreading Biggest Lies is used to legitimate this torture. J.E. Lovelock, in his work ‘Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth,' exemplifies the bore-ocratic view of nature, personified as ‘Nature.’… This cockoratic assessment of Earth’s need for homo sapiens (read: men) in order to be awake and aware of herself … [and] Lovelock’s expression of lust for Gaia (the Earth Goddess) is obscene in the traditional way.” (Pg. 56-57)
She says of the doctrine of the immaculate conception, “The doctrine certainly can be read as an expression of the impotent priests’ hatred of Female Power. Indeed it represents their attempt at ontological castration of the Arch-Image, and, through her, of the Archimage.” (Pg. 104) Later, she adds, “the immaculately conceived Mary is immaculately deceived---emptied of autonomous intellect and will.” (Pg. 111)
She argues, “The purpose of the Witchcraze was to destroy women’s connections with the elements and with our Elementally Spirited Selves. Its aim, that is, was to destroy our ontological, Elemental powers. Since they themselves were incapable of… soothsaying/divining, the torturers lusted then, as they do now, to blunt and debase these powers.” (Pg. 185)
She acknowledges, “In some areas, these appear to have been movement backward among feminists in the eighties. In the mid-seventies at a women’s concern the performer’s ‘rap’ about alcoholism would have had some power of political analysis. The message would be: ‘Don’t let the man drive you to drink.’ In the early eighties often this was replaced by therapeutic confessional rap sessions, in which the musician proclaimed: ‘I have a drinking problem.’ In these cases, no agent has been Named, and the ultimate in ‘daring’ has been to proclaim oneself sick… an adequate Naming of feminism requires Naming the stoppers as well as the direction of this movement. All else is therapy, psychobabble.. self-hatred… futility.” (Pg. 205-206)
She says of anti-ERA leader Phyllis Schlafly, “As a sort of female Doctor Strangelove, Schlafly illustrates a consistency of pathology, combining machine-like callousness toward women with the same source of indifference to all of Elemental nature and to all of life, except in fetal form.” (Pg. 212)
She asserts, “This afterlife of perpetual union/copulation with the Divine Essence is an absolutely artificial operation. One could see this doctrine of happiness, then, as a confession and legitimation of male impotence. It is by no means a woman-originated doctrine. Women do not experience a need for a supernaturally stimulated eternal erection. As impotent beings, patriarchal males do have this need, which they have erected religiously as the requirement for happiness… Wild women … do not have the need to fantasize an eternal connection with an omnipotent being.” (Pg. 339-340)
She argues, “There are not many Selves [for] one women, but rather, one Self, wholly present in that woman. I am not asserting ... that Self and soul are precisely equivalent terms; in fact, they are not. My point is that one obvious consequence of the idea that a woman has one soul wholly present in all of her ‘parts,’ is that there is an essential integrity at the very core of her self.” (Pg. 345)
She explains, “The Elemental spiritual/physical context/atmosphere in which such friendships can flourish is woven/spun by the vast network of Be-Friending women, many of whom have never even met each other. Yet all are extremely important for the lives and friendships of all the others. This partially invisible network has commonly been called SISTERHOOD. In the estimation of Crones that word… is still in good standing.” (Pg. 386)
She says, “The sense of Otherness, moreover, implies a Lust for bonding with other women, for Be-Friending. A radical feminist is committed to the Race of women to our becoming and freedom. Therefore, she feels Rage at the oppression of her sisters of all races, of all ethnic groups, of all classes, of all nations. She identifies with women AS WOMEN.” (Pg. 397)
Not as interesting as her previous books (and sometimes rather mean-spirited), this book will be of keen interest to those studying Daly.
She wrote in the Preface to this 1984 book, “This book is being published in the 1980s---a period of extreme danger for women and for our sister the earth and her other creatures… [This book] is a sister-work to my books ‘Beyond God the Father’ and ‘Gyn/Ecology.’ In some ways, [this book] can be seen as the parthenogenetic daughter of those earlier works… in the sense that [it] continues the Otherworld Journeys of Exorcism and Ecstasy… In case the title of this book should seem misleading to some, I hasten to explain that [this book] is not primarily a work of feminist eroticism… Chiefly, it is a Work of Feminist Erraticism. Lusty women will understand this immediately upon reading the following definitions of ‘erratic’: ‘having no fixed course… no fixed residence.’ … For Lusty women are Wanderlusty, and we are known for fierce resistance to being fixed.” (Pg. ix-xi)
She continues in the Introduction, “The title ‘Pure Lust’ is double-sided. On one side, it names the deadly dis-passion that prevails in patriarchy---the life-hating lechery that rapes and kills the objects of its obsession/aggression… Its refined cultural products, from the sadistic pornography of the Marquis de Sade to the sadomasochistic theology of Karl Barth, are on a continuum: they are essentially the same.” (Pg. 2)
After quoting Paul Tillich, she explains, “I have selected Tillich as an example precisely because of the vast scope and rigor of his thought, which sometimes inspires thinking beyond such limitations… because his work is worth studying and criticizing by those who would embark upon the adventure of dis-covering Elemental philosophy (provided, of course, that we employ his writings only as springboards for our own original analysis).” (Pg. 29)
She contends, “[Gandhi] psychically raped women, many of whom addressed him as ‘Mother.’ At the same time he conned them into behaving toward him in a ‘maternal’ way. He got the best of both deals, receiving not only the respect due to a male ‘mother’ but also the mothering… which he recognized women alone as capable of bestowing.” (Pg. 43)
She asserts, “The sado-ideology that thrives on female degradation extends itself to destruction of nature… Not surprisingly the strategy of spreading Biggest Lies is used to legitimate this torture. J.E. Lovelock, in his work ‘Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth,' exemplifies the bore-ocratic view of nature, personified as ‘Nature.’… This cockoratic assessment of Earth’s need for homo sapiens (read: men) in order to be awake and aware of herself … [and] Lovelock’s expression of lust for Gaia (the Earth Goddess) is obscene in the traditional way.” (Pg. 56-57)
She says of the doctrine of the immaculate conception, “The doctrine certainly can be read as an expression of the impotent priests’ hatred of Female Power. Indeed it represents their attempt at ontological castration of the Arch-Image, and, through her, of the Archimage.” (Pg. 104) Later, she adds, “the immaculately conceived Mary is immaculately deceived---emptied of autonomous intellect and will.” (Pg. 111)
She argues, “The purpose of the Witchcraze was to destroy women’s connections with the elements and with our Elementally Spirited Selves. Its aim, that is, was to destroy our ontological, Elemental powers. Since they themselves were incapable of… soothsaying/divining, the torturers lusted then, as they do now, to blunt and debase these powers.” (Pg. 185)
She acknowledges, “In some areas, these appear to have been movement backward among feminists in the eighties. In the mid-seventies at a women’s concern the performer’s ‘rap’ about alcoholism would have had some power of political analysis. The message would be: ‘Don’t let the man drive you to drink.’ In the early eighties often this was replaced by therapeutic confessional rap sessions, in which the musician proclaimed: ‘I have a drinking problem.’ In these cases, no agent has been Named, and the ultimate in ‘daring’ has been to proclaim oneself sick… an adequate Naming of feminism requires Naming the stoppers as well as the direction of this movement. All else is therapy, psychobabble.. self-hatred… futility.” (Pg. 205-206)
She says of anti-ERA leader Phyllis Schlafly, “As a sort of female Doctor Strangelove, Schlafly illustrates a consistency of pathology, combining machine-like callousness toward women with the same source of indifference to all of Elemental nature and to all of life, except in fetal form.” (Pg. 212)
She asserts, “This afterlife of perpetual union/copulation with the Divine Essence is an absolutely artificial operation. One could see this doctrine of happiness, then, as a confession and legitimation of male impotence. It is by no means a woman-originated doctrine. Women do not experience a need for a supernaturally stimulated eternal erection. As impotent beings, patriarchal males do have this need, which they have erected religiously as the requirement for happiness… Wild women … do not have the need to fantasize an eternal connection with an omnipotent being.” (Pg. 339-340)
She argues, “There are not many Selves [for] one women, but rather, one Self, wholly present in that woman. I am not asserting ... that Self and soul are precisely equivalent terms; in fact, they are not. My point is that one obvious consequence of the idea that a woman has one soul wholly present in all of her ‘parts,’ is that there is an essential integrity at the very core of her self.” (Pg. 345)
She explains, “The Elemental spiritual/physical context/atmosphere in which such friendships can flourish is woven/spun by the vast network of Be-Friending women, many of whom have never even met each other. Yet all are extremely important for the lives and friendships of all the others. This partially invisible network has commonly been called SISTERHOOD. In the estimation of Crones that word… is still in good standing.” (Pg. 386)
She says, “The sense of Otherness, moreover, implies a Lust for bonding with other women, for Be-Friending. A radical feminist is committed to the Race of women to our becoming and freedom. Therefore, she feels Rage at the oppression of her sisters of all races, of all ethnic groups, of all classes, of all nations. She identifies with women AS WOMEN.” (Pg. 397)
Not as interesting as her previous books (and sometimes rather mean-spirited), this book will be of keen interest to those studying Daly.
July 3, 2022
A must read for anyone who calls themselves a feminist - or aspires to. Highly recommend with the strongest of caveats: Not all of Daly’s ideas are righteous. Most disturbing and painful is that she’s transphobic, and there are other opinions I don’t agree on. Yet the imagination that she approaches feminism with is not to be found anywhere else. This book continues to influence my forward thinking high hopes for what is possible, to fuel the outrage that can create positive change and to help me see through the veils we are unaware of wearing. If only I could report the Goodreads description of this book somewhere?! It must have been written by one of the “Dum Dums of Daddydom.” Yes the language is stunning but that’s just the jet fuel for the fire - and how brightly Daly burns on her intergalactic journey. I sawed through everything she wrote during my deep dive into feminism in the 90’s. Now that I’m culling my library 30 years on, these books I still cannot part with. Reviewers say it’s hard to read? Not at all my experience, found her much easier than conventional feminist writers who I usually find a tough go. Daly’s playful images make her extraordinary ideas roar off the page - the only other writing I can compare it to are the best of children’s authors. Her books beg for illustrations. Pure Lust is poetic, problematic and powerful!
April 4, 2011
Honestly, I could not read this book in entirety, and only skimmed for purposes of my research. I did enjoy some of her points, especially the ones about female tonkenism. But, too often her language-play makes the writing hard to follow.
January 21, 2012
Remarkable book.
May 21, 2016
Awesome!
May 18, 2022
El culmen práctico del pensamiento de Daly. Hermana casi inseparable de Gyn/Ecology.
July 4, 2024
I understand why people might have trouble with the language play, but get past the language play, and this is one of my favorite books ever.
October 16, 2025
Interesting way of viewing the world, however, plenteous jargon made this slow going.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews