Bisexual women as emblematic sexual healers and the problematics of the embodied sacred whore

L. Hutchins

The image of woman as Erotic Priestess or Goddess - sometimes seen also as Sacred Whore - is a central part of new popular sacred sex cosmologies. The Sacred Whore, as we know her, originated during the second wave of feminism during the Seventies. She was imagined as an archetype evocative of ancient times when Erotic Priestesses plied their sexual healing arts in temples dedicated to female deities. Since the 1990s an expanding range of people - from sexworkers to nurses, massage therapists, ministers, counselors, and New Age tantra practitioners - have all begun to call themselves holy prostitute or something similar; taking their place among artists, activists and philosophers redefining contemporary cultural constructs of sexuality, spirituality, and the connections between them. For centuries bisexual women, closeted or not, have been prominent in the ranks of sex educators and erotic healers since we love beyond gender and teach others to serve as societal/erotic change agents as well. However, we often work within a system of heteronormativity and male dominance which eroticizes us more as objects than as representations of divinity. These adverse conditions cause the very sacred sex practices meant to facilitate gender transcendence to instead reify gender and re-enforce constrictive roles of gender and sexual orientation. This article examines current feminist theorizing on The Sacred Whore. It analyzes (1) why she has become embodied now, especially in bi women, (2) the pros and cons of her embodiment, and (3) the prospects for developing inclusive, egalitarian erotic communities within current constraints of gender and sexual orientation that dictate an erotic healer role that is still gender-bound.[Copies are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Center. The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA]