Customer Reviews

Masculine Cross and Ancient Sex Worship

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A reprint from an 1874 manuscript, The Masculine Cross and Ancient Sex Worship is an only semi-useful essay that offers equal parts insight and dated convolution. The essay by Sha Rocco, the author of Sex Mythology, and a nom de plume believed to be Alisha Hudson, is a useful document for sex-interested historians, but mildly inaccessible by a mass audience. Its most notable strength is the intrigue any reader will begin to develop after going through the densely packed work reprinted here.

The text is essentially useful as a straightforward historical document, lacking in well founded research and applicable analysis. The book proves to be charged with sex positive ideologies and challenges to the late Victorian era push towards "sex as taboo" and hyper religious conservatism. The author's intention is to provide a clear shock to the system, and while Tess Roberts' introduction puts forth that the shock may still reverberate today, the text had little substance applicable to modern perspectives.

Rocco begins, at her strongest, with a breakdown of the cross symbolism inherent across most religions. While some examples of phallic imagery are scattered about with little coherence, the eventual shift into discussing the cross as a crude symbol begins to concretize the thrust of the text. The constant, allegedly academic, references Rocco makes throughout are part of the damage to her main points. Rocco continually quotes and references one main "scientist," Dr. Inman, an esoteric and hardly reputable source to base an entire case study on. These obscure references weaken Rocco's argument to the point of disrepute at moments.

Nonetheless, there is content to be gleaned from the text and accepted at face value as a premise for further study and interesting examinations. Rocco presents an analysis of biblical names as a case study in phallic worship. Rocco analyzes dozens of names as being either phallic or yonic worship, primarily phallic, with references to El the hard one (Elkoshi) and the erect On (Camon). This attempt to present the sexuality inherent in most religion is very successful here, when her information is straightforward and supportive of that main point, albeit questionably researched.

As Rocco begins to analyze the trinity, fish symbols, Fridays / holy days, mortars / pestles, arks and artifacts as gendered and sexualized, Rocco notes how "words and figures are adopted which are ingeniously vailed [sic] so as not to be understood by the multitude, yet significant enough to be initiated." This summarizes her entire essay's main point and explicitly presents the reader with the usefulness of her analysis. Rocco's text is the most appealing when it is concretely examining symbols such as these and showing how questionable mistruths can be taken like communion by the masses when it comes to religion.

"These metaphoric figures are so infinitely varied," Rocco describes of the crosses and intricate symbols of religions, "that only the learned in them will be apt to recognize their hidden meaning." This elitism in which Rocco posits that those "in the know" hold the truth to these grand mysteries and cover-ups is deflated by Rocco's own text. This work straddles the fence between colloquial analysis and academic research, and never quite ends up on either side, making each piece of evidence of the "learned" that much more questionable.

Historically, the author's challenges to religious ideologies are interesting, but would require far more in depth analysis to prove useful for a modern examination. Rocco's motivations and true knowledge base are both questionable, but her attempt to bring together many different religions and spiritual beliefs adds weight to the "sex worship" analysis, and is something that is hard to find in texts today.

Her ability to combine many minor elements of religious mythology makes this book an interesting springboard for further research. The most interesting and useful element to the text is the structure of her arguments, one that should be pursued and applied by more thorough and well researched modern day historians looking to break the religious mythos hegemony.

For those interested in breaking down religious mythology and examining ancient sexuality, this text can provide a starting point which, while not the strongest, is an easy and dense work that the reader will find provides them with even more questions and insights to begin to examine.

Very boring book. All she talks about is a handful of clients that are as boring as she is. Save your money.