Content Warning: This post discusses sexual assault and may be triggering for some. 

Theme: Magicians Reporting for Duty

Week 16: in which we acknowledge the third unbearable crime of patriarchy--r@pe--and speak the Goddess prayer that transmutes it

Beautiful Magicians,

This is the fourth Notes from the Field on the five crimes of patriarchy and the prayers that heal them.
The five crimes are:

1. theft of birthright dignity
2. being silenced
3. r@pe
4. greed
5. murder

It’s a hard list to read. And today’s prayer, to heal the crime of r@pe, is particularly hard to read. But right now, everyone is talking about this crime after reading the CNN expose of a dark web underbelly called R@pe Academy, where men learn how to drug their wives, r@pe them, and avoid detection.

We know this happened in France, thanks to the astonishingly brave Giselle Pelicot whose husband not only drugged and abused her but found dozens of ordinary men in town to come and abuse her, too. For years. She brought them to court and they were all found guilty and received prison sentences. Maybe we could tell ourselves this was an aberration. This was one very bad guy with very bad neighbors.

But now we know incontrovertibly that it’s a pandemic. It’s rampant. It’s everywhere. Because 62 million men visited r@pe academy in February. One month. 28 days. 62 million men.

So, hard as it is to talk about r@pe, we must. Hard as it is to write about, I must.

Because r@pe is the core horror of patriarchy.

Last week, I quoted one verse in Deuteronomy about destroying the presence of the Goddess in Canaan. Today, I went online and asked if there were verses in the bible about rape. And the response is sickening. There are dozens. Each one more egregious than the one before.

We can start with Lot who confronts a mob demanding to sexually abuse his male guests, who the bible tells us were really angels. Instead, Lot says, “I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” Genesis 19 6-8

Online commentaries have the audacity to present this as proof of the Hebraic commitment to hospitality! Yee Goddesses!

There are dozens more verses about rape. In general, the patriarchal law says that if a man r@pes a woman (who in that age was definitely a girl), he has to marry her! That’s his punishment!? Not a word about the poor girl.

So it seems we not only have not healed this crime, it’s gotten worse.

Case in point, just a few weeks ago, the Israeli military dropped charges against five soldiers accused of gang-r@ping a Palestinian detainee despite the surveillance footage of the crime. Following this dismissal, Sari Bashi of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said the decision effectively gives the soldiers a license to r@pe as long as the victim is Palestinian.

I didn’t want to write this newsletter. But given the very current news about r@pe, I have to.

This 6-part newsletter series began on week 13 when I wrote about the radical differences between a matriarchal society based on reverence and a patriarchal structure based on power.

On week 14, I listed the five crimes, wrote briefly about the first—theft of our birthright dignity--and offered a prayer to heal that theft.

week, week 15, I wrote about the second crime, being silenced.

Your responses inspire me to keep going. It’s powerful to hear that I’m not the only one horrified by the crimes of patriarchy. And determined to do something to restore reverence to our world.

The Third Crime of Patriarchy—r@pe

As the property of fathers and husbands, women became possessions that could be given, sold, or traded to other men.

To ensure male children belong to one man and deserve their place in the male lineage with their father’s name and right of inheritance, a woman’s value was solely in her virginity.

In patriarchal conflicts and wars, rape became a powerful weapon because it humiliated the men involved.

Rape is still rampant in our world with 1 of 6 boys sexually abused before the age of 16, 1 in 2 adult women experiencing sexual abuse, and 1 in 5 experiencing rape. Rape has been and continues to be a weapon of war.

Patriarchal culture is rape culture.

The horror and pervasiveness of this crime makes this prayer all the more necessary and important.

This is my version of a Goddess prayer that honors the three faces of the Original god—the Goddess, who is always honored in all her life-giving and life-ending forms: maiden, mother, and crone.

Maiden
Hail sweet maidens, full of graces,
our________________
(This line changes for each of the five crimes)

Mother
Blessed are we among witches and women
and blessed are the fruits of our wombs

Crone
Holy First Crone, Queen of the Living and the Dead,
pray us, dream us, sing us, anoint us
now and at the hour we lay our beautiful bodies down
in your beautiful body to be received, renewed, and returned once more

Now insert the line that heals the crime of r@pe:

Hail sweet maidens, full of graces
our sovereign bodies are revered once more

It’s really that simple.

Reverence for women, for our life-giving bodies is reverence for all life. And reverence for the bodies of women is not impossible. It was the way we lived for tens of thousands of years before the emergence of religion.

“In all the archeological finds of the Neolithic era, there exists no evidence of war, violence or cruelty in any of the ancient cities. There are no images of warriors, no scenes of battle, no lethal weapons such as spears or swords, and no depiction of captives or slaves. There is an absence of military fortifications. We can therefore surmise that these people, who for 35,000 years revered the Goddess, were peaceful and egalitarian.”
Demetra George, Mysteries of the Dark Moon

Can we imagine a world where men actually REVERE women? We have to. Just this one thing, reverence for women, reverence for women’s bodies, changes everything.

So please speak this prayer. Aloud. And if you feel inspired to expand it, please do.

Next week I’ll write about the fourth crime, greed.

Until then, I hope this powerful prayer—our sovereign bodies are revered once more—restores your faith and guides you and everyone you love, to move closer and closer to a post-patriarchal world of reverence.

Life is Fragile, Handle with Reverence.
Reverence for women. Reverence for women's sovereign bodies. 

Janet
website: janetconner.com

blog (all newsletters): janetconner.com/blog

facebook: janet conner prayer artist

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Your mental health matters. Resources: RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network): Operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) and an Online Crisis Chat for confidential 24/7 support.