That's a pretty glib statement at first and sounds a bit like a joke. It is a joke, sort of , but that doesn't mean I don't think it's true. I didn't have enough space in the Facebook comments box to qualify my statement properly, so that's what this essay is about. I'm thinking of adding pictures too. (Why not - I like pictures!)
Just as an aside - does anybody else find Facebook to be the world's most amazing consumer of time? I'm beginning to think it may be evil.
Boys and Girls, Chimps and Bonobos
Have you ever noticed the different ways very young children play. At a really young age (crawling into toddling) they tend to play individual games next to each other, but as they learn to communicate boys and girls start to fall into different styles of playing. Boys become competitive and girls become co-operative.
This is an appalling generalisation because on an individual level it doesn't actually work, but the subject is so big I've got to use averages. I'm assuming - and with good reason - that my readers have the intelligence to see the difference between, for instance, "male" and "a boy".
So why should this be? The nature/nurture debate rages on; personally I think it's a little bit of both. The fact remains, though, that by the time they start infant school (3-4) girls play together and boys play against each other.
Let's apply this to our own societies which have been highly patriarchal in character across a vast history of thousands of years. Obviously competition becomes the norm and violence, which could be considered the ultimate form of competition, is widespread.
We could wonder how much different our societies would be if we'd been matriarchal from the start. Actually, we don't have to wonder because we've got a perfect comparative example right in front of us: chimps and bonobos.
I'm assuming that everyone knows what a chimpanzee is. Well, a bonobo - which is endangered and only lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo - is a smaller, slimmer species of chimp with longer legs, more individualistic facial features and a greater tendency to stand upright. Physically they're very similar. Socially they could hardly be more different.Chimp society is male-dominated and competitive. Extreme violence to males outside the group is normal and violence as a conflict-resolution is common within the group. Bonobos are female-dominated, co-operative and egalitarian as well as very family oriented. They also have conflicts but deal with them in a completely different way: they have sex.
Bonobos have sex for any and every reason they, or we, can think of. They use sex as a greeting, as reconciliation, as conflict-resolution and tension-relief and, frankly, because it's fun. They don't discriminate in terms of age or gender, group sex is normal and permanent pairings are non-existent. You can usually spot a female bonobo by the huge, swollen vulva.
An example (which I think I'm plagiarising from Rev. Ivan Stang) would give a good demonstration of the differences between chimp and bonobo societies:
Imagine a small tribe of chimpanzees at rest. Now throw a large bunch of bananas into their midst. Immediately there's tension. The browbeaten females cower; the braver males make a grab for them. The dominant male beats the daylights out of everyone else until they give in and the bananas are all his. He eats what he wants, leaving the rest to the others to fight over. The females are lucky if they get the skins.
Okay - Imagine a small tribe of bonobos at rest. Now throw a large bunch of bananas into their midst. Immediately there's tension. Suddenly everyone turns to their nearest neighbour(s) and start having frantic, orgasmic sex. In a little while everyone feels much better at which point the dominant female takes all the bananas and shares them out evenly amongst the tribe. It seems that if violence is uncivilised then sex must be the world's greatest civilizer.
The chimps probably developed violent competition due to a lack of resources, the bonobos never needed to. They have all they need and more. Sounds idyllic doesn't it? It sort of is.
Human Bonobos
I'm going to state right now that there is absolutely no archaeological evidence for the existence of matriarchal human societies in our distant past. This doesn't actually mean that they didn't exist (and I believe they probably did), just that we can't prove it. So, I'm going to postulate one.
Imagine living in a place where all your immediate needs are completely taken care of and always have been. There is no need to compete for resources so competitiveness in society is unnecessary. Female-domination would be highly likely. Co-operation and leisure are, therefore, the norms and what could be more co-operative and leisure-based than sex? Lots and lots of sex.
Frankly, such societies would be rare. Should a highly competitive tribe from a neighbouring, but less well-resourced land decide they want all the food, then it's goodbye to our feminist utopia. But they wouldn't be completely forgotten. They would live on in memory and folklore.
They are certainly remembered in the ancient Greek and Celtic legends of the Fortunate Isles away to the West. Tir na nÓg and Tir na mBan in Celtic mythology are perfect examples. These are places where there is no hunger or thirst, where all are healthy and need not struggle, where sex has no shame attached and which are ruled by a Queen.
Patriarchal Religion
The supreme sexual power of women was still recognised (albeit in a somewhat lessened form) in the Middle East in the shape of the Temple Prostitute. This carried on right up to the 4th Century AD and was a form of worship for Astarte (Ishtar). The word "prostitute" has connotations nowadays which cannot be applied to the Qedeshah (local Semitic word). She was a sacred female, a minor queen in her own right and not the servant of the men who came to her. She was a servant of her Goddess.
Patriarchal Judaism didn't like it at all. In order to hold position and gain strength in a world quite hostile to its harsh and ascetic ways the Hebrews had to be competitive, they had to fight - like men!
The suppression of women is Patriarchy's most successful policy when it comes to gaining political power. The suppression of women is also the suppression of sex - remember that woman's sex-drive is far more powerful than a man's - and the suppression of sex leads to an immense build-up of energy. Nothing has suppressed sex like Patriarchal Monotheism.
The human sex-drive is incredibly powerful - it's next on the list immediately after food, warmth, shelter. When suppressed that energy has to go somewhere and a skillful propagandist can sublimate and redirect it in anyway he chooses. Fundamentalist Islam (which treats women slightly worse than cattle) is particularly good at this nowadays.
Back to the Present
So that's the history - but how does it apply to the present day?
Well, we're in a kind of flux position. The position of women in modern Western society has improved immensely in recent years, although true equality is still a long way off. Most of us also have all our immediate needs pretty much sorted and secure. A franker and more accepting attitude to sexuality has also become more prominent, although nowhere near enough.
On the other hand we have several thousand years of ingrained Monotheistic history and cultural propaganda which isn't going to go away.
Even though it's no longer necessary for survival, competition is still encouraged and lauded in ordinary society and on the sports field. Violence is less common than it was, but still prominent.
What we need to do now - and in many ways it's just following a trend that's already begun - is to promote two things: Firstly, the feminine (anarchist) virtues of mutual trust and co-operation and secondly sex - lots and lots (of lots of different types) of sex.
Taoist Bonking
According to the ancient Taoist sages in China, the teachers of wisdom are female. The Tao is female, and in sexual (ie. civilised) terms women are superior to men. The sooner both men and women realise this, the better. Sex needs to be learned and taught and practised a lot and, contrary to our society's norms, the teachers need to be women. This doesn't preclude homosexuality because in a truly civilised society all forms of consensual sex become normal - just like the bonobos.
There are violent people in our society, mostly poor and uneducated young men. There are less than the papers would have us believe, but they do exist. They are brought up to be competitive, suspicious of sex and fearful of difference, just like the boys who killed Michael Causer in Liverpool recently. Had they been brought up in a feminised society, would they have considered a gay person as a threat, or a target? Or would they be too busy with their own sexual experiments to want to go hurting anybody?
It's a huge subject and I've waffled for long enough, so here's a little question to finish:
You and you belovèd(s) have just had a fantastic, multi-orgasmic session - do you really want to listen to somebody telling you to get up and fight? No? Neither would I.
Love,
Seán
