<snip>
I just remembered the lactating Christ is a big
figure in Julian of Norwich's writings [AC]
<snip>
I think she moves _away_ from the image and _towards_ the metaphor
(nurturing parent and so forth) whereas it's Bernard of Clairvaux and the
Cistercians who really focus on this sort of thing.
Because most Christian metaphor is so enormously overdetermined, it's
actually extremely difficult to separate different strands: lactation as the
pre-weaning version of flesh and blood as meat and drink (so that gushing
blood becomes as milk) or the convoluted sexualities of the virgin birth,
the babe whose genitals must be displayed, Mary's ostentatio mammarum and
Christ's role as the sexually inactive befriender of prostitutes and groom
of the brides of Christ, for example.
<snip>
the germinal male fantasy of a fascist future [CJ]
<snip>
Chris, you might be interested in checking Malaparte's *Skin* for his
description (in *The Sons of Adam*) of a *figliata*. A 'figliata' is a
particular sort of *couvade*. The word literally means a litter, but in this
context it refers to a Neapolitan gay male ritual of initiation / feigned
childbirth supposedly conducted at Torre del Greco (it's apparently also
described in Mario Buonconto's pamphlet *Napoli esoterica* / *Esoteric
Naples*) in which after various psychosomatic birth pangs the 'mother' gives
birth, surrounded and assisted by 'midwives' etc, to a wooden phallus.
Malaparte (who is, it should be said, a rather slippery customer) puts a
distinct political spin on his version, which takes place at the very end of
WW2, in that he identifies the participating 'inverts' with the Left. So
that you can interpret the result either as homophobic or as the ironic
presentation of a *fascist* point of view; not that these are the only
possibilities.
Incidentally the existence of the Medieval Basque *couvade* (whence *couvade
syndrome* which Stephen, I think, invokes) in which the new or prospective
father acts out aspects of pregnancy is now, I think, disputed. And I have
no means of knowing whether the *figliata* is a myth. In theory, it goes
back to Ancient Greece.
CW
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You know perfectly well I've never enjoyed having a
good time (John Cage's mother)
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