SFO organizations
Interview: The SM organizations of San Francisco
- 10 September, 1981
Robin Stewart, Co-Coordinator of the Society of Janus, Co-Coordinator of The Eulenspiegel Society, a Priestess in the SM Church and a member of the Society of the Essemian Orders, talks frankly with us about these organizations, their purposes and beliefs, and her own interests. Also participating is Reverend Cardinal Will of the Service of Mankind Church, Temple of the Goddess, member of the Board of Directors of the Society of the Essemian Orders and one of the contributing theologians of the SM Church.
This interview was conducted at the SM Church in San Francisco by Russell Budd.
Russell Budd: What is the Society of Janus?
Robin Stewart: The Society of Janus is made up of people who define themselves as being into SM. The Janus Society exists to provide educational information about how to play safely, as well as providing moral support. If you are into SM and you have just come out of the closet, we'd like to help you feel good about it and educate you as to how many different kinds of SM there are. We welcome straight people, gay people, bi people, dominants, submissives and people who like to `switch; that is, people who enjoy being both dominant and submissive. We offer monthly meetings and we have programs such as Ask the Doctor Night, The Gentle Art of Flagellation, Humiliation, The Psychology of Submission, Show and Tell and How to Deal with SM Relationships. We have talks on anything linked with SM that you can think of. Right now our membership is about 80 to 100 people.
Budd: Is San Francisco the only place where the Society has anything happening at the present time?
Robin: Yes, we are San Francisco based and we wouldn't be interested in opening any other chapters in any other part of the U.S. This is because we are primarily a local organization, we depend completely on volunteer energy and to open another chapter somewhere else would require more energy than Janus could give at this point. If someone wants to start something like Janus in another part of the country and say that they are affiliated with us, that might work out better.
Budd: You said that the purpose of the Society is educational and to provide moral support. There are a lot of people outside of the San Francisco area who have ' need of that kind of moral support, who feel alone in their interests.
Robin: And some of them find out about Janus. Some have found out about other organizations, for example, there is the Eulenspiegel Society which is based in New York City and has chapters all over the country. If you are lucky enough to find out that SM exists, that it's safe and you are not the only person in the world into SM, sometimes you are able to find out about these organizations. It all depends on the individual case.
Budd: What is the difference between the Eulenspiegel Society and the Society of Janus?
Robin: There isn't much of a difference. Eulenspiegel has a bigger membership than Janus and they have a wider range of members across the country. Janus is local.
Budd: If someone lives in a place such as Cincinnati, Ohio or Vicksburg, Michigan and wants to find out more about these groups and about membership, how to join, etc., what would you recommend that they do?
Robin: I'd recommend that they write to us for information. (The addresses are listed at the end of this interview.) We'll send them our pamphlet and possibly a newsletter. There's not a whole lot more that Janus can offer them unless they want to come out to San Francisco every month for a meeting. We could put them in touch with Eulenspiegel.
Cardinal Will: TES headquarters is located in New York. They have about 20 local area coordinators scattered around the country. (Inquiries should be sent to the address at the end of this interview.)
Budd: What do coordinators do?
Will: TES coordinators are persons in the scene who have volunteered to assist others living or traveling in their areas. Some coordinators may lead formation of regular meeting groups affiliated with TES if sufficient local people provide interest and volunteer work. Most TES coordinators, however, seem to best serve the SM community by acting as information distributors for referrals for any legitimate, safe non-commercial SM activity in their respective local areas. As far as TES activity is concerned, we are a referral service only. Understand that the San Francisco Bay Area is a unique situation for TES. Since we already have a hall a dozen local organizations in the Bay Area dealing with SM, organizing a San Francisco Chapter of Eulenspiegel would be superfluous. So, when someone contacts one of us under the auspices of a TES inquiry, we can best serve by finding out a little more about their particular interest. Then, we can refer these people to the particular group that can probably best meet their needs. For example, should someone call, whose orientation may be clearly stated as being into male domination/female submission, we would refer them to GEMINI.
Budd: What is GEMINI?
Robin: GEMINI is a non-commercial group consisting of heterosexual couples into group participation of male domination/ female submission SM fantasy scenarios.
Will: Also, such a couple may have an interest in Janus functions and should contact them.
Robin: Now you can see an example of our functions as Eulenspiegel coordinators here in the San Francisco Area. Should someone begin by calling the San Francisco Sex Information Center (415-665-7300) about an SM inquiry, the Center may refer them to us as Eulenspiegel. Then, once we know their particular SM orientation, we may refer them to one or more of several groups. Should a gay woman call me, I would refer her to SAMOIS, and a gay male I could either refer to Paul Swarm, the TES coordinator for gay men, or to an organization known as the "15," (FIFTEEN), or even to JANUS. Female submissives, or male dominants, I would refer them to GEMINI and/or to JANUS. If someone contacts us and expresses a sincere interest in the spiritual aspects of a special kind of feminine supremacy such as ancient rites involving goddess worship, I would refer them to the SM Church, or should they be more interested in the purely physical aspects of experiencing male submission to female domination, I would put them in contact with the ESSEMIAN SOCIETY.
Budd: Wait a minute, one organization at a time. What is SAMOIS?
Robin: SAMOIS is a lesbian feminist organization into SM. They're rather selective, a bit secretive, suspicious of outside inquiries, and they are likely to not give any information out to any male inquiries unless they have been cleared with a good reference from one of their members or a non-member who is known and trusted by SAMOIS. It is not that they're difficult to deal with, but there is an element of SAMOIS membership which is politically feminist thus their SM activity is frequently obscured behind a wall of "radical feminist" attitudes toward outsiders.
Will: Right, SAMOIS; of all of the SM groups around, have the strongest commitment to a political position. For example, it was SAMOIS that has taken on the counterattack against WAVEPAM (Woman Against Violence and Pornography in the Media.) WAVEPAM has been the cause of a lot of trouble for persons into SM in the area. They're radical feminists who see stereotypical SM scenes, such as those too many scenes depicting woman being tortured by macho Nazi SS monsters that were so popular on the covers of dozens of those lesser quality men's magazines so popular on the news stands of the 50's and 60's, as being a sole content of SM. Thus, WAVEPAM sees SM as particular anti-feminine, and when they run into a group like SAMOIS, they can't believe it, and the fur does fly when these two groups tangle. Therefore, because of the intrinsic political radicalism that has become necessary for SAMOIS's survival, even though they are a lesbian group, they have little in common with other gay organizations, either male or female. Thus, they've had to go it alone in the gay world, and they're not too enthusiastic about making any alliances with other SM groups because of their negative experiences in the gay world. However, we in the SM Church and the ESSEMIAN SOCIETY are patient, we understand their position, and we still see them as "essemian sisters" since ESSEMIAN SOCIETY policies require males to be respectful of the female space. We let SAMOIS use our facilities for meetings, as we are about the only SM group who can get along with them.
Robin: I believe that JANUS may also be on SAMOIS's "good list." However, this "list" is constantly being revised. They're a great group, but their temperament does change rather often.
Budd: Would you mind me asking you, how did you become involved in SM?
Robin: Do you mean, how did we get into it personally?
Budd: And also how did you become involved in these organizations?
Robin: I had submissive fantasies way back when I was 12 or 13. They were very intricate bondage fantasies and finally they got a little more sophisticated - they got to be kidnap fantasies and things like that. I thought I was the only person in the world that had these fantasies. I never talked about them to anybody but I had a close friend who had started an SM relationship with someone else (with her boyfriend.) I met the boyfriend and trusted him enough to tell him what my fantasies were. So they said, would you like us to help you out with your fantasies? Would you like to experience these fantasies? And I said, it would be fantastic if I could. And I took the chance. They introduced me slowly to the world of SM. We started out with bondage and I told them what else I wanted to try and we tried it. It grew into a triad SM relationship that lasted for about a year. They were members of the Society of Janus and they told me a little bit about it - they didn't know too much about it.
Budd: How long has it been in existence?
Robin: Janus has been in existence for 5 6 years. They were already members and said if you want to come with us, come along. I finally took them upon on it and I got into Janus that way. I went to Janus meetings, the relationship continued and grew. I became a member of the Society of Janus and got more self-confidence about SM. We also went to a couple of Gemini functions. I met a lady there named Sonia who was a member of the Church. My relationship with these two people I was in the trial with finally died and I discovered that I also was dominant. I'd been submissive in the trial and I discovered that I had a dominant side to myself. At the time of this discovery I got back in touch with Sonia. I had been out of touch with her for a while. She introduced me to members of the Church who helped me to discover my dominance. Shortly after that, people in the Society of Janus were looking around for someone to help out with the leadership - they were looking for a co-coordinator and I took the job. I've been the co-coordinator of Janus since September 1979. 1 discovered my dominance in August `79. I've been a member of the Church, since August or September `79. Everything happened at the same time. Being submissive and discovering that is OK and wonderful and the Society of Janus were a great interlude to my life and they helped me find out a lot about myself that I didn't know. I changed and grew, which I am still doing.
Budd: How long ago was Janus first formed?
Robin: O.K., Janus started out as people who were into SM and knew each other and wanted and needed moral support from each other. It started as a real need. They started meeting. This was in early 1974. It's been slowly growing since then. They started putting out a newsletter early on called "Growing Pains" and that newsletter is what has kept Janus together most of its history. The membership has been slowly growing and then it reached a plateau. Now it has started to grow some more. Energy has been going in and coming out, people-joining and dropping out, the usual thing. Membership keeps changing, and new energy keeps coming in and old energy dies out and gets replaced and that's the story of Janus. It's a voluntary, non-profit organization and voluntary energy is always welcome. It's one of those kinds of situations.
Budd: What is the ESSEMIAN SOCIETY? How does it differ from JANUS or the SM Church?
Will: Well, as she is the JANUS coordinator, I'll let Robin speak for JANUS. As for the SM Church, it is a bit complex. At best, in brief, I can say that it is a church that bases its theological beliefs upon ancient, historical pre-Christian practices of goddess worship. One of the objectives of the SM Church is to try and re-establish goddess worship as a serious religion in modern times. We see the three great mono-theistic religions of western civilizations, Christianity, Judaism, and Islamism, as being exclusively male-deity dominated. We feel that this has been the cause of putting females into a form of "second class" citizenship, and we seek to reverse this role as the means to "equalize," or rebalance the monotheistic errors of the past 2000 years.
Now the ESSEMIAN SOCIETY, which takes its name from the adjectival use of "S" and "M" (SM-ian), is a lay (non-religious) associate group of the SM Church. Activities of the ESSEMAIN SOCIETY, although not directly Church related, nevertheless are inspired by SM Church beliefs. For example, the SM Church believes in goddess worship, and they also believe in the use of controlled pain and mortification experiences as a Sacrament of Penance. So, the ESSEMIAN SOCIETY provides for group activity to carry out scenes where domination/submission scenes are orchestrated as a ritual.
They do this in a kind of a "Theme Event" where a particular historical, mythological, or even fictional theme dealing with male submission to female authority. The historical basis relating to theological beliefs that specify "female authority" can be found in such references as Merlin Stone's "When God Was a Woman." Here, and in other similar works, historical evidence is clear that in places where there was goddess worship, the women ruled.
Essemian Society "Penitential Rites," therefore, gives us all the opportunity to experience female rule. This female rule can be anything from experiencing mildly pleasant rule, in scripted scenarios, to the very harsh. Now, you must understand, that when such a situation involves only "mild" rule, there just isn't much happening to excite anybody. Therefore, it is only those situations that tend toward the extreme that really have any attraction for the women, where they can get off their wildest domination fantasies, and the same goes for the men. This is important. This is not to state that either we as males, or females believe that female rule would be vindictively harsh (as some male fanta¬sies or fears many suppose) but rather we both, as females and males, can experience the very ultimate of this experience. Therefore, the ESSEMIAN SOCIETY is becoming known as a Female Domination organization. This can be unfortunate in that it makes us look like some kind of `sex club," or worse, a kind of a new twist to commercialization of the "female domination business." Neither of these situations is the case. However, some of our `Theme Events" have been written up in some of the SM newspapers, and we're getting a reputation that is attracting a lot of insincere inquiries just looking for a a good time.
Budd: The SOCIETY OF JANUS is basically educational while the ESSEMIAN SOCIETY is basically social?
Robin: Yes, it's the difference between educational and social. The ESSEMIAN SOCIETY and GEMINI are more likely to engage in actual SM scenes when its members get together, whereas EULENSPIEGEL and JANUS are more likely to engage in forums and educational events. These then would be their two different basic directions.
Budd: GEMINI is male dominant/female submissive and the ESSEMIAN SOCIETY are female dominant/male submissive?
Robin: Yes. We (ESSEMAINS) get very much into fantasy role play and acting, and are very much more into the spirit of things.
Budd: Robin, what can you tell me about the SM Church? Are you associated with it?
Robin: Yes, I'm associated with it. I am an ordained priestess of the SM Church. I am a member of SM Church's congregation. What can I tell you that Will hasn't already told you?
Budd: Does it relate to the Old Religion?
Robin: Yes, it does. We are researching the Old Religion right now. As a matter of fact, we are researching into goddess worship and how it was before those monotheistic powers, such as Christianity and Islamism, came along with their fanatic zealotry to destroy each other actually instead combined to destroy any other non-monotheistic religions which were not connected to the great war making powers of that time.
Let me give you a little bit of our philosophy and tell you what I'm doing personally to help our philosophy come along. We believe in what we call `the great transition' which says that society as we know it today could easily collapse. We are now on the brink of World War III practically. Our energy is being consumed and it looks like we may not get any more. Technology is winding down. We could die right now as a result of a nuclear accident. And so we are saying that this could conceivably happen. If it does happen something that is likely to happen is that the females will take over. We have to go back to the basics. We'll have to start over to farming the land, get back to agriculture and we conceive this as women taking over society and men will be out in the fields performing actual work. Now, this is something we consider a very serious possibility and we are trying to plan for that in every way we can. One of the ways we are planning for that is to prepare both women and men for their future roles. I am taking over the women's part and trying to help them to get accustomed to running a society, which means they have to be dominant, they have to be aggressive, they have to be assertive, they have to have self-confidence and I've started a group of women who get together, talk about their dominance, feel good about it, it's like Janus in the sense it's a morally supportive atmosphere. And we also get into work shops. Actual workshops on how to deal with men. When this great transition does happen we are going to have to deal with men differently than we do now. And we are trying to help them find ways to prepare for dealing with them.
I am presently setting up classes and seminars for women interested in learning or further developing their domination techniques. Of course, this for non-professional applications. However, now and then we have professional women come in and show us something we didn't know before about bondage or some other domination or fantasy control technique. Our workshops have included safety tips. We get into dealing with slavery, how to deal with slaves, how to control them, discipline them, actual techniques. We try and keep the professional women not so much out of it but we focus more on the women who aren't professional, who' are coming in from the personal point of view, who need support and confidence. And the professional women who come are interested in the group that we like to have as guest speakers, guest demonstrators and they come in whenever they would like to come in and show us something.
We make no attempt to recruit professional "dominatrixes" into the SM Church or ESSEMIAN SOCIETY. However, as a Church, we cannot exclude them if they have a sincere non-professional interest and commitment to our goddess worship philosophy. And I must be honest and tell you that we presently have about 14 women who are professional dominants in the Bay Area who are sincerely involved with our activity and who support our philosophy, and this number is growing. However, none of them are ever involved in performing any kind of professional services within our group. They are involved purely because we all share a common philosophical interest in the developing art of female domination.
Will: In addition to the regular Board of Directors, we have other governing and policy and decision making groups within our group. For example, we have a Rituals and Ceremonies Committee which also comprises a Seminary Planning Committee. This group works out a number of special rituals that relate historically to ancient goddess temple worship rites, including any rites that may involve acts of penance, and therefore may bring some of these rites into an actual rite or ceremony performed by the Church. We are very much into pageantry, costume, music, and dramatic staging.
Robin: The Seminary is very important to us since we are starting out, as it were, from the ground floor for the introduction of some entirely new concepts in religious thought in a modern society. The purpose of the Seminary is to train, educate, and develop a professional clergy, if you will, as well as merely ordain. Now, although I am an ordained priestess, my ordination is conditional upon my further completion of extra courses as they are developed in the Seminary. We do not want our ordinations to be merely pieces of paper such as can be obtained in those "mail order ministries." By the time the Seminary is in full operation it looks like that the number of class hours required for ordainment in the SM Church will be close to what is required by a seminary in conventional religions. Even though we are now legally able to function as ordained ministers, we clearly intend to develop a professional ministry. After all, we are going to have to be prepared to defend some rather unusual philosophies and some very obscure theologies that have almost been wiped out. To take an example, I wonder how many theologians have ever read Merlin Stone's "When God Was a Woman," or Elizabeth Gould Davis' "The First Sex"? These books contain some very extraordinary references on the historical correctness of the worship of goddesses, the existence of Amazon societies, and establishes clear precedent for the greater authority role women have in society. The SM Church rites and ESSEMIAN SOCIETY female domination role-play events are not merely SM fantasy games to us. On the contrary, these activities are felt both by male and female alike in our group to be psychological development in the preparation for a New Era.
Will: Our theological philosophy is a synthesis of several elements of the human spiritual experience that have either been forgotten or overlooked by the more recognized religions of today. A basic example of the logic of our position is that we find it absurd that God has a sex. Yet, the monotheism of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam clearly implies that God is male, i.e. the great "father symbol." This, we feel, has had a clearly negative effect upon the western societies that are influenced by these great monotheistic religions to relegate women to a secondary status. Thus, in our effort to dilute the male God image, we encourage spiritual meditation upon the possible "feminine" qualities of the concept of God. In this effort, we need not make up "female-god" fantasy. Instead, we merely have to research history for those times when goddesses were indeed the object of worship. This becomes a fascinating project when we see that much of this history has been intentionally obscured in what some feminist authors have called a near male domination conspiracy over the past 2000 years. Most people who would hear this statement are likely to be amused and may even call such a statement paranoiac nonsense. But it is difficult to be consciously aware of our own cultural biases that could lead to erroneous conclusions. For example, anthropology and other sciences that deal with rediscovering history, made its initial impact upon society in the 19th century. Thus, 19th century concepts about "traditional roles" for man and woman, which were clearly male dominated, serve to plant a male dominant cultural bias at the very foundation of these so called sciences. For example, a 20th century cultural anthropologist trained with 19th century ideas, is likely to conclude that the ancient remains of some female body found buried in a warrior's costume with weapons was the prize whore of some ancient male warrior. Better yet, we can read in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "The only plausible explanation of the story of the Amazons is that it is a variety of the familiar tale of a distant land where everything is done the wrong way about; thus women fight, which is man's business." It never seems to occur to these male chauvinist turkeys that Amazon societies, where man was in fearful subservience to a female ruling class, are anything more than a fantasy plot for a cheap "Tarzan and the Amazons" movie. And, thus, here is the connection between goddess worship and female domination themes. Historical research indicates where there was goddess worship, women ruled, or at least had a much stronger place in society than they do in our present society. This becomes the theological basis for our interest in developing heavy role play and living community scenarios for experiencing female domination from its mildest to its most harsh form.
Our devotion to developing the return to ritual penance also has historical basis. The consensual offering of physical penance can be found in many primitive or pagan religious practices. Few people would deny this fact. However, how many of the most conservative present day Christians realize that every Christian religion in practice today is an outgrowth of the old Roman (Catholic) Church. And it was this very Christian Church which still practices the Rite of Penance today. But of course the "penance" of today's churches have been "consumerized" by being watered down to the point where the penitent merely says a few prayers rather than take a physical scourging. We believe that man has a real psychological need to perform actual physical penance now and then. Therefore, we do incorporate these physical penance rites into some of the church rituals.
Budd: Should our readers want information about the SOCIETY OF JANUS, the ESSEMIAN SOCIETY, or the SM CHURCH, how do they go about obtaining it?
Robin: Well, as far as the SM CHURCH is concerned, the SM CHURCH is not that enthusiastic about giving our information to the general public. I do know that since their information is a bit complex, they're putting together this special Information Packet that will be sent to those who send donations of $10 or more. These packets should be ready soon, however, for JANUS, it is a different situation entirely: The SOCIETY OF JANUS already has a two page information circular that we would be glad to mail. JANUS merely insists that letters requesting information include a self-addressed stamped envelope when writing to our Post Office Box. (See end of interview for address.)
Will: I must tell you that so far we have only scratched the surface of SM CHURCH theology. I know also that the reading public would probably be more interested in just what goes on in our "penitential rites" or just how we affect goddess worship. A full description of some of the pageantry, costumes, staging and the various themes we get into could each be a separate interview in themselves. However, the Church Board has ruled that this kind of information is not supposed to be available to the public. Now and then, however, some selected descriptions may become available. We realize that if too much of this kind of information becomes public, we are likely to be seen by the rest of the country as just another one of those strange "California cults." We are not a strange California cult, we are a serious church organization. To emphasize this, I will mention a couple of the religious purpose objectives of the SM CHURCH. That is, those things which we are soliciting donations for. In order to have donation$ credited for tax deductible purposes, the receiver, even if they are a qualified IRS 501(c)(3) Organization, must use the donations for clearly defined "religious" or "charitable" purposes for which the organization has qualified. Our purposes are:
- CHURCH BUILDING FUND
- Like any other church, we have operations overhead and the sum of the smaller donations go to support the church building, or expanding its facilities. We would like to have a large enough place where out-of-state visitors can be given the hospitality of an overnight stay. We are a long way from this possibility as of now.
- SEMINARY SUPPORT FUND
- We have started a Seminary, but we have no place to carry out the Seminary Program. It is an exciting program. Part of the program clearly involves the recruitment of women into the Seminary who would like to train to become priestesses and be taught something of how a female dominated society would be run.
- RELIGIOUS ORDER HOUSING
- From the seminary, both men and women will be trained to set up models of a matriarchal society as a religious order. This means that under a head priestess, we want to set up residence houses where men, as "Humble Brothers." and even a few women, as "Humble Sisters," may lead a life of submission to a dominant female authority figure who would be the priestess. Men who are normally employed, would leave the house to engage in their employment and return to the house after work where a life style of strict discipline, religious observance to the goddess, and obedience to the priestess, feminine head-of-household, would be observed.
- Those brothers and sisters who are not employed would be under the control of the priestess to perform some productive activity for the Church. They will wear special clothes, and would have special duties. Although this may sound to some like a form of "`slavery" of the worst, or best kind, depending upon one's personal disposition, residence and adherence to various forms of physical penance that may be necessary must be purely consensual. We will take great pains to insure that conceptuality is present.
- FUND FOR PUBLIC CHARITIES
- This is a most important fund. We see the opportunity to greatly improve the public image of the SM community, so, we must also be concerned to create a positive image. To take one of many examples, we have a concern to help out a particular disadvantaged group that is a victim of what some may erroneously call an example of "sadism." In San Francisco, there is a group called the "The Casa de Las Madres." This is a group of women, usually with children, who have left their husbands because of wife or child abuse. Thus, the public may see this group as being a victim of "sadistic" men rather than of sick psychopaths. As the SM Church, which is devoted also to female respect as a manifestation of reverence for the goddess, we would very much like to give some financial support to this group.
- Thus, the SM Church would be coming to the aid of those women who are victimized by male cruelty that the public may call "sadistic. '
- MONASTERY CONSTRUCTION
- Perhaps the most exciting of many "religious purpose" projects is the construction of the Monastery. This project calls for the purchase of property where a full scale model of a female dominated, matriarchal, or even Amazon society would operate on a daily basis. Here, on the monastery property, buildings would be constructed for the monastery itself, as well as other buildings for housing a living community to experiment in a female dominant/male submissive life style. Here, as a "penitential retreat," men would come as volunteers to live and work under female task masters (or task mistresses) to simulate a daily life under a forced labor economy.
- There is a good reason for this community to exist. We believe that it is possible that the Goddess is likely to punish mankind for the past several thousand years of spoiling the earth with careless use of his technology. The "punishment," therefore, would be the loss of this technology through the careless use of our energy and natural resources.
- This experimental community would be designed to be self sufficient without any reliance upon advanced technology. Such a community could be the preparation for a. very possible bleak future. Gene Rodenberry, of "Star Trek" fame, once produced a pilot TV-movie called "Earth II" which proposed that in a future world of the lost technology of the 20th century, slave labor would again be necessary as a means of survival. In "Earth II" Rodenberry shows us that such a world would be efficient if the stronger of the species, man, was made to work as a slave, and the female, being organized into a kind of Amazon matriarchy, became the managers, i.e.. the "slave owners." A science fiction fantasy perhaps, but the ecological and sociological logistics of such a premise actually could be a possible reality of the future. So the MONASTERY CONSTRUCTION FUND exists to actually carry out such an experiment.
Budd: How do you explain the existence of a male Cardinal in a female dominated church ?
Will: There are a few males who have high positions within the Church. Our religious beliefs hold that "the Goddess has ordained that it shall be men as well as women who shall work together to bring 'about Her Church. Since it was man that destroyed goddess worship, it shall be man that MUST help restore it!"
Budd: How did the SM Church get started?
Will: For one, the SM Church is a combination of a number of different elements that would seem to be unrelated. Like a lot of unusual things, the concept of the SM Church was born in Berkeley, California. Berkeley has a rather substantial pagan community which is more or less into goddess worship. Except in Berkeley, these pagan cults appear more to associate their goddess worship with its historical affiliation with Celtic culture. Although there is a definitive element of goddess worship in the Celtic culture association, there is no strong association by these groups of a goddess being a powerful deity such as held by the monotheistic religions of a male God, and there certainly is no association of their goddesses with strong female authority figures. Berkeley did have the basis of a community that had a commitment to goddesses rather than God. There was also an element of thinking people who wondered about the SM fantasy experience. Berkeley has more than its fair share of SM, enthusiasts. Therefore, as Berkeley people would have it, the question came up, weather or not there was a deeper spiritual meaning for intense experiences where SM fantasy was involved, beyond simple sexual gratification. For example, a great deal of SM does take place outside of an actual sexual experience. Although Freudian psychologists merely dismiss SM as being "deviant" sex, could an SM fantasy experience really be classified as being non-sexual? This led to some rather interesting speculation and conclusions. Could SM be some kind of deeper emotional involvement that could possibly be considered religious? Combine all of this with the idea that there was an interest to find a deeper philosophical basis for female domination fantasies, and groups of people who are looking for new theologies to take up, and the result is the "Temple of the Goddess" of the SM Church.
As far as the SM fantasy element alone is concerned, the SM Church can be found to be somewhat lacking since we do not make any rationale for female submission to male domination, nor do we make any attempt to rationalize a theological approach for gay SM. But we felt that certain aspects of SM involvement were just too varied and broad to be totally included in a theological context. Moreover, we had made an early decision, not without some strong resistance, to completely avoid any attempt to try and include male domination over a submissive female as part of the Church's philosophy. Goddess worship is a very unique approach to any theological belief in the present day. It would be, therefore, at the sacrifice of the Goddess belief that any form of male domination would be incorporated. Also, it is male domination over the poor weak female that has become the principal, if not only target, of the anti-SM, anti-pornography moral crusaders. When the women-against-pornography forces rally, they are armed with the most disgusting graphic examples showing some naked female in some kind of sexual submission to a male. where the male is using some form of SM force to imply non-consent of the female, i.e.. a kind of a rape in the ugliest form. So male dominance just had to be excluded. When women-against-porn come across material showing females dominating helpless males, they don't know what to do with it. Some just ignore it, as they cannot understand it, some are amused by it and cannot take it seriously, and some even try to use it as an example of the "worst kind of prostitution" where the innocent female, as the dominant, is merely doing her domination trip because she is being paid by a "sick" man to carry out deviant sex. The point is that female domination themes manages to throw a curve ball that is very difficult to hit by the feminist anti-porno forces. Much of the aggressive energy in the anti-porno movements attacking SM come from women's groups which have a strong feminist element. The very basis for feminist energy is that it is opposed to masculine dominance. Therefore, when feminists on anti-porn crusades encounter unmasculine sex material it becomes difficult for them to define the enemy.
- Read another article about SMC written by Quentin Rink
- Service of Mankind Church (SMC) Contact information
- http://www.darkside-goddess.org
- (510) 232-1369
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