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The Source of Shame

What started out as a means of insuring that a man’s possessions, his things, would only go to his offspring, the use of shame to control the sexual activity of the female, has become one of humanity’s most destructive evils.

Originally, shame was used as control tool, a means of ensuring that the females would obey the rules. Shame eats away at a person’s sense of self worth. Take away a person’s sense of self and you take away their power. Deny them their rightful sexuality and you have greatly diminished their sense of self. Shame and degrade a person’s sexuality and now you have destroyed their self confidence and self trust.

During the time when our ancestors were hunters and gatherers, humans had to be mobile. They were nomads. Being mobile meant that you could follow the herds, the source of food. It ensured survival of the group. Monogamy was neither enforced or nor naturally occurring. There is no biological proof that out of all the millions of species that exist on this planet, we humans have been ordained either by biology or divine intervention to be monogamous.

As our ancestors changed from being hunters and gatherers to farming, we humans started collecting things.. The longer we humans stayed in one place, the more possessions we collected. The males became very attached to their possessions, their toys. And the concept of he who dies with the most toys wins, came into being. They also knew that after their death, someone else would get their toys and that they had no control who that someone else would be.

So, they needed to find a way to control who that someone was. This could be how last will and testaments got started. They also realized that maybe the person they were leaving their “toys” to, were not even their offspring. They really had no true way to verify or ensure that the children their sexual partners gave birth to were even their children. The men knew that they had multiple partners and that their partners had multiple partners. They figured out that if they could control the sexual activity of their female partners then they could be assured that any children their partner gave birth to were their children and theirs alone.

In the beginning, the females rebelled. They didn’t want to limit their sexual activity to just one partner. The males didn’t so why should they. Slowly, gradually, through the years, the males realized that they had to find a way to erode the sexual confidence and sense of self of the females if they wanted their partners to become submissive and obedient to their rules. That was the beginning of shame and guilt.

Fast forward through time to today. We are still trying to undo the damage caused by shame and guilt. That shame and guilt has created untold evil and destruction to us as a people.

Rapes, sexual abuse of children, violence against women, prostitution are all the results of shame, sexual repression and guilt. They did not exist in societies where sex and sexual exchange carried no taboos. Sex was shared openly and freely. Children conceived were joyfully received. They were celebrated as precious gifts from the Gods and loved and cared for by the entire community. Sex was held as a celebration of life and all that life had to offer.

In the days of the female deities, the temple goddesses had sex with the young virile males as an offering to the Gods during the Spring Equinox to ensure the blessings of the Gods for a plentiful harvest. There was no shame around sex.

Whenever some shames you, they are trying to make you submissive. They want to put you back into your so called “place”. They are using shame as a tool to control you, to take away your power and to manipulate you into giving up your sense of self so that they can feel macho. They may call you bitch or whore, slut or any one of the many shaming words that exist. It doesn’t matter what they call you, their goal is the same. It is to get you to be submissive to their will and to reduce your personal power and to increase theirs.

So, shame, who needs it . You don’t. Shame is not your friend. W hat are you suppose to be ashamed of, your vagina. Every female of every species on the planet has a vagina. Are you being shamed because you are too tall, too short, too fat, too skinny, too blond, too brown, too rich, too poor, too quiet, too loud? Your mind, the fact that you are smart? If you are being shamed for being smart, that means they are feeling threaten by you and that is their problem, not yours. You have nothing to feel shame about. Reject shame as a lie someone told you. Reclaim your personal power, reclaim your self esteem and celebrate every little thing about you, especially the things others have tried to shame you with.