Pacific Cultures
The following is a lecture I recently delivered at the British Royal Society's conference on Pacific cultures at the University of Birmingham, in Birmingham, Britain, where I am an honorary visiting fellow of the Birmingham acedemy of cultural and linguisic interpretation.
"Socio-sexual cohabitation practices in neo-Pacific mythology"
A distilation of my observations and advice regarding one aspect of the culture of the "Australians".
Though I have lived with the Australians for some time now, I have maintained a detached objectivity and observed their behaviour without moral judgement. The values and ethics of these people, though not my own, do play an important part in maintaining their social order, an order that is more complex to describe than this lecture has time for. The specifics of their sex and marriage laws have to be understood in this context.
The Australians have a strange adherence to a myth of virgin birth, though nobody admits to believing it individually, collectively the virgin birth is the biggest thing on the social calendar and central to sacred rituals in every community.
Their children are all taught of the virgin birth and a supernatural global spirit with a reindeer totem. The myths are reinforced in their young through reward stimuli such as holidays and presents and punishment stimuli such as if you are "bad" the reindeer totem will bypass your house.
Their initiation rite for both boys and girls does not come at a predetermined age but when the novitiate is mature enough. The rite is the disillusionment of discovering the reindeer totem is not real. Although adults maintain the truth as a well kept secret, many
initiated youngsters taunt their uninitiated siblings with forbidden chants such as "Santa is not true".
The novitiates must resist this taunting and, reassured by the adults, adopt an unquestioning belief in the reindeer totem before they are deemed mature enough to be disillusioned.
Having transcended notions of truth and trust through disillusionment, their young then enter puberty. Here the mythology of the virgin finds its full power, providing clear instruction how their young should respond to their developing hormonal temptations.
These young men and women study sexuality and family life on television. This technology offers models of family and procreation practices often with explicit representations of sexuality. This education process allows the integrity of the virgin myth and secrecy taboos to be upheld in the family life while providing the young with all the information they need for their future lives. Parents must protect the reality of their own hidden sexual activity from the children with the same code of secrecy used with the reindeer totem. Similarly each partner protects his or her own sexuality from each other with these skills.
The virgin myth now offers the pubescent an educational reward stimulus as they approach full adult domestication. In the context of a full understanding of virgin mythology and a deep consideration of courtship and marriage patterns from the T.V., when the young are ready for marriage they are given a path to succumb to hormonal temptation without guilt as long as they keep the adult reindeer secrets and pass on the culture of the virgin to their own offspring.
There is a strange phenomenon of homosexuality in Australia. It exists, just as in other cultures, yet it too is subjected to the virgin and reindeer myths. Most homosexuals keep their sexuality a well-hidden secret, often even from their heterosexual marriage partner, appearing publicly as either a virgin or as married.
Those who revert to infantile notions of truth and publicly defy the marriage and sex laws are ostracised and frequently subjected to violence.
The elders of the virgin myth use the condemnation of homosexuals and those who engage in sex outside of marriage to reinforce their customary laws in rituals at the virgin's sacred sites. This is an important aspect of community cultural education as it again maintains the family taboos of discussing such things yet provides clear, unambiguous instruction. Though only small part of the overall demographic participate in these rituals their spiritual power permeates into all key areas of social administration and law.
So in conclusion I offer some seasoned advice for any naive traveller who might visit the Australians during the Christmas break. Don't talk about sex! Listen closely, for there will be a lot of talk about sex but it will be confusing and contradictory. If you try to copy your hosts, almost anything you say will be inappropriate and you might even end up in gaol. This does not mean you should not engage in sexual activity in Australia. The locals will encourage you to do this, they don't mind if you have sex with children, animals, and inanimate objects - anything, just as long as you don't talk about it. After a while you will start to become familiar with the virgin myth and begin to understand the subtle paradoxical frameworks of sexual discourse. Don't even try to talk about sex until you have this understanding. The best starting point is to watch television.
"Socio-sexual cohabitation practices in neo-Pacific mythology"
A distilation of my observations and advice regarding one aspect of the culture of the "Australians".
Though I have lived with the Australians for some time now, I have maintained a detached objectivity and observed their behaviour without moral judgement. The values and ethics of these people, though not my own, do play an important part in maintaining their social order, an order that is more complex to describe than this lecture has time for. The specifics of their sex and marriage laws have to be understood in this context.
The Australians have a strange adherence to a myth of virgin birth, though nobody admits to believing it individually, collectively the virgin birth is the biggest thing on the social calendar and central to sacred rituals in every community.
Their children are all taught of the virgin birth and a supernatural global spirit with a reindeer totem. The myths are reinforced in their young through reward stimuli such as holidays and presents and punishment stimuli such as if you are "bad" the reindeer totem will bypass your house.
Their initiation rite for both boys and girls does not come at a predetermined age but when the novitiate is mature enough. The rite is the disillusionment of discovering the reindeer totem is not real. Although adults maintain the truth as a well kept secret, many
initiated youngsters taunt their uninitiated siblings with forbidden chants such as "Santa is not true".
The novitiates must resist this taunting and, reassured by the adults, adopt an unquestioning belief in the reindeer totem before they are deemed mature enough to be disillusioned.
Having transcended notions of truth and trust through disillusionment, their young then enter puberty. Here the mythology of the virgin finds its full power, providing clear instruction how their young should respond to their developing hormonal temptations.
These young men and women study sexuality and family life on television. This technology offers models of family and procreation practices often with explicit representations of sexuality. This education process allows the integrity of the virgin myth and secrecy taboos to be upheld in the family life while providing the young with all the information they need for their future lives. Parents must protect the reality of their own hidden sexual activity from the children with the same code of secrecy used with the reindeer totem. Similarly each partner protects his or her own sexuality from each other with these skills.
The virgin myth now offers the pubescent an educational reward stimulus as they approach full adult domestication. In the context of a full understanding of virgin mythology and a deep consideration of courtship and marriage patterns from the T.V., when the young are ready for marriage they are given a path to succumb to hormonal temptation without guilt as long as they keep the adult reindeer secrets and pass on the culture of the virgin to their own offspring.
There is a strange phenomenon of homosexuality in Australia. It exists, just as in other cultures, yet it too is subjected to the virgin and reindeer myths. Most homosexuals keep their sexuality a well-hidden secret, often even from their heterosexual marriage partner, appearing publicly as either a virgin or as married.
Those who revert to infantile notions of truth and publicly defy the marriage and sex laws are ostracised and frequently subjected to violence.
The elders of the virgin myth use the condemnation of homosexuals and those who engage in sex outside of marriage to reinforce their customary laws in rituals at the virgin's sacred sites. This is an important aspect of community cultural education as it again maintains the family taboos of discussing such things yet provides clear, unambiguous instruction. Though only small part of the overall demographic participate in these rituals their spiritual power permeates into all key areas of social administration and law.
So in conclusion I offer some seasoned advice for any naive traveller who might visit the Australians during the Christmas break. Don't talk about sex! Listen closely, for there will be a lot of talk about sex but it will be confusing and contradictory. If you try to copy your hosts, almost anything you say will be inappropriate and you might even end up in gaol. This does not mean you should not engage in sexual activity in Australia. The locals will encourage you to do this, they don't mind if you have sex with children, animals, and inanimate objects - anything, just as long as you don't talk about it. After a while you will start to become familiar with the virgin myth and begin to understand the subtle paradoxical frameworks of sexual discourse. Don't even try to talk about sex until you have this understanding. The best starting point is to watch television.
posted by Prof. Reginald Bygges-Bottomley at 11:13 PM
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