I was out at a dinner party this past weekend, surrounded by a tightly knit community and good food. I value the clarity of mind, body and spirit so I have been 10 years sober now. Saying no ‘drinks’ over and over isn’t anything new to me, but tonight I was saying it even more so.

Near the end of the night, I heard them say “she’s a whore” and felt immediately disappointed. Disappointed that it’s 2023 and women are still condemning other women for their sexual expression. Men are still shaming women for the very thing they do behind closed doors. But why is this?..

The word whore over the ages has been used to label a woman as bad, dirty and sinful. A negative way to name her as a sexual object and unworthy of respect.

Used to slut shame and condemn women’s sexuality. Obscured by misogyny with its core effort to squelch her fire. Especially since there is no equivalent word for men in the dictionary. 

Growing up I was so fearful of being called a whore that I hid my sex appeal. I would tuck my long hair in hoods, wear clothes I hated that were considered more proper, and muted my desires. I conorted myself into a good girl so that boys would see me as a keeper.

Playing a saint made me clueless when it came to my wants, needs and deepest desires in the bedroom and consequently outside as well.

I’m guilty of calling other women whores while simultaneously envious of their freedom and confidence.

I realised that slut shaming was my own self hatred because of my refusal to own my sexual hunger. So that when I saw women in their power, it reminded me of where I was in denial and desperately needed men’s attention to feel worthy of love.

I covered it up with the story that I had self respect, but really I used the good girl persona to hide how empty I felt inside. If I was a good enough girl, then daddy would love me…

Since then I’ve learned that a woman’s sexuality is a mirror that reveals your deepest parts and when you try to hide or deny your truth, it will get really uncomfortable.

The word whore has holy origins. When you do the digging that dates pre-patriarchy and misogyny you uncover a lot of what organised religion, that was in service to the empire, tried to cover up. 

In ancient Hebrew, the word “Zonah” meant both Prostitute and Prophetess.

And the Hebrew “Hor” means a cave, pit, or dark hole.

The Spanish word for whore, “Puta”, derives from the Latin term for a water well.

“Puticuli” in Latin translates to a well, as well as “the womb of rebirth.”

The word harmony, means to be in tune with the moon or womb cycles.

The cave, the hole and the well are all metaphors for the female genitals and for the spiritual transmission of the Great Goddess. The primordial darkness from which all of life emerges.

What was desperately attempted to be erased, was that The Whore and her womb was the Holy Grail.

The original meaning of Prostitute was actually Priestess.

The functional definition of prostitute is to “channel”. The Original prostitutes were Holy Women.

Women who’s sensuality was intimately woven with creation and who’s eroticism was married to existence.

Women who offered their body as a channel for the life giving energy of the divine to flow through and birth the soul into the world.

To bless and sanctify the creative energy of the land. They would do this through sacred menstrual ritual in tune with the moon.

They were the Oracles. The Wise Women. The Seers.

Women who tended to the spark of the sacred light within matter which means “Mother”.

It was only in the great shift into Patriarchy that Whore became a derogatory word.

And this reappropriation of the reality of Whore is actually at the root of the long legacy of multidimensional misogyny against the Goddess, Sacred Immanence and the Feminine Dimension of Reality.

Inside every woman is her Holy Fire. Her body still holds these ancient codes of sexual liberation before the great split.

Yoking our holy eros to the heartbeat of creation.

It is time to birth the spark of embodied mystery back into a world so hungry to remember Her.

And woman, it begins with you.