Feminist waves, feminist generations Book

This book studies the relationship between spirituality and erotic power (conceptualized as the core aspect of social human's spirituality, the connection to every living thing on earth, manifested in the sex act,) and the cultural and religious aspects that deny women's eroticism.

I found the strongest parts of Tessier's book to be in her foundation. We explore Greek philosophy, Christianity, and Eastern faiths to establish the fact that in a patriarchal society, women's natural power/erotic power is feared. The power of women is equated to a fear, a wild unknown. Whereas the erotic power of women aligns them with nature and human connection in this structure, men are aligned with logic and independence. Nature is despised as tempting and sinful; logic is viewed as self control and valuable. I really enjoyed this section, and the conclusions Tessier continues to draw between religion (and especially Christianity) and oppression in regards to women's sexuality. For example, she outlines the Christian God as a distant figure that assigns us with original sin at birth. This belief allows us to find fault in ourselves when attempting to please a parent (aka, fault/guilt in ourselves when coming to terms with sexual abuse as a child.)

Tessier is balanced, though - this is not an anti-religion book. She gives examples of alternative thought about religion and sexuality in general. She examines three populations affected by societal denial in this collection, and she also explores positive queer spirituality as well.

I found the book balanced. Although the beginning of this book is based soundly on fact, as we read the sections about the denied populations (lesbians, women with AIDS, and women who suffered from child abuse,) the balance does shift a little bit. Due to the author's openness about her own life, and some opinions she admits are not based in fact, her bias shines through. But, for a book that even I would consider to be a pretty radical feminist/queer text, I felt she portrayed balance as best as she could (humans can never truly be objective, in my opinion.) But, just a warning: if you are not familiar with feminist/lesbian (especially lesbian politics of the 70s - 90s,) and you are not open to radical thought, this book may not be the one for you. I found myself rolling my eyes at certain ascertains (like the authors' continued attempts to assert that lesbian relationships are elevated/better than all others,) I could understand the thought process behind them. It's just definitely over the top and radical.

Some of the radicalism departs from lesbian sphere, however (which is where most of it resides.) Tessier discusses dissociative personality disorder (aka multiple personality disorder.) This book was published in 1999, and even at that time therapists were hesitant to consider this a "real" disorder (if there are any "real, objective" disorders, there is - which as I wrote my thesis on - there are not. But, I digress.) I was very skeptical when I began reading this section, but than I was amazed to see that Tessier opened my eyes as to why the idea of repressed memories being false could be another oppressive tool to keep women silent about sex abuse, and to continue supporting a patriarchal system that benefits from women - and female children.

This book was very complex and explored a lot of different aspects of each presented topic. I felt that I would have enjoyed more examples of actual people. Tessier includes examples of each denied population, but some of them seemed very canned/run of the mill - which defeats the point of her including the examples. I also felt that a lot of energy was put into setting up the foundation, and we just needed some more information on the denied populations Tessier chose. They certainly acted as a good example of the theories she was presenting; I just felt if the text was longer/more balanced in this sense, it would have carried off better.

Overall a great book that supports the message that love is the true spiritual answer to all of our problems. I would highly suggest reading it.