SEX SYMBOLS

From Philosopedia

SEX SYMBOLS

The Christian cross has been interpreted as a sex symbol. B. Z. Goldberg in The Sacred Fire (1958), explained,

• Just as the sun was the father, so was man’s lingam [a stylized phallic symbol of the masculine cosmic principle and of the Hindu god Siva] the father; and just as the moon was the mother, so was the yoni [the stylized representation of the female genitalia symbolized in the Hindu cosmology]. . . . The lingam is in the shape of a rod with a round head; so any object of this form, stone or wood, might become such a symbol. The yoni is an oval opening; so any oval figure might represent the female divinity of sex. By further simplification it was enough to draw a vertical line to suggest the lingam and a horizontal one to signify the yoni, while the union of the two was represented by the cross.

Goldberg details many sex symbols found in Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.