Feminine Roles of Initiation
There are many different roles women play in mythology, of initiation. In mythology most women betray and deceive men to get what they want. It happens in real life today too. “Woman betrayed man, and allows herself to be betrayed.” (Calasso pg.19) Calasso says that through betrayal, women cause men to face their inner demons and monsters like their pride and arrogance and absorption. When men slay monsters they are causing change and releasing people from bondage; and that’s what women do to men.
Women often use their feminine physique to seduce men and use that seduction to destroy a man, or even kill a man. Take the succubus for example; the succubus lours men, seducing them and then sucking the life right out of them. Now that is not the best way for a man to die, unless they feel that the pleasure is worth the risk. Women on one certain day of the year, have the opportunity to do whatever it is they’d like to their men or any man and the men can’t refuse the women. As a woman myself, I love this day. Although in this generation, women have more than just one day; we have the entire year to weasel our way into getting whatever we want because the men in this generation are susceptible to our every whimsical desire. They only wish to please our desires, in turn they want their desires of pleasure fulfilled too; hence, the succubus.
In the Magus, Lily Montgomery plays part in a feminine role of initiation because in the book she and Conchis had fallen in love and she began leading him to believe that he should volunteer for the army. Lily is using her womanly skills to convince Conchis to do what she says. Another woman who plays a role of feminine initiation in modern days is Chloe King of the the new T.V. Series “The Nine Lives of Chloe King.” There is so much myth in this series; Chloe King is a descendent from Set (Egyptian God) and her kind is called Mi. The Order is a human race out to get Chloe because she is the ‘Unite-r’ and she is supposed to save all the Mi only because the Order is scared that the Mi are a threat to the human race. As the ‘Unite-r’ Chloe has the special ability of a cat of having nine lives. Unfortunately, every time she dies the next death is more painful than the one before. In one episode it talks about how there is only one Mi for every Mi, in which in that episode a guy Mi does whatever Chloe asks of him. She has a role in the feminine initiation because she is able to ask the guy something and he does anything for her. Power to the woman! Yet, Chloe isn’t keen to the whole idea that she is the one to unite all the Mi, so she betrays her kind and wants out of the system but in the end she has to do what she has to do for the Mi because if she doesn’t she will be killed nine times by the Order. This coincides with Calasso’s say on pg. 69 that, “the heroic gesture of women is betrayal, the effects of woman’s betrayal are more subtle and less immediate”, “As a civilizing gesture woman’s betrayal is no less effective than man’s monster slaying.”
Perseus Hercules Theseus
Hero’s like Hercules, Theseus, and Perseus all deal with the slaying of monsters and accomplishing their goal yet all fall in love with a woman and in Hercules case, the woman betrayed Hercules and made him face his inner demon. In the Disney cartoon Hercules falls in love with Megara and little did he know that she was working for Hades in order to strip the rest of Hercules from his God-like powers. Finishing the job from when Hercules was a baby. Theseus also had intertwined himself with the Princess Ariadne. She helped Theseus defeat the Minotaur and save all the people from the Minotaur. Although in the end, after Theseus, the princess, and all the people go ashore, Theseus leaves Princess Ariadne ashore and him and the people sail off into the sunset. Perseus, fallen in love with Andromeda, set out on a quest to defeat Medusa in order to cut off her head and bring it back to turn the sea monster who was going to eat Andromeda (because she was the sacrifice) in order to save her.
All these stories involve slaying monsters and improving their status as a hero and getting the woman. And all these stories are metaphors for what women do to men when they want something from them. The succubus is like the hero in a way; they both slay the monster; except the man is the monster in the succubus story. Women have this psychological advantage over men almost like mind control, and we women can pretty much get whatever we want. In all, the feminine roles of initiation are in likeness to hero’s yet the woman ‘heroic’ gesture is betrayal and the effects of our womanly actions of betrayal are subtle yet very destructive. We women are destructive in our own way and so are men; we’re just more bad ass than men are.
