AMAZONIAN WOMEN & THE BEAUTY OF STRENGTH

I’ve spoken to a few women now who are part of an increasing caliber of females who are discovering a deep and loving connection to their masculine through strength training, fitness and bodybuilding. I have a particular affinity to them because I have always been most attracted to athletic women and women who play in this realm of primal, physical strength, building bodies that exude brazen muscularity, honed from an intense work ethic, drive and discipline.

I’ve ruminated over this attraction endlessly, originally because it seemed to be incongruous with social norms of what a woman should look like and what a heterosexual man should be attracted to as far as the look of a woman physically speaking. I believe many human beings have actually experienced such a quagmire of sexual repression given that we embody so many dynamics of what we are attracted to and what arouses us in the act of sexuality. And many of them seem to find no space to be held in our vacuous sexual culture.

Thankfully, I have witnessed in my lifetime an increasing breaking through of these stolid sexual norms which I often theorize are a carry-over of religious dogma seeing that Western civilization has an immense Christian bedrock, though modernity is transitioning through a more secular collective experience. Yet, if one investigates the roots of Western culture, Christian and other religious beliefs are underpinning a lot.

Just looking at Western civilization’s abuse of the natural ecology of the planet is tremendously rooted in the anti-nature, fallen garden mythos of mainstream strains of institutionalized Christianity.

Women who bust their butts in the gym are embodying the archetype of the Amazon which is an audacious challenge to many of the underpinnings of patriarchy that are wrapped up in Western civilization’s deepest beliefs around male supremacy over females.

Truly, patriarchy is rooted in violent domination of indigenous peoples through colonization, over the natural world through industrialization and in men dominating the leadership and guidance of culture at large.

What is eye-opening is that much of this is rooted in a simple notion, erroneously bandied as fact: that being that men are physically more powerful than women and, thus, are deserving of the crown of supremacy. And if you don’t agree well you might just be bullied by the physical domineeringness of what Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette call ‘monster boys’ – the sociopathic leaders of patriarchal order. What’s fascinating is the ‘monster boy’ psychology is actually rooted not in excessive machismo but in immature manhood, namely men who have become stunted and stuck in boyish development, not understanding that true power is not a matter of dominating another but truly in the strength of one’s character, virtue, lovingness, wisdom and, most especially, the ability to share power, enthuse it’s proliferation, much like sunlight shines unconditionally on the lands of the Earth, collaborating with the feminine fertility of Gaia to create life-sustaining growth and life itself.

The Amazon is a particular contribution some women, so called, are making in the multi-dimensional dismantling and transformation of patriarchy. Amazon women foray into the exclusive world of masculine strength that is a cornerstone of patriarchy and invert it. They stand as a visceral challenge, boldly proclaiming that they too can build such physical prowess and even exceed it in some instances, compared perhaps to an average man or one who is not prone to athleticism. This renders the realm of building and embodying raw and beautiful physical strength as no longer just the exclusive realm of men, exalting it to simply the realm of humanness. This is a highly significant and wonderful revelation.

Yet, the Amazon has to navigate this terrain sometimes with trepidation because there can be pushback, often by men and even women who are so devoted to the prior patriarchal order of things.

Haters may flog their social media posts of exhibitions of their muscular bodies with attempted denigrations that they look like men and are ugly and unattractive. The women I have spoken to have attested as such and some are quite bashful about their proclivity toward physical strength, feeling a quiet alienation from ‘normal’ society.

Muscular, athletic bodies are not exclusive to men and any resistance and triggering therein often exposes the accuser’s own lack of confidence in their own ability to embody power and to accept that expressions of gender are evolving in some capacities into playful explorations of unisexuality.

I recall from one book I studied on the subject of strong women of an episode when a young man who was befuddled with such an attraction to Amazonian women, met one who sniffed out his ardour and comforted him, saying that many men actually admired women of such embodiment and to her it was also just an admiring recognition that to build such physical power takes hard, dedicated work, which is quite a universally celebrated quality in humans.

Strength is simply an infinite resource of the universe. All we have to do is plug our lives into devoted practice, the perpetual balance of when to push limits to strengthen one’s capacities to hold strength, maintain it through due diligence and revel in powers we can develop and exude.

A wonderful tide is turning in culture, superficially held in the ‘strong is the new sexy’ movement in culture where women who carry physical strength and fit bodies are prized. I encourage us to go deeper so that we don’t stay on the surface of things for there are many profound dynamics occurring here.

Women are finding more freedom to play in realms reserved traditionally for men and in so doing are finding a wonderful pathway to play with their own inherent masculine. Likewise, many men are being so liberated to explore their own innate femininity in such things as expressive dance, exploring their sensuality and dearmouring their callous character to connect more to their emotional nature.

The silly fears that we are thusly alienated ourselves from healthy womanhood or manhood are trumped by the psychological know-how that the most excellent humanness is cultivated by those willing to develop and enthuse the inner-marriage of their masculine and feminine forces. In Jungian archetypal psychology, it is known that a man’s masculine is actually empowered by connecting with his inner-feminine and vice versa with women.

I am not suggesting that women embodying the Amazon are the only way women can consummate such an inner-harmony but this essay is an exploration of it as one powerful way.

Another ultimate realm that the Amazon contributes to the transformation of patriarchy is in the ardour they stoke in men who find themselves immensely attracted to them, even if in just an expression of admiration.

In some ways, the Amazon supplies immense relief to men by taking some of the burden away that they must always be the only singular expression of strength. It’s a welcome and wonderful invitation to share power by honouring that strength is actually something all humans can develop.

In some sexual expressions, this attraction can also bloom into male desires to be so intimate with this strength of women, even surrendering to a yearning to be so dominated by such a woman. In such scenarios, the dominating Amazon can help men soften and dismantle the callous armouring many men hold that dangerously represses connection with their feminine-emotional nature.

It is interesting that is has been reported that many men who exude a lot of alpha masculine traits actually seek such an experience with Amazons to help them take off their alpha edge in a visceral sexual scenario where they are guided into submissiveness.

Sexual desire always needs to be handled with balance as it is such an overwhelming force in our humanity. In my own experience, men and women also do carry a primary charge from their biologically gendering to have a proclivity toward their more masculine or feminine essence. Thus, in scenarios of domination and submission play, I have discovered having a neutral and balance place where more sacred sexuality techniques are practiced where people soften into pleasure and merge without the intense excitement of more lustful sexual urges is profoundly healthy.

Ultimately, sexuality is still such a mysterious terrain for humanity, primarily because our culture has been so sex-phobic for so long. Thus, I decline from issuing any hardened general ‘rules’ here. It is truly for us all to explore. Thus, if a man and woman want to play in the realm of domineering Amazon and submissive male, I also invite other explorations in polarity. My own experience is that when we get stagnant in just expressing our sexuality through one way we can miss out on the boons of other play. Yet, it’s truly up to partners to find the way that works for them where both are honoured and fulfilled in their highest pleasure possible.

Perhaps one of the most important events occurring on Earth at this juncture in our species’ evolution is a collective spiritual awakening. Spirituality entails us living from a deep space within us, what spiritualists would call the soul. This essential selfhood, or original nature to borrow from the Taoists and ultimate self to borrow from Vedic culture, is about embodying a harmonic dance between the masculine and the feminine.

Women who lift, women who build physical strength and embody Amazonian power, should be celebrated as beautiful expressions of womanhood. They embody in some ways the energy of the holy destructiveness of the Goddess Kali. They don’t seek to intellectually dismantle patriarchy or subvert it subtly. They are an aggressive and bold affront. Their mythos offers men a way to let go of the reins of physical power and in so doing destroy the physical domineeringness that has led to so much abuse of the feminine within and without in our world. They also invite men to soften into their own femininity.

This is something actually holy and why men who have a particular proclivity to such women are often brought to a realm of worship. I do believe, especially in heterosexual dynamics, worship can be a powerful balm for the ills that often existed between the sexes.

When men are honest about their sexual desire for women, they want truly to merge in the deepest level with women. That is the energy of sex after all: soul-blending union. This, of course, can work deliciously vice versa but allow me as a male to indulge my own maleness here.

Men who go so deep to bridle to the erotic instinct to make love to women celebrate such a desire. What a beautiful thing? What more can arrest our attention, captivate us even, and inspire us into the beatific realm of longing to merge with women and in so doing take her and their ability to feel pleasure into realms of the highest bliss where it can only be deemed sacred?

Men who wish to worship Amazonian women and their strength are particular devotees to this power in women. They revel in seeing it, feeling it and merging with it. And may they not fall into selfish desires alone but also embody the mutuality of sex and love where both parties are in kind invited into a space of the ecstatic expression of desire.

So Amazon women, lift on! For you are helping lift nothing less than the world into new and beautiful form. We celebrate you. We see you as unique embodiments of masculine-feminine bridling and cherished as such.

“The ambivalence about women and muscularity has a long history, as it pushes at the limits of gender identity. Images of muscular women are disconcerting, even threatening. They disrupt the equation of men with strength and women with weakness that underpins gender roles and power relations.” --Patricia Vertinsky

I highly recommend also checking out the fascinating book “Venus With Biceps” by David L. Chapman & Patricia Vertinsky which charts the historical trend of women embodying physical strength and marvels of athleticism. Here’s an article on the book at The Atlantic.