Quick Note: The Sexual Politics of The Frosts
I’m on the road today, making a normal post difficult, but I do have a quick item I wanted to share with you. A couple bloggers have been discussing a brand new book from the controversy-loving mail-order-Witchcraft mavens Gavin and Yvonne Frost. While Chas Clifton found much to admire in “Good Witches Fly Smoothly: Surviving Witchcraft”, fellow Pagan blogger Hecate found at least one passage troubling.
“Any initiatory sex should be with a “stranger” — an initiated Witch of the coven [that] the neophyte plans to join. . . . The underlying tradition here is sometimes overlooked. If the Craft means enough to you that you are willing to abide by its tenets then abide by them! If you cannot transcend your cultural brainwashing and accept the assignment to have sex one time with an assigned partner, in accordance with centuries of Craft tradition, the Craft can’t mean that much to you. Here’s the door. Don’t call yourself a Witch.”
This prompts Hecate to make the following disclaimer regarding the Frosts:
This is just wrong. And I need to point out the wrongness so that any young or impressionable people new to Wicca, who may stumble upon the Frosts’ work, don’t believe what the Frosts say about initiation and sex.
After the last major storm over their sexual politics, you have to wonder what the Frosts are playing at. Are they, as some defenders have asserted, being shocking on purpose in order to stir the cauldron? Creating controversy to boost sales? Or are they, as their most vocal critics say, sick people with a warped moral compass. Personally, I think the Frosts started out by wanting to trigger debate and controversy but have begun to believe their own hype over the years. After all, there’s no such thing as bad press right? Needless to say, I haven’t run into a Witch or Wiccan group, traditonal or eclectic, who demanded sexual congress with a “stranger” for an initiatory process. Have you?
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