Sensual Sculptures

​

This set of photographs of Shina Degucci were made during the time she was working as a dance instructor at the 'S Factor'. The 'S Factor' was created by Sheila Kelley to bring women into their emotional and erotic power, and to help free them from the shame imposed on them by both patriarchal societies and religions.

 

I was both inspired and saddened by Shina's stories of the barriers that her students had to fight so hard to break. I don't understand how and why we have created a world where women feel it is unsafe or unsavory to be their most powerful sexual selves. Why has civilization taken the dance of the Goddess, the Priestess and the Temple Girls out of the temple only to place it in the gutter and ring fence it with shame?

​

The High Priestesses are known to have trained their Temple Girls in the use all of their powers to keep the faithful engaged in their religion. Watching a beautiful girl dance in her power would have been a reverential experience at the temple. Here the essence of a woman's sexual power in performance is shown with the reverence it would have been accorded during the time of the Goddesses.

​