Is "cult" a dirty word?

Saturday, October 19, 2013.

Welcome to Week 21 of My Sexy Saturday blog hop. This is where authors, both aspiring and published, post either 7 words, 7 sentences, or 7 paragraphs of their work.

This week, I have a little grudge to confess. One of my erotic romances has been pulled by certain on-line retailers for questionable content. So I'm going to post 7 paragraphs from the "naughty" work in question. You decide if it's "pushing the boundaries...."

Cult of the Black Virgin is about an American woman, Joanna, who travels to France. There, she learns about the Cult of the Virgin popular during the Middle Ages. In this scene, she's looking at the wooden figure of the Black Virgin of Rocamadour as historians explain the significance of Black Virgins. At the same time, she's got one eye on Luc.

Here's the excerpt:


“There’s something else,” Luc said. “Some people hold the idea that the Black Virgins, as they’re called in France, are either connected to, or depictions of, Mary Magdalene. Despite being called virgins, these figures symbolize qualities that are the antitheses of those represented by the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary signifies the female virtues of purity and submissiveness, but Black Virgins signify female power.”

Ellen had stopped nodding. The group was silent.

Jo felt a flush of heat rise over her chest and up into her face. She saw that Luc was looking at her, again, and she quickly looked away. As she felt herself growing even warmer in the close air of the room, she turned her attention back to Thomas, who supported Luc’s statement by saying, “Yes, and although this idea has been suppressed by the Catholic church in recent centuries, today the Black Madonnas are believed by many scholars to symbolize a dark, dangerous, subversive female force.”

Jo began to tingle at the idea. She’d always known it wasn’t really the devil causing her body to thrum every time she thought of Luc. It was her self. Nothing or no one else was to blame. She was her own instrument of destruction. And pleasure.

Excited by this new knowledge, she embraced the idea that her own sexuality, which she shared with other women, many of whom were long dead, was seen as a threatening force. The idea made her feel strong. It also vindicated her.

She looked up at Luc, who was now smiling at the ceiling. What she’d just learned somehow made her desire for him more legitimate. She was a part of some force larger and older than her self. A member of a cult-like group of women whose very nature threatened the idea of civilization. The Cult of the Black Virgin. And, like them, she was protected by a mother figure who was not only forgiving, but who would actually enable her to sin without fear of consequence.

A slight smile spread across her face and stayed on her lips as she followed Luc through the church’s narrow doorway with a little sway in her hips.

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