In Praise of the Goat

 

'A procreant male goat of selfish will and libidinous desire, 

with curving horns of bronze ...'

 

I. 

 

Goats, as Joy Hinson reminds us, are adaptable and resilient animals who have a relationship with man that is as ancient and intimate as that of the dog, although somewhat more ambivalent, due to the fact that goats are often associated with immorality; the lamb-like nature of Christ contrasted with the caprine characteristics assigned to devilish deities from Pan to Baphomet.  

 

Hinson writes: 

 

"Goats have a symbolic significance: in early pagan cultures they represented lust and debauchery; in satanic cults they often represent Satan himself; while in Christian culture they symbolise sinners, those who have fallen from grace." [1] 

Most likely this is due to the lascivious nature of the male goat who, during mating season, will become increasingly hungry, aggressive, and sexually active thanks to raised levels of testosterone. 

 

He will also urinate on his own forelegs and face in order to enflame the females of his species. Sebaceous scent glands at the base of the horns further add to the male goat's malodorous allure and some does will refuse to lift her pretty tail and mate with a buck whose scent is insufficiently rank.  

 

 

II. 

 

D. H. Lawrence is someone who understands the nature of the goat better than most and in his poetry collection Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923) he reflects on the nature of both the he-goat [2] and she-goat [3]. 

 

In the first of these, Lawrence writes of a male goat during rutting season who "charges slow among the herd" of females, sniffing at their rear ends and hoping to get lucky, or sometimes turning "to fight, to challenge, to suddenly butt" a rival goat with his horned-head:

 

  And then you see the God that he is, in a cloud of black hair 

  And storm-lightning-slitted eye. 

 

This aggressive violence and rage belongs to him as much as his insatiable libidinousness, but it's the will to "Orgasm after orgasm after orgasm" for which he is best-known to us; that, and what Lawrence calls his egotism:

 

  The goat is an egoist, aware of himself, devilish aware of himself, 

  And full of malice prepense, and overweening, determined to stand on the highest peak

  Like the devil, and look on the world as his own.

 

As for the she-goat, "with her goaty mouth", having curled back her tail and "exposed the pink place of her nakedness", she stands smiling like Mona Lisa:

 

  And when the billy goat mounts her 

  She is brittle as brimstone. 

  While his slitted eyes squint back to the roots of his ears.

 

It's as if he never quite manages to touch the quick of her; as if she somehow exists in a world that is just beyond him. 

 

And besides, for all the he-goat's ardour and sexual vigour, the act of copulation is quickly done and dusted [4].    

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Joy Hinson, Goat (Reaktion Books, 2014), p.11.  

[2] D. H. Lawrence, 'He-Goat', Birds, Beasts and Flowers (Martin Secker, 1923), pp. 160-164. Click here to read in the Project Gutenberg eBook edition. 

     

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'She-Goat', Birds, Beasts and Flowers (Martin Secker, 1923), pp. 166-168. Click here to read in the Project Gutenberg eBook edition.

    

[4] On average, a male goat will ejaculate after just half-a-dozen thrusting movements once intromission has occurred and copulation will therefore last no more than a few seconds. 

      On the other hand, pre-copulatory stages of the sexual act (i.e. foreplay) can last for up to ten minutes and involve male goats chasing females in heat, sniffing (then licking) their ano-genital region, and watersports. Some he-goats also like to perform acts of auto-fellation prior to mounting a doe.

      Readers who are interested to know more might like to see Corneliu Gaspar, Luminița-Iuliana Ailincai and Adina-Ximena Dodan, 'Observations of Sexual Behaviours in Goats (Capra Hircus) Raised on Non-Professional Farms', in Journal of Applied Life Sciences and Enironment, Vol. 55, Issue 3, (2022), pp. 301-310. Published online 2 March, 2023: click here.

 

 

For Nael Ali, whose article 'The Goats of War Metal' in SIG News, Issue 3, (1 Sept 2024), pp. 8-9, motivated me to write this post.   

Satanic News 2: The Case of Dilara Findikoglu and Her Infernal Fashion Show

II: The Case of Dilara Findikoglu and Her Infernal Fashion Show


Our second story concerns a fashion show held at historic central London church St. Andrew Holborn, as part of London Fashion Week (15-19 September, 2017); a show that the ex-Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, and other leading clerics condemned as blasphemous and unacceptable in its satanic aspect.

To be fair, the show did involve heavily made-up models and drag queens dressed as demons and vampires strutting their stuff along the aisle and posing in front of the altar. Some had horns on their head and some displayed inverted crosses between bare-breasts, so the clergymen aren't getting their cassocks in a twist entirely without cause.

But what did they expect? For the show featured the work of London-based Turkish designer Dilara Findikoglu, whose creations are popular with celebrities who like to provoke controversy and display a supposedly rebellious character whilst wearing expensively tailored clothes. What's more, Ms Findikoglu has spoken openly of her puerile (and, ironically, passé) fascination with magic and the world of the occult.

At the end of the day, she didn't break into St. Andrew's - it was hired from the Church of England authorities and surely it's their responsibility to exercise due caution and protect the sacredness of the space entrusted to them? To claim that they took the booking in good faith and were completely unaware of the show's content and themes, is a pretty piss-poor excuse.

An investigation into the matter is apparently now being carried out. Perhaps they might begin by asking why it is the Church feels so comfortable renting out its properties for secular activities and commercial purposes.

As for Ms Findikoglu, well, she's young; she can do better than this: and will, I'm sure, when she learns that when it comes to fashion, the devil's in the detail not shock-horror cliché. 

To read part one of this post on the case of Sister Maria Crocifissa della Concezione, click here.

Satanic News 1: The Case of Sister Maria Crocifissa della Concezione and the Devil's Letter

Satan, the so-called Prince of Darkness, has been in the headlines this month and I would like to discuss two recent news stories, beginning with ...

I: The Case of Sister Maria Crocifissa della Concezione and La Lettera del Diavolo 


A mysterious letter from 1676, previously believed to be nonsensical, has finally had its diabolical contents deciphered by scientists using code-breaking software found - appropriately enough - on the dark web.

Written shortly after entering the Benedictine convent in Palma di Montechiaro aged fifteen, Sister Maria Crocifissa della Concezione claimed that her hands were possessed by Satan and that he, not she, should be regarded as its true author. Unable to make (horned) head or (pointed) tail of the letter's contents, her fellow nuns believed her story and - rather surprisingly - put the letter on display, where it remained, unfathomed and seemingly unfathomable, for 340 years.

Until, that is, a team from the Ludum Science Centre in Catania, finally succeeded in translating parts of the text. Unfortunately, it seems that Satan didn't have anything unexpected to tell us on this occasion. He dismisses the divine forces of goodness as burdensome, like dead weights around the neck of mankind and says that morality is a dysfunctional system that benefits no one. He also contrasts God's promise of salvation with the freedom to sin that he offers.

Mostly, however, the letter remains incomprehensible and prone to logical inconsistency, mixing as it does several languages, even those said to be incompatible, into a kind of textual babble that only the wicked might find pleasurable. Whether this is evidence of the Devil's presence, or shows that Sister Maria suffered from some kind of mental disorder, is not for me to say ...


To read part two of this post on the case of Dilara Findikoglu, click here.