Our Lady of Perpetual Succour: Mother of Phallic Fetishes? [Queering the Queen of Heaven]

Queer theology offers many challenges to the tight theological boundaries of orthodoxy and causes some shock waves even in more liberal surroundings. The Virgin Mary has not been the subject of much queer theology, which is strange since the whole notion of a virgin mother is in itself a rather queer idea, one which could yield significant challenges to orthodoxy. Of course, as the phallic mother the mother of Jesus has a much more pernicious role; this model of womanhood actually carries within her the seeds of phallocentric Church and society, not just the lactating breast but the ejaculating patriarch in drag. Jessica Benjamin acknowledges that masculinity and femininity are based on different assumed principles and experiences and not just biological difference. She offers people further insight into the role of the Virgin Mother, although it is not her intention, through her argument, that boys lay the basis for the supremacy of the cold, impersonal nature of rationality from birth.