the ancient, yonic church

I. Church Architecture is Pro-Vagina
A can't-miss, don't-skip, must-read, all-flavors-will-love, yonic-glory excerpt from this article (my bold lettering):

You want vaginal imagery? The church has you covered. Some early baptismal fonts (starting in about the 4th century) were quite intentionally yonic. The Baptistery of Jucundus in Subetula, Tunisia and Vitalis’ Baptistery (also in Tunisia) are two that look particularly vaginal, but there are a handful of others that art historians and theologians point to as yonic or at least “womb-like.” 

These yonic fonts are at once delightfully weird, pro-female, and profoundly theological. And, of course, I love to imagine that ancient Tunisian Christians could say, “Our pew is on the right, three rows behind the giant vagina.” [...] 

No reasonable person could say that these Christian yonic symbols indicate that the early church was a bastion of feminist liberation. In the ancient church, as now, misogyny abounds. Still, at the very least, they show that the female body was not (and is not) deemed dirty, unholy, or otherwise bad. The ancients apparently were not only comfortable with the reality of female anatomy but considered it sacred enough to actually fuse it with their very sacraments. The only way to enter the church family was through that particular vagina.

A poet I knew at Syracuse witnessed the birth of his child before my wife was even pregnant. At a party not long after, he buttonholed a gay, male friend (also a poet) on the subject of vaginas. Specifically, the first poet hilariously and crudely described how the birth of his son was an epiphany of anatomy. Vaginas weren't simply a wonderful target for his desire, they were the portals of life! They were magic embodied, powerful and meaningful to the point that sacramental language was the only real description for the bloody beauty of birth and the medium of its realization. Vaginas! Vaginas of glory! "Yeah," said the second poet, the most patient and wonderful talker in the room, "not really a vagina guy."

Sometimes art school is exactly the sort of experience you always thought and hoped it would be.

II. Opinion
There's no way I can follow-up a hot-take about yonic church sculpture and one of my favorite Syracuse stories with anything of worth. Yonic church sculpture is actually so on brand for me I might have to take a break from this newsletter and contemplate a whole new paradigm for what is essentially an emailed commonplace.

I hope you're all well.