Vagina Museum
On this day in 1515, St Teresa of Ávila was born. A mystic and visionary, this nun wrote of an ecstatic religious vision she experienced in 1559 wherein she encountered an angel. It sounded rather like an orgasm...
Mar 28, 2024 at 11:44amWeb
Show threadVagina MuseumMar 28, 2024

17th century Italian artists being 17th century Italian artists, Gian Lorenzo Bernini immediately seized on the horny elements of this vision, and sculpted the scene in Santa Maria della Vittoria. Hornily.

So horny that one Victorian art critic wrote of Bernini's Ecstasy of St Teresa: "even those least prudish in matters of art, would here willingly throw the first stone."

Image credit: Napoleon Vier

Show threadVagina MuseumMar 28, 2024
Let's take a closer look at some of the details of the sculpture - Teresa's face, rapt in ecstasy, her fingers and toes curling.
Show threadVagina MuseumMar 28, 2024
Bernini wasn't the only one who was captivated by the hornier elements of St Teresa's account. In the 19th century, Félicien Rops depicted the scene, somewhat less tastefully than Bernini.
Show threadMedea Vanamonde🏳️‍⚧️ ♀Mar 28, 2024
@vagina_museum oh my
Show threadAlexxKayMar 29, 2024
@vagina_museum
And the only bit of color is presumably the blood from a broken hymen?
Show threadmare lamentorum  Mar 28, 2024
@vagina_museum I love this sculpture so much that I’ve tattooed her face on my thigh (also hornily)
Show threadSasha Göbbels 🐿️Mar 28, 2024
@vagina_museum Incredibly wonderful. And it's so lively, because nobody could make stone look like soft fabric like Bernini did. Part of the horniness that spectators sense is because you expect the fabric to slip off any moment.
Show threadLawrenceMar 28, 2024
@vagina_museum Great, now I'm all turned on!
Show threadMedea Vanamonde🏳️‍⚧️ ♀Mar 28, 2024
@vagina_museum 24-30 years of celibacy can do that
Show threadghquinnMar 28, 2024

@vagina_museum

All you have to do is looke at the statue in Santa Maria della Vittoria.

Show threadSellaTheChemistApr 1, 2024
@vagina_museum It has long been suggested that Teresa’s visions ( and those of several other visionary saints of the time) were brought on by ingestion of mouldy flour. Their visions fall in the period when temperatures in Europe (but not elsewhere) dropped significantly leading to crop failures and ergot growing on wheat and other grains. The mould ergot produces an alkaloid related to LSD in its effects.
But as William James remarked, St. T might have had the temperament of the placidest cow…
Show threadSellaTheChemistApr 1, 2024
@vagina_museum and it would not make a jot of difference to her theology! (From his Varieties of a religious experience)