Female recipient
Room 3, Vitrine 10
• In these pottery bowls the female form is shown with a disproportionately large vulva, associating her power to give life with the creative power of the earth: Pachamama, or Mother Earth. These bowls have been modeled so that the vulva forms the entrance and exit routes for liquids.
• Symbolically, these bowls function as the vehicle for the flow of liquids into the body, as when the female body is inseminated, and also for the outward flow of fluids, as in childbirth.
• The women depicted in the bowls are show as receptive bodies. When liquid is poured into the bowls it disappears, seemingly absorbed by the female body, leaving the bowl itself dry and the woman’s interior moistened.
• When a person drinks from this bowl, the action can be interpreted as an act of oral sex performed upon the woman.
• Moche culture, Florescent Epoch (1 AD – 800 AD), ML004426, ML004355, ML004209.
ML004426