LIFE-GIVING SEXUAL UNION
The inhabitants of this world interact sexually in a variety of ways. Among these interactions is the union of man and woman, complementary opposites who join in order to procreate, just as the primordial couple did. The mother, like Mother Earth, feeds and nurtures her offspring. Thus, new life develops and also gives forth fruit, thereby ensuring the continuity of the community.
• According to the Andean worldview, life in this world exists by virtue of the ongoing interaction between opposite forces which at the same time are complementary. Night gives way to day, the earth receives the water with which it is made fertile, the female body receives the male semen, and new life is created. These procreative unions occur between humans, and also among other animals, thereby ensuring the continuity of life in this earthly world, in Kay Pacha.
• Such unions are the expression of a pair of opposites which are dependent upon each other (yanantin). The couple represents a duality that is not static, but rather dynamic. Their coming together is a tinkuy, a generative encounter. As the product of this union, new life grows and emerges into the light from within the female body, joining the parents in their bed, where they remain sexually active while exercising their maternal and paternal duties.
• The offspring, the fruit of this union, is fed by the mother and thus introduced to the good life (kawsay). The mother’s milk, like the water and soil that nurture plants and enable them to grow, feeds and sustains the child, driving its development. Breastfeeding is a powerful act, a manifestation of the female’s ability to nurture and protect, and it has been depicted in all cultures, throughout history. Even divine beings, in their infancy, must be fed by their mother before they can become heroes, gods, or prophets.
• But men and women do not only procreate and nurture. In the art of ancient Peru other sexual activities that do not lead to insemination were depicted in detail. Anal penetration, for example, is depicted, most often in association with scenes that evoke the world of the dead. There, in the underworld, what occurs is the activation of the inhabitants of Uku Pacha, so that they will water and fertilize Mother Earth. In some scenes, men and women engage in sexual acts with mythical and ancestral beings.