Female religiosity and eroticism both make the self an object for a transcendent being

Evidence

But it must not be concluded from this that these effusions are always sexual; rather, when female sexuality develops, it is penetrated with the religious feeling that woman has devoted to man since childhood. It is true that the little girl experiences a thrill in the confessional and even at the foot of the altar close to what she will later feel in her lover’s arms: woman’s love is one of the forms of experience in which a consciousness makes itself an object for a being that transcends it; and these are also the passive delights that the young pious girl tastes in the shadows of the church. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 705

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core statement of the object-making structure: a consciousness making itself an object for a transcending being — the theoretical apparatus of the whole book.
• XREF: Directly operationalizes Sartre’s being-for-others and the look; also prefigures later feminist work on self-objectification. — connects to: Lacking a penis to externalize transcendence, the girl makes her whole self an object — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 128; Religious prostitution originally encoded fertility magic before sliding into venality — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 191; Feminine eroticism involves becoming an object to snare another — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 845 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Feminine eroticism involves becoming an object to snare another #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 845
• Male and female eroticism are experienced as transcendence versus alienated immanence respectively. #corroborates (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 775
• Male sexuality integrates with individual transcendence while female sexuality does not #qualifies (0.78) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 97
• Patriarchal religions purify woman of her stained nature through male-defined submission #complicates (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 170