Venus of Willendorf: Who’s Our Symbol of Fertility?
ADAM MICHAEL LUEBKE
Los Angeles
In 1908 a man named Josef Veram discovered a statuette of a what seemed to be a female with enormous breasts, a pregnant belly, and chubby thighs. The statuette had no feet. It could not stand on its own. The piece had been carved out of oolitic limestone, and tinted by red ochre. It is believed to have been a symbol of fertility, largely because of the attention to detail the artist paid to the statuette’s vulva.
The piece, which is just over 4 inches tall, has been named Venus of Willendorf, and scientists think it was carved around 22,000 years ago. In the good old days.
Who was this statuette modeled after? It’s impossible to tell. But a couple of mornings ago, after reading the news, I saw a smaller headline beside the bigger, more prominent newsworthy pieces about the sequester, about how Kim Kardashian said Kanye West, her boyfriend, likes her best with “nothing on at all.” I admit, I thought of Kim completely naked, but only for a second. I would later find that the flitting mental image I had of the naked Kardashian was not mere pornography, but, rather, research for this article.
Instantly, I knew the answer to my question, Who is our fertility goddess today? What iconic statue or person makes people think reproduction, fecundity, and feminine features so obviously enhanced they seem a caricature of women everywhere?
Is it not true, that the doctors who have shaped and stuffed and carved Kardashian into what she is today might be considered our modern day sculptors and artists? If it took a few days or less for the artist who created the Venus of Willendorf statuette, it took hundreds of hours of work by the world’s best cosmetic surgeons to similarly craft Kardashian’s areas of womanhood. And all of those areas tinted by a tanning bronzer.
It seems she was priming herself, not to be the loveliest, sexiest kitten on earth, but to be, rather, ready physiologically to be our own version of the Venus of Willendorf. Perhaps this was not her plan at first. But the painful lip injections, the nose jobs, the tedious facial reconstruction, the breast augmentations, and the butt implants might very well have been an intuitive, instinctual persistence.
Just like our presidents take us to war because when they stop praying, they suddenly hear God demanding such things, there could very well be a similar effect in play surrounding Kardashian’s life and decisions made so far. Rather than out of stone or precious metals, our symbols today can be made of flesh and blood, and plastic, too. Our digital age allows for preservation with pictures and videos, and we will have access to them long after her flesh and blood return to the earth, and the specialized chunks of plastic, once buried within her body, linger six feet under, too stubborn to decompose.
Now that she’s pregnant, the final phase has begun. She will bear a close resemblance to the fascinating artifact dug up on that day in the early 20th century. Rumor has it that due to her pampered, sedentary lifestyle, Kardashian also may not be able to stand on her own.
Her womb stretched and widened. Her stomach packed with extra hanging fat, obtained through her usual diet of white meat, nuts, and ice cream. Her short legs, too, grown chubby. And her already large breasts inflated even farther, until they appear to be near-bursting, like the tired bosom seen on the ancient fertility statuette that persevered in the ground for over twenty-four thousand years.
Watch and see. We’re going to be completing some kind of full circle for humanity.