“Kristeva asserts that although the image and associated stories of Mary constructed by the Church may have been a primary means by which it has tried to keep potential power of the female under paternal control, and so helped to "infantalize half the human race by hampering their sexual and intellectual expression," we should nevertheless consider that the stories embodying such religious beliefs are projections of fantasies which reveal the primal bedrock of our identities, and therefore should be listened to with care. Quoting Philippe Sollers, Kristeva puns that the hole" of the Virgin, both the genital gap and the "empty space left for Mary" around which "the members of the Christian Trinity revolve," is the center of the most profound of human fantasies. That (w)hole represents where we come from and where we will return.”
