I. Introduction: The Word is 'Celibrate' I begin with a joke that I think captures an important intuition. A monk joins an abbey ready to dedicate his life to copying ancient books by hand. After the first day, he reports to the head priest. He's concerned that all the monks have been copying from copies made from still more copies. “If someone makes a mistake,” he points out, “it would be impossible to detect. Even worse, the error would continue to be made.” A bit startled, the priest decides that he better check their latest effort against the original which is kept in a vault beneath the abbey. Several days pass without the priest resurfacing. Finally, the new monk decides to see if he's alright. When he enters the vault, he discovers the priest hunched over both a newly copied book and the ancient original text. He is sobbing, and by the look of things has been sobbing for a long time. “Father?” the monk whispers. “Oh, Lord Jesus,” the priest wails. “The word is 'celebrate.'”1 Because humans are inherently sexual, it would be funny (tragically funny, maybe, but funny nonetheless) if institutionalized celibacy was the result of a minor transcription error, rather than, say, the will of God. Of course, the question immediately arises: are humans inherently sexual? And is a life without sex inherently undesirable? I take it that most people would answer “yes”—this because sexuality is presupposed by prevailing conceptions of normalcy, e.g., conceptions of the normal family, of the normal body, of normal desires, and so on. This joke is, therefore, an artifact of “compulsory sexuality.” The term “compulsory sexuality” refers to a set of attitudes, institutions, and practices that enforce the belief that sexual... ... middle of paper ... ...l is like until one is either disabled or asexual. Thus, one can't rationally say that being disabled is thus and so unless one is disabled, and likewise for asexuality. As a result, the third-personal perspective can't in principle be authoritative with respect to disability and asexuality. The notion of transformatively finkish experiences is therefore a very powerful concept for disability and asexuality studies more generally. We can apply it to very many cases including cases of selective reproduction based on the presence of birth defects, cases like Ashley's, cases of trans-sexuality in children, and so on. Because it follows that the first-personal perspective is authoritative in cases like these (i.e., since these two perspectives are exhaustive), we have reason to believe that there ought to be multiple mappings in socio-conceptual space. VI. Conclusion
Thursday comes and the hippie waits by the entrance to the cemetery. Sure enough, at six PM he sees the nun enter and he quietly follows her. She stops and kneels by a headstone and clasps her hands in prayer.
Leclercq, Jean. The Love of Learning and the Desire for God; a Study of Monastic
In this essay, authors J. Michael Bailey and Kiira Triea try to disprove the “feminine essence theory” which they consider to be a misconception of transsexuals. Using research from Ray Blanchard, a University of Toronto professor and sexologist who performed extensive studies on male-to-female transsexuals, the authors explain transsexuals are being part of two separate groups. According to them, a transsexual may either be a homosexual transsexual or an autogynephilic transsexual. Autogynephilia is a term coined by Ray Blanchard and is defined as “inner-directed heterosexuality. That is, autogynephilic males are like heterosexual men, except that their primary sexual attraction is to the image or idea of themselves as women” (Bailey). The authors associate this condition with other paraphilias such as masochism. The authors argue that if you are not homosexual then you are most certainly autogynephilic (Bailey). This essay is relevant to my research because it contradicts the majority of what I have read concerning the “feminine essence theory” and because it summarizes much of Blanchard’s research. However, I do not necessarily agree with this research because it appears that only sexual orientation was taken into consideration towards their concept of gender identity.
corpse and notices that he had never got the message from the friar. "O churl!
In his youth, St. Boniface encountered many priests or clerics who traveled from town to town. Through these spiritual conversations, it became evident to St. Boniface that he wanted to pursue a life with God. Eventually, after continuos begging and his fathers fatal sickness, he was sent to the care of the Monastery of Examchester. (Appleton) It is here, that St. Boniface expressed to the Abbot at the time, that he wanted to live a monastic life. The father of the monastery, after council, granted him his wish. Here is where the saint began to prove his love for God, and could begin his journey of the Christian life. After exceeding all expectations and surpassing the knowledge of his teachers, he moved to a neighboring monastery, called Nursling, whereby he studied under the influence of Abbot Winbert.(St. Boniface Church) Here he gained vast knowledge of scriptures and the spiritual exposition of the Bible. Here, he gained such a reputation that men and women from far and wide traveled to study scriptures under his guidance. At the age of 30 he was humbly ordained a priest and yet another branch of his life was fulfilled.
In Dr. Osman’s lecture and in Life and Miracles of St. Benedict, monasteries were portrayed as places for people to escape the harsh times and live together worshipping God. In The Dark Ages, the narrator discusses how many nuns and monks would try to escape because they were forced to go there, some even going as far as scaling the walls of their convent or monastery. These holy places offered many people the escape and religious freedom that they craved, but not everyone loved the strict life that monks and nuns lived. (The Dark Ages, “Marriage of Monks and
...am Victorian society, sexual liberalism transformed the ways in which people arranged their private lives. Shifting from a Victorian environment of production, separate sexual spheres, and the relegation of any illicit extramarital sex to an underworld of vice, the modern era found itself in a new landscape of consumerism, modernism and inverted sexual stereotypes. Sexuality was now being discussed, systemized, controlled, and made an object of scientific study and popular discourse. Late nineteenth-century views on "natural" gender and sexuality, with their attendant stereotypes about proper gender roles and proper desires, lingered long into the twentieth century and continue, somewhat fitfully, to inform the world in which we live. It is against this cultural and political horizon that an understanding of sexuality in the modern era needs to be contextualized.
The proper expression of human sexuality is a abiding question for the world of sexual ethics. There has never been a society that has not reflected upon and prescribed rules and regulations for this powerful and yet mysterious dimension of personhood; and there has seemingly never been a social order in which sexuality has not breached the boundaries established for it. On the surface scripture and much of the Christian response to sexuality appears to be establishing rules and regulations which attempt to limit sexual behavior until the ‘appropriate’ time or stage in ones life. Though this is a narrow understanding of sexual ethics– instead the goal of sexual ethics should be in the importance of how we relate ourselves and desires to others. Specifically, the relation between God : Humanity, and Humanity : Humanity.
“Then the High Priest ordered all uninitiated persons to depart, invested me in a new linen garment and let me by the hand into the inner recesses of the sanctuary itself, I have no doubt, curious reader, that you are eager to know what happened when I entered. If I were allowed to tell you, and you were allowed to be told, you would soon hear everything; but, as it is, my tongue would suffer for its indiscretion and your ears for their inquisitiveness.”
Deep within the trees little hooded men walk along a path to meditate and pray dressed in brown robes tied with nautical rope. They dwell in silence and live a life of celibacy. This is what most of think of when we hear the word monk. Throughout the years, monks have always been people of intrigue. They live a different lifestyle than most. They live a life of seclusion far from the mores of modern society, which often makes people ponder who these people really are and why they choose to participate in such a foreign religious movement. This paper will attempt to unravel the mysteries of this peculiar movement of by researching it's origin, the true meaning of a silent lives, and how key leaders have helped to develop it one of the most popular movements in the history of Christianity. A movement called Monasticism.
...cer and infertility (Steinberg, 2011). Thus, the biological perils cognate to sexual activity incline to be the primary focus when edifying teens; however, the psychological and societal implicative insinuations may be the most consequential.
Looking at our past, there have been dramatic changes in the way humans view sex. Long before the 1900s individuals framed their views based on the religious institution. Due to the fact that they strongly centered their idea of sexual thought on religion, they believed that the only purpose of having sex was to procreate. As the 1920’s approached, there were various factors that changed the way individuals viewed sex. The “new women” known, as flappers were women who were confident in who they were. They changed their attire as well as their social attitude. In the 1920s, the flappers redefined sex; customs and traditions were broken and new norms were created by society.
Typically, it is understood that men are people with male bodies, and women are people with female bodies. However, these lines can get blurred when one’s gender identity does not coincide with their sex. An example of this is a transgender person, a person whose gender identity does not match their biological sex.
Preves, Ph.D., Sharon E. "Intersex Narratives: Gender, Medicine, and Identity." Gender, Sex, and Sexuality. New York: Oxford University, 2009. 32-42. Print.
Gender and sexuality can be comprehended through social science. Social science is “the study of human society and of individual relationships in and to society” (free dictionary, 2009). The study of social science deals with different aspects of society such as politics, economics, and the social aspects of society. Gender identity is closely interlinked with social science as it is based on an identity of an individual in the society. Sexuality is “the condition of being characterized and distinguished by sex” (free dictionary, 2009). There are different gender identities such as male, female, gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual that exists all around the world. There is inequality in gender identities and dominance of a male regardless of which sexuality they fall under. The males are superior over the females and gays superior over the lesbians, however it different depending on the place and circumstances. This paper will look at the gender roles and stereotypes, social policy, and homosexuality from a modern and a traditional society perspective. The three different areas will be compared by the two different societies to understand how much changes has occurred and whether or not anything has really changed. In general a traditional society is more conservative where as a modern society is fundamentally liberal. This is to say that a traditional society lists certain roles depending on the gender and there are stereotypes that are connected with the genders. One must obey the one that is dominant and make decisions. On the other hand, a modern society is lenient, It accepts the individual’s identity and sexuality. There is no inequality and everyone in the society is to be seen as individuals not a part of a family unit...