Just caught the discussion on Cynthia Nixon. If I might be forgiven for using the open thread, I’ll add my two cents here.
Rufus mentioned ancient Sparta. I’ve written before on homosexuality in the ancient world. To put it plain, it’s a complex subject. It was in some ways stricter and in some ways looser than our own time. First and foremost, sex roles were very well defined. If you were a man, you did mannish things, and if you were a woman, you did womanish things (not quite the same thing as masculine and feminine). In terms of sex, men begat and women bore children. That was its primary function. Social “pressure valves” like prostitution or orgies were tolerated on the belief that people had to let off steam.
Now, the attitude toward homosexuality itself was not uniform. If we talk about classical Greece, come city-states banned it and others allowed it. The most common form was pederasty, tolerated on a perceived utility that young boys would learn manly things from older men. It was seen as “the cost of doing business,” we might say. The second most common type was to seek out an effete, generally younger, man for a little “pressure release” when there weren’t any women around. Common to both types of cases was the fact that junior partner in these arrangements was generally more feminine and the seniors were men who were probably married and would in the normal course of their lives have children. Common across the whole picture is that such acts were tolerated, not encouraged, not held to be on the level of man-woman relationships, and not seen in any way as constituting “marriage.” Of course, cases of homosexuality and bi-sexuality were more common among the powerful–Alexander the Great, for instance–but in those cases their status and power, intermingled with a bit of discretion, shielded them from social consequences. Even then, certain lines couldn’t be crossed. When Caligula asked Roman surgeons to make him into a woman, the Praetorian Guard responded by killing him.
Of course, all that is a general gloss. Things may have been tolerated, but there were always voices advocating higher sexual standards, especially among the Stoics and Neo-Platonists. In some cases, it would be hard to tell from their tone whether they were Pagan or Christian. They believed very firmly in a Natural Law and saw sodomy as unnatural. As the Classical gave way to Late Antiquity and Christianity was on the rise, they became more and more like the Christians.
Our civilization has introduced several radical concepts. We’ve treat the object of sex as simply self-gratification. We divorce of sexual activity from one’s sex; you’ll notice how sex was traditionally used in two senses and how we’ve so misused the word “gender,” that’s it has largely taken over the secondary definition. We almost define homosexuality as a kind of third sex/gender. The word homosexuality describes an activity and homosexual defines the person in relation to the activity they engage in, like a pugilist or numismatist. The fact that an entirely unrelated word had to be co-opted to capture the concept might give us a notion of just how radical it is. I don’t believe it antedates the 19th century. For the Ancients, explaining these concepts might have been somewhere between trying to explain the notion of a square circle and that random acts of murder are fun for the whole family. It wouldn’t have fitted into their mental landscape and the person explaining it would’ve run a good chance of ending up dead at the hands of the mob.
For my part, I would note that sexual arousal as a mechanism is quite malleable. We know that people can condition themselves to be aroused to certain triggers and that people can develop any number of odd fetishes, to objects animate and inanimate, or even certain activities. It can get to a point where a person finds it difficult, even well-nigh impossible, to become aroused without their favored fetish. Yet, despite all that, if we look at all the biological systems involved in sex, the obvious pointer is toward the opposite sex as the default “on position.” I might be able to use tools to pick a lock, but it was made for a certain key.
“I might be able to use tools to pick a lock, but it was made for a certain key.” This could be the title for a whole new thread!! (Kinda like the carpet/wood flooring issue)
To add: What Christianity brought to the table in terms of the moral discussion was a more philosophical understanding of what was handed to it by Judaism. With the philosophy and theology of the Church, at its best, you get a recognition of the Eros as an affirmation of the love and creative energy of God, reflected in the relation between husband and wife. The Song of Songs, explicit as it is, shows a husband who delights and revels in his wife, in the fact that she is who she is and that she is his. Every inch and iota of her body is his native country. This marriage of the carnal and high sacredness is something that the Ancients never quite happened upon. It also gives a sense of the loss we face with our attitudes about sex; not only do we debase its sacredness, but we also settle for too little in our sexual play.
Regarding the ancients; that has been the accepted wisdom for the last several centuries, but this is now a topic of much debate. Ancient Rome had a lot of graffiti and the last few decades have seen a lot of activity in cataloging it. Classicists have been surprised at how much has to deal with love in a “modern” sense. Also, there is a lot of affection towards children, especially deceased children, which was not understood before. I’ve read books on this. I’ll try to find some references on the Internet for links…
The recognition of romance wasn’t absent among the Ancients: Dido and Aeneas, Circe and Odysseus, Cupid and Psyche, among others. But they regarded it as a form of madness, in the main. However, you misunderstand what I meant.
I mean that Paganism had two ways in which it treated sex in a religious context. It was either treated very carnally, in fertility rituals and the like, or it was tolerated, as exemplified in the attitudes of the Platonists and Stoics. There was no attempt to place sex in a position of high sacredness, as with virginity. Christianity imported a more highly developed view of romantic love that reconciled the carnal to the sacred.
I don’t think I did misunderstand. I am familiar with what you are stating and I am stating that the accepted wisdom of how Romans and Greeks viewed sex, love and romance is in some dispute, and part of the reason for this tumult are the everyday writings of the rank and file folk.
If one only reads Shakespeare’s Hamlet one comes away with a very different view of what romance was like for the typical Brit living in the 17th century. Just as the Iliad and the Odyssey likely give a skewed view of how the average, Roman aqueduct repairman viewed his spouse.
Yes, there is not doubt that nature intends heterosexuality. Your lock and key euphemism are sufficient explanation. Also, we humans would die out rather quickly without heterosexuality. But, why would this be any different than all other human physical and mental characteristics. I am a man. I love to play sports. Pretty much every sport I’ve been introduced to I enjoy (even soccer). My wife has no desire to participate in sports. Yet I know some men who like some sports, but not others. I know plenty of women who like sports as much as I do. I’m not much of a spectator. I enjoy playing sports but not watching them. I know guys who love to watch them but don’t like to participate. The same with women. I know men who love to cook. I know women who do not like to cook…
The above are likely more mental “decisions” than physical, but we see a whole, wide range of physical in humans too; men with broad shoulders and narrow waists, men with narrow shoulders and wide waists. Women with wide shoulders and narrow hips, women with hourglass figures… Yes, if most of us exercised and watched what we eat more men would look like David and more women would look like hourglasses, but there is a huge, wide variety of physical male and female characteristics and they don’t seem to have hard and fast lines. Some men have breasts. There are hermaphrodites in the world.
I don’t think anyone here is arguing that non-heterosexuality can be a “choice.” But I do argue that there are likely folks born with all manner of “wiring” in this area, just as we see with physical characteristics and mental attitudes toward traditional roles; cooking, athletics…
I think I am leaving this one alone. I do enjoy popcorn very much and I do not want that to change.
I have never even heard of a bearcat and if they smell so similar, think of the movie concession possibilities!
The coffee, like coffee. Me, like che3rry blossoms!
I hope you’re feeling better. Being sick is, well sickening, and really starts to become a large pain when it just keeps dragging on. Goozer too, with his cold.
And God knows it’s all about you, Steph. Except when it comes to apologizing for coming on these boards last weekend and behaving like an unhinged 2-year-old.
The wheezing is what is the worse; that, and the sore ribs from coughing. And rumor has it that this is the cranky cold. I wouldn’t be so cranky if everyone would leave me the $&#^%@ alone.
You still have handy access to your inner 5 year old I see. Does that include a finger point each time too?
And it doesn’t seem like you are suffering too badly, unless you started watering down all that orange juice with tequila.
Vodka, then? A little Screwdriver on a Sunday afternoon never hurt anybody. In fact, I am shooting the liquor shelf a couple of glances myself right now.
Well…almost only there. I have the very occasional drink with my brothers…plus, on two occasions a decade apart, two different women vowed to get me drunk at the events we were attending. They failed, and I learned I have a highish tolerance for booze. If I keep to the schedule, the next attempt will be in 2018. Which will be even more sad than it sounds, since both of the aforementioned attempts happened in between marriages.
From all the old LAPD cops I’ve met out here… the Choirboys is also accurate (and the park shooting during “choir practice” is based on a real incident).
One of the most talented players I’ve seen but his mouth and attitude were poison. If I were a coach I would not have had him on my team. It sounds like maybe he is learning a lesson he should have learned years ago. If he does, I wish him well. He’s only 38. He can do a lot of good.
Anyone else seen this Gold Rush show on Discovery? Did they intentionally set out to find the guys that can’t organize, do any planning or research…it’s wonder they all aren’t dead. It’s a train wreck and I can’t stop watching.
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Just caught the discussion on Cynthia Nixon. If I might be forgiven for using the open thread, I’ll add my two cents here.
Rufus mentioned ancient Sparta. I’ve written before on homosexuality in the ancient world. To put it plain, it’s a complex subject. It was in some ways stricter and in some ways looser than our own time. First and foremost, sex roles were very well defined. If you were a man, you did mannish things, and if you were a woman, you did womanish things (not quite the same thing as masculine and feminine). In terms of sex, men begat and women bore children. That was its primary function. Social “pressure valves” like prostitution or orgies were tolerated on the belief that people had to let off steam.
Now, the attitude toward homosexuality itself was not uniform. If we talk about classical Greece, come city-states banned it and others allowed it. The most common form was pederasty, tolerated on a perceived utility that young boys would learn manly things from older men. It was seen as “the cost of doing business,” we might say. The second most common type was to seek out an effete, generally younger, man for a little “pressure release” when there weren’t any women around. Common to both types of cases was the fact that junior partner in these arrangements was generally more feminine and the seniors were men who were probably married and would in the normal course of their lives have children. Common across the whole picture is that such acts were tolerated, not encouraged, not held to be on the level of man-woman relationships, and not seen in any way as constituting “marriage.” Of course, cases of homosexuality and bi-sexuality were more common among the powerful–Alexander the Great, for instance–but in those cases their status and power, intermingled with a bit of discretion, shielded them from social consequences. Even then, certain lines couldn’t be crossed. When Caligula asked Roman surgeons to make him into a woman, the Praetorian Guard responded by killing him.
Of course, all that is a general gloss. Things may have been tolerated, but there were always voices advocating higher sexual standards, especially among the Stoics and Neo-Platonists. In some cases, it would be hard to tell from their tone whether they were Pagan or Christian. They believed very firmly in a Natural Law and saw sodomy as unnatural. As the Classical gave way to Late Antiquity and Christianity was on the rise, they became more and more like the Christians.
Our civilization has introduced several radical concepts. We’ve treat the object of sex as simply self-gratification. We divorce of sexual activity from one’s sex; you’ll notice how sex was traditionally used in two senses and how we’ve so misused the word “gender,” that’s it has largely taken over the secondary definition. We almost define homosexuality as a kind of third sex/gender. The word homosexuality describes an activity and homosexual defines the person in relation to the activity they engage in, like a pugilist or numismatist. The fact that an entirely unrelated word had to be co-opted to capture the concept might give us a notion of just how radical it is. I don’t believe it antedates the 19th century. For the Ancients, explaining these concepts might have been somewhere between trying to explain the notion of a square circle and that random acts of murder are fun for the whole family. It wouldn’t have fitted into their mental landscape and the person explaining it would’ve run a good chance of ending up dead at the hands of the mob.
For my part, I would note that sexual arousal as a mechanism is quite malleable. We know that people can condition themselves to be aroused to certain triggers and that people can develop any number of odd fetishes, to objects animate and inanimate, or even certain activities. It can get to a point where a person finds it difficult, even well-nigh impossible, to become aroused without their favored fetish. Yet, despite all that, if we look at all the biological systems involved in sex, the obvious pointer is toward the opposite sex as the default “on position.” I might be able to use tools to pick a lock, but it was made for a certain key.
…I’ll add my two cents here…
Okay, so it was more like two dollars. So sue me, I want my two dollars!
Yer a persistent cuss, ain’t ya!
Yer a persistent cuss, ain’t ya!
That’s what she said!
“I might be able to use tools to pick a lock, but it was made for a certain key.” This could be the title for a whole new thread!! (Kinda like the carpet/wood flooring issue)
To add: What Christianity brought to the table in terms of the moral discussion was a more philosophical understanding of what was handed to it by Judaism. With the philosophy and theology of the Church, at its best, you get a recognition of the Eros as an affirmation of the love and creative energy of God, reflected in the relation between husband and wife. The Song of Songs, explicit as it is, shows a husband who delights and revels in his wife, in the fact that she is who she is and that she is his. Every inch and iota of her body is his native country. This marriage of the carnal and high sacredness is something that the Ancients never quite happened upon. It also gives a sense of the loss we face with our attitudes about sex; not only do we debase its sacredness, but we also settle for too little in our sexual play.
Regarding the ancients; that has been the accepted wisdom for the last several centuries, but this is now a topic of much debate. Ancient Rome had a lot of graffiti and the last few decades have seen a lot of activity in cataloging it. Classicists have been surprised at how much has to deal with love in a “modern” sense. Also, there is a lot of affection towards children, especially deceased children, which was not understood before. I’ve read books on this. I’ll try to find some references on the Internet for links…
The recognition of romance wasn’t absent among the Ancients: Dido and Aeneas, Circe and Odysseus, Cupid and Psyche, among others. But they regarded it as a form of madness, in the main. However, you misunderstand what I meant.
I mean that Paganism had two ways in which it treated sex in a religious context. It was either treated very carnally, in fertility rituals and the like, or it was tolerated, as exemplified in the attitudes of the Platonists and Stoics. There was no attempt to place sex in a position of high sacredness, as with virginity. Christianity imported a more highly developed view of romantic love that reconciled the carnal to the sacred.
I don’t think I did misunderstand. I am familiar with what you are stating and I am stating that the accepted wisdom of how Romans and Greeks viewed sex, love and romance is in some dispute, and part of the reason for this tumult are the everyday writings of the rank and file folk.
If one only reads Shakespeare’s Hamlet one comes away with a very different view of what romance was like for the typical Brit living in the 17th century. Just as the Iliad and the Odyssey likely give a skewed view of how the average, Roman aqueduct repairman viewed his spouse.
David, have you read St. John of the Cross and his use of Song of songs as an allegorical expression of his own spiritual Journey?
Yes, there is not doubt that nature intends heterosexuality. Your lock and key euphemism are sufficient explanation. Also, we humans would die out rather quickly without heterosexuality. But, why would this be any different than all other human physical and mental characteristics. I am a man. I love to play sports. Pretty much every sport I’ve been introduced to I enjoy (even soccer). My wife has no desire to participate in sports. Yet I know some men who like some sports, but not others. I know plenty of women who like sports as much as I do. I’m not much of a spectator. I enjoy playing sports but not watching them. I know guys who love to watch them but don’t like to participate. The same with women. I know men who love to cook. I know women who do not like to cook…
The above are likely more mental “decisions” than physical, but we see a whole, wide range of physical in humans too; men with broad shoulders and narrow waists, men with narrow shoulders and wide waists. Women with wide shoulders and narrow hips, women with hourglass figures… Yes, if most of us exercised and watched what we eat more men would look like David and more women would look like hourglasses, but there is a huge, wide variety of physical male and female characteristics and they don’t seem to have hard and fast lines. Some men have breasts. There are hermaphrodites in the world.
I don’t think anyone here is arguing that non-heterosexuality can be a “choice.” But I do argue that there are likely folks born with all manner of “wiring” in this area, just as we see with physical characteristics and mental attitudes toward traditional roles; cooking, athletics…
Yes, if most of us exercised and watched what we eat more men would look like David…
Why, thank you!
Anyway, I’ll respond later.
Michelangelo’s David, you knucklehead!
I know this question has been on everyone’s mind: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/01/why-your-popcorn-smells-like-a-bearcat%E2%80%99s-butt/
I think I am leaving this one alone. I do enjoy popcorn very much and I do not want that to change.
I have never even heard of a bearcat and if they smell so similar, think of the movie concession possibilities!
Honey-badger don’t smell like popcorn!
My popcorn doesn’t. Does that mean there’s something wrong with my popcorn?
My coffee, on the other hand, smells good, especially with bacon on the side! Drink up and have a ball. I’ll be back.
I’m back and I’m bad. If you don’t believe me, ask the bearcat! At least I don’t smell like Froot Loops!
Good morning! I am sure your coffee, among other things, smells divine.
The coffee, like coffee. Me, like che3rry blossoms!
I hope you’re feeling better. Being sick is, well sickening, and really starts to become a large pain when it just keeps dragging on. Goozer too, with his cold.
Skip the 3 that’s stuck in the middle of cherry! Some day…no typos!
It’s good to have a life goal, even at your age.
Next time just insert the word “lofty” before age. that way the whole world will know that I’m an old fart!
Interesting discussion so early in the morning. Coffee please.
Early? We’ve been up for hours!
Its Sunday….we don’t get up early here on Sunday LOL!
And God knows it’s all about you, Steph. Except when it comes to apologizing for coming on these boards last weekend and behaving like an unhinged 2-year-old.
*coughcoughCOUGHwheeeeeeeeeze* The doctor says I’ve graduated from cold to Sinusitis/Bronchitis. woohoo. :-/
Congrat’s on the graduation, can we expect anouncements to be mailed shortly.
Hopefully, the announcements will be phlegm free.
The wheezing is what is the worse; that, and the sore ribs from coughing. And rumor has it that this is the cranky cold. I wouldn’t be so cranky if everyone would leave me the $&#^%@ alone.
Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…Tink…
Hi.
You still have handy access to your inner 5 year old I see. Does that include a finger point each time too?
And it doesn’t seem like you are suffering too badly, unless you started watering down all that orange juice with tequila.
Yes on the finger pokes…never on the tequila!
Vodka, then? A little Screwdriver on a Sunday afternoon never hurt anybody. In fact, I am shooting the liquor shelf a couple of glances myself right now.
nope nope nope…no liquor over here. I only drink on vacation at my dad’s place in Puerto Rico, remember? So I guess I’d better book a flight…
Well, I knew you drank there (wasn’t Sangria mentioned?) but didn’t realize it was ONLY there.
Well…almost only there. I have the very occasional drink with my brothers…plus, on two occasions a decade apart, two different women vowed to get me drunk at the events we were attending. They failed, and I learned I have a highish tolerance for booze. If I keep to the schedule, the next attempt will be in 2018. Which will be even more sad than it sounds, since both of the aforementioned attempts happened in between marriages.
But my dad’s parties are still the bomb.
“If I keep to the schedule, the next attempt will be in 2018.”
Since you’re the antithesis of a cheap date, we’ll have to start saving now.
Get well!
That’s what you get for playing in the Los Colinas Mustang fountain when its 30 degrees outside.
Get well, soon.
Der breakfast!
http://www.eatwisconsincheese.com/assets/images/recipe/CheeseAndBurger/The-Sheboygan.jpg
Wambaugh’s a very good writer, and he can be hilarious. I loved “The Black Marble.” But some of his other books make me want to eat my gun.
I tried to read a couple different ones of his and never enjoyed them. Maybe I’ll give “The Black Marble” a try.
The Choirboys was good, funny and entertaining. But then I enjoyed watching the TV show Police Story back when it was on.
From all the old LAPD cops I’ve met out here… the Choirboys is also accurate (and the park shooting during “choir practice” is based on a real incident).
Speaking of the ancients, I was just reading this about a joke book that dates back to the time of Exodus.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2092775/Tablet-crude-jokes-riddles-beer–dating-time-biblical-Exodus.html
Interesting, and no surprise.
I guess I don’t think like a Mesopotamian. Still, none of ‘em could beat, “Take my wife. Please.”
One good investment you could have made,TO…CONDOMS!
http://www.gq.com/sports/profiles/201202/terrell-owens-nfl-football-wide-receiver
One of the most talented players I’ve seen but his mouth and attitude were poison. If I were a coach I would not have had him on my team. It sounds like maybe he is learning a lesson he should have learned years ago. If he does, I wish him well. He’s only 38. He can do a lot of good.
Police Story was a good show.Outlaw,you remember Don Meredith playing on it?
Yes, my mom had to watch every episode he appeared in.
It was no Police Squad.
POLICE SQUAD! Six great episodes! The shortest lived cop show ever. It was great!
“The shortest lived cop show ever.”
Two words, “Cop,” “Rock.” How soon they forget.
I remember those too, his was a favorite character of ours as well.
And The Onion Field (you mentioned below), that was quite a movie. Holy cow.
Talk about that a lot in my day… PTSD and all that. The movie is rough — especially if you have an aversion to full-frontal James Woods
Well,for “The Onion Field”(book and movie)I can cut Wambaugh a lot of slack for anything bad he wrote.
Anyone else seen this Gold Rush show on Discovery? Did they intentionally set out to find the guys that can’t organize, do any planning or research…it’s wonder they all aren’t dead. It’s a train wreck and I can’t stop watching.
Yes, yes and yes. My wife, one of our sons and I are also hooked on it. The 16 year old working on his own is the smartest of the bunch.
I haven’t heard of this one. I’ll have to check my local listings.
I’m still hanging with my local boys, the Pawn Stars on History Channel.
Admit it, you like it so much because you see so many of your old possessions there
I enjoy Pawn Stars too. Haven’t heard of Gold Rush, I’ll have to check it out.