On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, John H Arnold wrote:
> sexual voraciousness (for men and women) was a controlling discourse on
> those who had 'stepped outside the received order of things'. Are we then
> suggesting that monasticism was outside the 'received order'? Or that
> there are competing discourses, both with some authority: a discourse of
> monasticism which values virginity and sexual continence; and a
> counter-discourse (secular?) which seeks to undermine these images? Or
> (as a third possibility!) that these two are flip-sides of the same
> controlling discourse?
Dear John and all,
Obviously, this is a far more complicated question than the e-mail format
easily accommodates. It is a subject that in one way and another has
informed all my work for many years. To try to put it briefly, I believe
that the original virginity movement (developed some centuries in advance
of monasticism) was a women's movement offering an alternative to
marriage and motherhood that was deeply subversive to both pagan and
Christian values. Even when (some) men came to embrace the movement and
promote it, it remained a threatening and unwelcome choice to most
people. The high profile of the champions of virginity distracts us from
their small numbers and veils the narrow acceptance of the ideal. If you
really want to go further with this, I will suggest a glance at my book.
A second theme that has come to interest me more and more (but remains
somewhat unresolved in my mind) is the relationship of male and female
monastics in late antiquity (up to ca. 800) which tended to constitute
(in my mind) a third gender that transcended sexual polarities. Again,
it is my present idea that from the Carolingian reforms forward, social
pressures (including the "pornographic" stereotypes that set this off)
operated to separate monks and nuns and prevent cross-gender alliances
among them.
Jo Ann
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