Were monks gay
Queer Rites: Faith Politics and Sexual Diversity
In August of last year, I boarded a Greyhound bus for Scranton, Pennsylvania for a week’s stay in an Orthodox monastery. Okay, so it wasn’t like flying to Honolulu for a week, but for me it was more or less a necessary trip.
Since I was a teen I’ve been visiting monasteries. At 14, I spent a week in a Norbertine Abbey in Paoli, Pennsylvania, with some grammar school classmates. I knew I was gay but I was still interested in the Catholic monastic life. Part of my attraction to the Norbertines was the snow white habit. The Norbertines were not a strict religious order; in many ways they were a level or two down from real monastics favor the Benedictines and the Trappists.
When you visit a monastery the idea is to tailor your daily schedule so that you’re always doing what the monks are doing. If they obtain up at4 AM, you get up at4 AM, and so forth. Since my visit was in the summer, life at the Abbey was somewhat relaxed. In proof, it was so relaxed that we spent one afternoon lounging by the monastery pool. We wore our bathing suits, as did the five or six young monks who acted as our guides. Seeing monks in bathing suits was a litt
Queerness and gender fluidity permeate the landscape of Japanese culture, from BL manga to onnagata in Kabuki theater (male actors who play female roles). Additionally, sexual acts among males were common in ancient Japan and a major cultural feature in the Edo period. Japan was open-minded and even, in some cases, enthusiastic about same-sex relations up until Japan opened its borders in 1859, when Japan began to adopt repressive, Victorian-era attitudes towards sexuality in response to Western influence. Though Japan’s current political stance on queerness leaves much to be desired, Japan has a surprisingly rich history colored by a generally positive outlook on sex and sexuality.
From sex between male monks to 17th century erotica, Japan’s queer history might surprise you.
5. Buddhist Monks Tolerated Homosexual Relations
In general, attitudes in ahead Japan towards sexuality were free and permissive. As Louis Crompton notes in Homosexuality and Civilization, “Shintoism… had no special code of morals and seems to have regarded sex as a natural phenomenon to be enjoyed with few inhibitions.” When Buddhism arrived in Japan in the seventh century, it did so against the
Did the Medieval Church Own Gay Weddings?
Some Christians experiment to rewrite Church history to show that gay behavior was ignored or even celebrated. So in today’s episode I’ll be responding to Mason Mennenga’s video “Who Were the first Gay Christians?”
Mason:
LBTQ Christians have existed since the beginning of Christian history. This might come as a surprise to you since many Christians claim that LBTQ relationships are a modern invention, but L-G-B-T-Q people have existed since the beginning of history, and that means that LBTQ Christians include existed since the first stage of Christian history.
Trent:
Mason is actually taking the antonym view of what revisionists normally argue. As you see in my response to the 1946 documentary, which the producers tried to take down by the way, they aim to argue that gay relationships are modern and so the Bible can’t be condemning because they were unheard of in biblical times.
But of course there have always been people with same-sex attractions. That’s why St. Paul says those who occupy in homosexual acts along with other unrepentant sinners will not inherit the kingdom of God but he adds this disclaimer, “And such were som
Preface
The following is a document written in 1988. I would change some, perhaps many of the conclusions, and certainly the theoretical approach. In particular I would emphasis the position of large aggregates of human beings [i.e. cities and monasteries] as a necessary but not sufficient pre-condition for homosexual sub-cultures.
It should also be noted that this paper stands firmly against the social constructionist model of lesbian cultures. It sees, in Western culture at least, the persistent existence of recognizably homosexual sub-cultures which recur whenever opportunity presents itself. I am now much more open to constructionist arguments, but would insist that the free variation some aspects of constructionism seems to posit, does not exist:- in fact a small number of formulations recur repeatedly.
The bibliography on medieval homosexuality in the ten years since this document was written has grown enormously. There is an up-to-date online bibliography obtainable. Anyone seriously interested in this topic needs especially to get hold of the following (full citations in the online bibliography):
- Michael J. Rocke: Forbidden Friendship
- James Brunda
Monastic or Chaste Homosexuality
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FINDING YOUR OWN Genuine MYTH: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell: The Myth of the Wonderful Secret III
GAY SPIRITUALITY: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness
GAY PERSPECTIVE: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us about the Nature of God and the Universe
SECRET MATTER, a sci-fi novel with wonderful "aliens" with an Afterword by Mark Jordan
GETTING Being IN PERSPECTIVE: A Fantastical Gay Relationship set in two different time periods
THE FOURTH QUILL, a novel about attitudinal healing and the problem of evil
TWO SPIRITS: A Story of Life with the Navajo, a collaboration with Walter L.