Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Solo · 06-01-2008, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

It was the gnostics who preached celibacy, wasn't it? I get the impression that Paul thought of sex as a distraction more than a sin. I think the church fathers are the source of the opposition to sex in general.

No doubt that Paul preached celibacy (1 Cr 7:7) as a preferred option. Hetero marriage was obligatory to forestall immorality, which for Paul included fornication and "unnatural relations".

Quote:

Proposition 5: Even if 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 and 1 Timothy 1:8–11 do refer to homosexuality, what they likely have in mind is not homosexuality per se but rather one particular form of homosexuality that was regarded as especially exploitive and degrading.
Some scholars have suggested that malakoi designates attractive young men, or boys, whose sexual services were either purchased or coerced by older men, and that arsenokoitai designates these older men who thus “used” or exploited the younger men. According to this interpretation, malakoi and arsenokoitai do refer to male homosexuality, but the objection is not necessarily to male homosexual activity per se, but rather to the prostitution, coercion, and/or exploitation that typically accompanied one particular type of male homosexuality. And this, too, is consistent with Martin’s conclusion that arsenokoitai refers more specifically to exploitation than it does to sex.

Martin is simply wrong. The ancients, both Greek an Romans, had a strong dislike for adult male sexual passivity and saw it as an issue separate from homosexuality. Catamitus was a common insult in Rome (see. e.g. Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality : Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity) and the Greek malakoi relates to the perception of abnormal effeminate behaviour in males.
The idea of forms of sex as "exploitation" (as distinct from forced sex) was simply unknown not just to antiquity but to the Western Civilization prior to the Enlightment. True, the English lawmaker Henry Bratton recognized the rape of a prostitute to be a crime in the 13th century (on the opinion that a harlot may be on her way to rehabilitation at any moment) but it was not, I believe, until Samuel Richardson's didactic novel Pamela (1740), that the modern notion of exploitative sexual relationship (between masters and servants) made its first appearance.

Jiri

Diogenes the Cynic · 06-02-2008, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

It was the gnostics who preached celibacy, wasn't it? I get the impression that Paul thought of sex as a distraction more than a sin. I think the church fathers are the source of the opposition to sex in general.

No doubt that Paul preached celibacy (1 Cr 7:7) as a preferred option. Hetero marriage was obligatory to forestall immorality, which for Paul included fornication and "unnatural relations".

Quote:

Proposition 5: Even if 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 and 1 Timothy 1:8–11 do refer to homosexuality, what they likely have in mind is not homosexuality per se but rather one particular form of homosexuality that was regarded as especially exploitive and degrading.
Some scholars have suggested that malakoi designates attractive young men, or boys, whose sexual services were either purchased or coerced by older men, and that arsenokoitai designates these older men who thus “used” or exploited the younger men. According to this interpretation, malakoi and arsenokoitai do refer to male homosexuality, but the objection is not necessarily to male homosexual activity per se, but rather to the prostitution, coercion, and/or exploitation that typically accompanied one particular type of male homosexuality. And this, too, is consistent with Martin’s conclusion that arsenokoitai refers more specifically to exploitation than it does to sex.

Martin is simply wrong. The ancients, both Greek an Romans, had a strong dislike for adult male sexual passivity and saw it as an issue separate from homosexuality. Catamitus was a common insult in Rome (see. e.g. Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality : Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity) and the Greek malakoi relates to the perception of abnormal effeminate behaviour in males.

Please provide the attestations for the use of malakos/malakoi as a reference to effeminate males in Classical Greek literature.

Solo · 06-02-2008, 08:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Please provide the attestations for the use of malakos/malakoi as a reference to effeminate males in Classical Greek literature.

http://www.gaychristian101.com/Malakoi.html

Jiri

Roger Pearse · 06-02-2008, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

It was the gnostics who preached celibacy, wasn't it?

Not the Borborite gnostics, they didn't!

All the best,

Roger Pearse

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