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Celibacy as Body Politic

 
  

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We're The Great Old Ones Now
19:44 / 10.10.07
Fair point, although I was suggesting that it's in being able to retain an identity whilst also having sex that - I suppose - an identity untroubled by sex is to be found.

Looking at the way this discussion has gone, it would seem to be a question of you, personally, would be seeking. I don't propose that you tell us - unless that's part of the point - just that it seems increasingly that this is a choice so nuanced and so specific to an individual that it's almost ludicrous to discuss it in the context of generalities and theories.
 
 
Papess
19:47 / 10.10.07
It seems to me that it's the interacting with the (generally non-celibate) world and holding to one's convictions/lifestyle that one can gain the most from being celibate.

Celibacy is quite powerful and in many ways on par to rebellious, counter-culture as promiscuity is.

I am just wondering about the terms of "retreat" and "engagement" in this thread, as it relates to celibacy. Is it meant in terms of motivation? As in:

"retreat" = "I do not want to have sex, so I am retreating into celibacy." ?

"engagement" = "It is not that I don't want have sex, but I want to be celibate, and I am actively engaging it." ?

I might be misunderstanding. (But that is not a surprise.)
 
 
Ticker
23:42 / 10.10.07
I guess I thought of engagement as saying 'I want to interact with you but not on a sexual level and the best way to get that dynamic out of the picture is to be celibate.'
 
 
Disco is My Class War
15:16 / 14.10.07
This brings me back to the question of celibacy: Sworn virgins were socially and culturally necessary for the people of the Balkans after the male population was nearly decimated. Does this kind of celibacy give us any insight into the kind of celibacy we're discussing (i.e. celibacy practiced willingly by a person for personal and/or political reasons)? Is the celibate in western society regarded as something of a "third sex" in our binary social construction of gender?

To me, it seems slightly problematic to think about Albanian sworn virgins as an example that connects us straight back to celibacy as a lifestyle choice in a so-called 'modern' Western context. My limited understanding of sworn virgin cultures is that most/many sworn virgins live as men and go by male forms of address as well as taking on a masculine economic and social role. And it's not unheard of for some sworn virgins to live with companions. So I would maybe theorise (without the benefit of really knowing anything at all about this) that celibacy for sworn virgins in Balkan culture is a social norm or ideology prohibiting what might be understood as sexual deviance, rather than something that every person who lives as a sworn virgin in the Balkans has practiced, and does practice. Celibacy in that context may not have anything to do with 'choice'; it may have to do with the threat of violence or social exclusion if an individual publicly transgresses the law.*

Meanwhile, the sense in which 'new' forms of celibacy are being articulated seem anchored in a cultural context where sexuality is assumed to be heteronormative. From what I understant of Cline, she seems to understand celibacy as the only alternative for women who are trapped in a sexual culture that makes them feel objectified or like receptacles for male desire. This ignores the possibility of female same-sex sexual practices, and it also seems to assume that all men are going to take on a masculine sexual role. On the other hand, the point seems to be about regaining a sense of autonomy. I'm all for autonomy, in a femininst context. But it would be pretty great to imagine that it was possible for women to gain a sense of autonomy and self-determination while having sexual relationships, too. But to get back to the point, Cline's thesis certainly doesn't seem to frame celibate women as a 'third sex': she's far too anchored in the gender binary for that.

Personally, discourses around celibacy make me feel a bit wary. I worry that books like the New Celibacy are actually quite anti-sex, underneath the layers of talk about it being an individual's choice. Certainly the implication seems to be that celibate individuals can attain more personal growth than those who fuck all the time. It seems to buy into the idea that sex is 'lowly' because it's to do with the body. I also have huge issues with the idea that attaining spiritual balance involves reducing one's dependence on the outside world, or reducing one's need for something external. We all need to eat; no-one (with the exception of breathairians) questions the human body's need for consuming food daily. I realise that I'm in danger of framing sex as some kind of biological need here, wihch is not my intention, but it seems equally suspect to frame sex as a 'base' need from which evolved humans can separate themselves, as a self-improvement strategy.

But I can see that in some contexts, practicing celibacy might be liberating. So I don't want to say, blanket statement, celibacy is a bad thing. Perhaps I'm just reacting to the mainstream discourses that support it. I'm thinking principally religious here: the good old Catholic Church as well as the more 'Eastern' spiritual teachings on celibacy as a path to enlightenment. I also wonder whether my experiences of sex as basically awesome (despite being a completely learnt social practice) and a source of great personal autonomy, contributes to that reaction against celibacy. If that wasn't the case, maybe I would feel differently.

*There's an interesting article called "Woman Becomes Man in the Balkans" in Third Sex, Third Gender, ed. Gilbert Herdt. I don't have a copy to hand, so my recollections are a bit vague. Sorry.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
00:27 / 16.10.07
To me, it seems slightly problematic to think about Albanian sworn virgins as an example that connects us straight back to celibacy as a lifestyle choice in a so-called 'modern' Western context.

Kind of thing. My first instinct when reading about the Sworn Virgins is not to read them as celibate women, but as queer or transgendered people who are in possession of a sexuality, and quite possibly have some pretty good ideas about what they would like to do with it, but are limited in the roles they are able to employ to express it by the surrounding culture.

Of course, that reaction is very obviously a product of prejudice - specifically, the prejudice that identifies what is going on in terms of my societal viewpoint and works back. But Disco, very interesting avenue. Does celibacy in general, or Cline's model of celibacy, subvert or reinscribe binaries of gender and sexuality? Stephen Fry, during his celibate period, described his sexuality as a question of with whom he chose not to sleep - his point being that he was subject to the same judgements, and indeed the same criminalisation, as a gay man regardless of whether he was having, or even had in the past had had, sex with another man.

Which is back to society and sex, of course, but in a slightly different way than Cline envisages.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
00:58 / 16.10.07
as queer or transgendered people who are in possession of a sexuality, and quite possibly have some pretty good ideas about what they would like to do with it, but are limited in the roles they are able to employ to express it by the surrounding culture.

Yeah, well, this is my instinctual response too -- which, on a Foucauldian level, is interesting purely in terms of our desires to ascribe those non-normatively gendered bodies with a sexuality that fits with our ideas about what masculine, female-embodied people 'do as a matter of course'. But it's just as theoretically dodgy, to me, to ascribe those bodies with a form of life articulating their gender role and apparent asexuality in terms of 'sacrifice', with all the implications of sublimation that holds: the sublimation of normative feminine gender identity, as well as sublimation of desire (which is part and parcel of how celibacy works as a discourse in terms of Western thought.)

The endpoint: we can't escape from the discourse, either way. So it's impossible to know, really, how Sworn Virgins are or are not sexual. Interesting question, though.
 
 
Haus Of Pain
12:13 / 08.03.10

Ravage, eject

Rumble, eject

Ramapage, eject

Buzzsaw, eject

Laserbeak, eject

Lots of that please.
 
 
Van Plague?
03:43 / 09.03.10
huh?
 
 
Evil Scientist
06:56 / 09.03.10
I think someone forgot Frenzy.
 
 
Haus Of Pain
08:21 / 09.03.10
I know you've been gone a long time and quite possibly haven't posted to the forum since the introduction of topic summaries so I'm not going to get all shouty, but for future reference we pretty much demand a summary these days. Secondly, I appreciate that things were often a little laxer back in ye olden days, but at present we kinda like topics to have some substance, and this one really doesn't in that it's not really a topic at all - more of a question, really. A question which could've been answered with a very quick Google search.

So, happy to have you back, but please note how things have changed.
 
 
Haus Of Pain
13:10 / 12.03.10
Unless someone wants to flesh this thread out - and I don't - I'm going to move for a deletion.
 
  

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