...to think 'partner' means a cohabiting partner, not just boyfriend.

[fideline]

This has twice caused major confusion recently.

I realise most of the time it doesn't really matter much, but referring to someone you are 'just' dating as your partner is confusing wrong.

Isn't it?

There is that Bit

I know where 'repressing the flesh' comes from. And actually, it IS an expression that was used in the 16th century. Try commentaries on the book of Galatians, by Martin Luther or Jean Calvin for example.

The irony is that people who rant against what they perceive as 'sexual debauchery' (as you put it) often end up using vocabulary that is explicit and titillating. Repression and titillation start to look, weirdly enough, like two sides of the same coin. And this too is a paradox that goes back centuries. If you want REALLY full descriptions of what gay men in the Middle Ages were doing in bed, then go on, read some conservative medieval rants against sodomy. Or go further back to ancient Rome and read some Juvenal.

I realise now that you're not taking the piss, you genuinely believe what you are saying. That is sad and I'm glad that extreme views like yours are rare on MN.

fideline, sorry to have hijacked your thread. Whatever I thought I disagreed with you about no longer seems like much of a disagreement at all; everything is relative!

Oops, keep cross-posting.

I was thinking troll too but then I searched for blessed's other posts, and if she is a troll, well, she is a remarkably consistent one. Think a potent mixture of homophobia and prayer.

That longish post was replying to blessed in case that wasn't obvious.

No you carry on marf. You have 696 posts left to make her see sense. Good luck

Oh ok. I must have had a typo in my advanced search. Not a troll. Shame really.

I retract my troll allegation. As you were.

Nah, I have to go to bed at some point!

a potent mix of homophobia and prayer

Erm no: support for the traditional family unit, Christian private schools like the one my dc's are in, sexual self-control and prayer, if you don't mind. I have made it clear in the past that I do NOT hate gay people nor do I fear them so accusing me of 'homophobia' is grossly unfair.

And I'm certainly aware of Reformation era Bible commentaries. What I mean is that such a view of sex is not restricted to the sixteenth century- it could have been found, with little modification, in the 20th or 19th or 12th or among Jews in the 3rd BC. It's a timeless principle of moral decency.

Why is marfisa sad about my pro-family views and why does she call me an extremist?

Sometimes people say partner so as not to give gender away.

Sad that people still feel the need to obscure that.

I agree fideline, but I have friends who don't feel comfortable with being 'out' at work, as there are still some homophobic people out there.

Yes. Me too. Always a shock when a bigot pops up and sometimes it is surprising to discover who holds the weird views.

Do you think I'm a "bigot with...weird views"? I thought I was fairly mainstream.

blessedhope

From what i've read there are no 'Mainstream' views or opinions on here.

Most of the time it's a bunfight or a competition to see who'#s the most offended.

You're religious and you have religious values a good many people don't....if that's what you are then rejoice in it (Scuse the pun) and don't give a jot what anyone else thinks.

I was speaking generally Blessed, but I wouldn't describe your views as mainstream, no.

Blessed like the worst sort of Victorian prude you seem utterly obsessed with sex and other people's sex lives who can do what with whom and when.

The only person with an unhealthy relationship with sex on this board seems to be you. That level of lascivious interest in what other consenting adults do with one another, I find odd bordering on creepy.

Blessed I learned long ago that terms like "pro family" and "traditional values" etc are so very often used to sugar coat some if the very worst types of bigotry, prejudice and narrow mindedness.

Yes your views are extreme. No you are not mainstream.

Not mainstream, no.

Crikey. It's just sex. Just a recreational activity for most people. Really, really not a big deal.

Crikey. It's just sex. Just a recreational activity for most people. Really, really not a big deal.

This! Again, it's weird and ironic that fundamentalists end up obsessing MORE about sex than most of the rest of us do.

As for 'repressing the flesh' being a timeless principle of moral decency, as blessed put it: um, no.

The thing is, you can't argue with fundamentalists, whether they are Christian or Islamic or anything else. Because it's not about rational debate, it's about dogma.

The real question though, blessed, is do you have a penis beaker?

blessed's posts also illustrate how random and arbitrary religious fundamentalism is.

She doesn't like polyamory - so far, so biblical (maybe! although there was a hell of a lot of polyamory going on the Old Testament) - but she also states disapprovingly that a woman was letting a man service her with his tongue and that she bought expensive cream for him to touch her flabby perfumed body with.

As far as I know, there is nothing in the Bible that explicitly forbids cunnilingus. Or having a flabby body. Or having your partner massage you with cream. In fact, now that I think about it, didn't Mary of Bethany use expensive ointment on Jesus's feet, and someone told her off for it, and Jesus defended her?

What I want to say to fundamentalists is, 'You are worrying about stuff that is not in the Bible,' and 'Jesus was nicer than you!'

Ignoring the terrible attempt at erotic writing (have you tried looking at Harry Potter fan-fiction? It could really improve your writing), do you have equally strong views about the exceedingly expensive face creams included in the weekly emails from MNHQ's Swears By? What about rich, well-off married women who shop at (very expensive) Karen Millen, which refused to commit itself to not sourcing from Burma during the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi?

It's not side-stepping. She is willing to truly look at suffering and her part in improving the lot of humanity. She doesn't do that despite her sexual life. Everything about her life stems from the fact that she has always been willing to look at the world with open eyes, rather than blindly accepting rules without thought. Her morals are not offskew in the least. Everything is in sync. She never contradicts her values.

"Repressing the flesh" you say? Pity that when religious scholars were writing about the sins of lust, and the virtues of monogamy, so few of them seemed willing to condemn fathers seeing it as their right to marry off their young teenage daughters against their will. But I forgot. It's more moral to only rape a wife than it is for one woman to consensual have sex with more than one man outside marriage.

And now, here's a link to Compassion in World Farming. I imagine you'll have a direct debit to them or a similar organisation, already?

www.ciwf.org.uk/

Pity that when religious scholars were writing about the sins of lust, and the virtues of monogamy, so few of them seemed willing to condemn fathers seeing it as their right to marry off their young teenage daughters against their will.

YES! Without wanting to out myself, I can say that I read a lot of medieval and Renaissance texts as part of my day job (lucky me) and this is absolutely right.

To me, talking about 'timeless principles of moral decency' is basically a red flag for fundamentalism. Because in fact, the more you look at the literature of the past, the more you realise that what people define as 'moral decency' differs dramatically according to the time period and the culture.

If there are any timeless principles of moral decency, they don't involve the avoidance of oral sex and the prohibition of multiple sexual partners. They involve people getting food and shelter and people's bodies not being violated without their consent.

Harry Potter fanfic yum

My goodness blessedhope - the more you spout on, the more in mind I am of a certain episode of Blackadder. This one!

Haven't read all the posts, about half. But just to add that whilst I don't have any major opinions on the topic, and married young, going from boyfriend to fiancé to husband, when a person on a course I did hooked up with someone half his age, when he was in fact married, and referred to her as his "new partner" who he then broke up with a week later because she got bored of him and he didn't like the smell of her fake tan (he was Indian, she was an Essex girl), I did raise one eyebrow as far as botox will allow.