However....all this "show and blow" simply distracts from the point that I have been trying to make all along: that some leftists have appropriated in some part the dominant Puritan belief that sex should only be legitimized in the most narrow of circumstances; and that sexual desire should be subsumed to whatever political agenda is present at the moment.
I think that the response to my views have proven my point quite well.
With that, I humbly yield the floor.
:-)
Anthony --
On Wed, 23 Oct 2002 09:19:27
Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
>``...And you cannot deny the basic fundamental fact that most
>right-wing opposition to abortion and contraceptives are rooted in the
>same foundation as their opposition to "deviant" sexual
>material/behavior: a grotesque fear of their own repressed sexuality.
>I'm for diversity of sexuality and sexual expression, NOT diversity of
>ideology...'' Anthony Kennerson
>
>--------
>
>Well, I can deny it. You need to take this idea a lot further along
>and see that sexuality and deviance are not really the foundation
>either. You had it closer when you talked about the body. Or at least
>that's my view.
>
>It is the body, its entire organic existence filtered through some
>religious and moral lens that generates their rejection, loathing and
>fear. The concordance the political right feels toward the austere,
>grim, phobias of various fundamentalist Christian and Jewish religious
>traditions isn't accidental.
>
>They find in those wretched systems of thought and practice all sorts
>of confirmations of their own loathing for the life of the body. Their
>obsessed with it. For each of the quasi-erotic or merely enjoyable
>functions, practices, or thoughts that depend on some aspect of the
>body and its grounding in living processes (including its relational
>dependence on society and the natural world), they see some form of
>corruption, filth, or disease, some threat, violation or untruth. They
>are attempting to completely re-animated some ancient or medieval
>conceptual frame of society and the world, and these phobias toward
>the body and life are merely one aspect of their strangely deformed
>and demented world view. They are an anathema.
>
>So, in my view chasing around various liberalizing ideas about
>sexuality is something like putting the cart before the horse. For
>example my disgust for Islamic fundamentalism isn't restricted to its
>apparent abuse of women.
>
>These fundamentalisms are mirrors of one another and the destructions
>and social chaos they are perpetrating on their respective societies
>are reciprocal deformations. That's why I referred to the rightwing
>Talibanization of the US---an idea suggested by Tariq Ali's book cover
>that shows Bush done up as Muslim cleric and bin Laden in a suit
>behind the presidential podium.
>
>Chuck Grimes
>
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