Day 34
I didn't do much of anything today, that's alright though cause I'll be out all day tomorrow. I did finally read the article I downloaded from Religion and American Culture called "The Pure American Woman and the Wicked Catholic Priest: An Analysis of Anti-Catholic Literature in Antebellum America" by Marie Anne Pagliarini. Really quite interesting stuff. Basically, it covers the anti-Catholic literature produced by various Protestant sources; stuff like convent novels, sermons, etc as well as outlining the sociosexual context in which these writings were made.
There was a lot of information about the construction of nineteenth century sexuality, the most interesting of which was that the construction of normative sexuality was through the delineation of sexual perversion and deviancy, so it is implicitly constructed as opposed to the explicit definition of normative sexuality. It also goes on to mention, of course, True Womanhood and the idea that the ideal American woman's sexuality was defined by passionlessness.
The most interesting point in the article, though, I think was their treatment of the clergy. The Catholic priest was portrayed as sexually depraved due to the corrupting effects of celibacy. In rejecting the "law of nature" and his true roles as husband and father, the Catholic priest is dehumanizing himself and taking himself outside of society (which, in effect, they would want to do - "of the world, not in it"). It is a sin against God and against human nature itself. It is also said that without the ameliorating effects a female presence has on the male sex drive, priests would become sex-crazed monsters, bent upon sating their lust without any moral restraint. The priest would use the confessional as his primary tool to lure in unsuspecting and innocent American women and by using the skills of seduction he was taught in seminary (as if!), he could make any woman his willing sexual partner. Then, of course, there were the convents, which, to Protestant America, were nothing but dens of iniquity, filled to bursting with potential concubines who would be forced to fulfill all of the priests' sadistic yearnings.
And you thought history was boring...
I also watched the last episode of Hell's Kitchen. Is it bad that I really want to make some Marco Pierre White icons now? He's, well, damn hot. It's that hair, I just can't get enough of it. I wanted Adele to win, but Barry did. Oh well, he deserved it just as much as she did. He did burn the ever living shit out of his hand.
Speaking of watching stuff, I just finished downloading MST3K The Movie, I think I'll watch that now.