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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (29654)	1/31/1999 2:19:00 PM
From: Father Terrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

What about Fanny Hill?

To: Ilaine who wrote (29654)	1/31/1999 2:59:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Well, if you are going to define prurience so broadly that it loses all meaning, or all distinctness that separates it from other literary uses or evocations of sexual imagery, you're going to have to invent other words that are sexual, or sexy, or sex-related, but aren't (what I would call) 'prurient.' I mean, the reason we have LOTS of words, is because we want to be able to make distinctions. Substitute 'prurient' for 'sexual' in many contexts, and you'll see they have different connotations. The bellhop peeking through the newlyweds' keyhole is not "celebrating" sex, in my way of speaking. (One could engage in a certain sort of philosophical discussion here, but let's not bother.) I feel 'prurience' in the very use of euphemisms, sometimes. In double entendres, usually. And usually, also, in sexual vulgarity, which is different from prurience, but a close relative of it. I notice that vulgarity is often offensive, to me, personally, but I am rarely offended by goodnatured obscenity. You know what? This is very personal stuff. In a way, not subject to argument. We can all just declare what turns our stomach and what delights or amuses or interests or excites us; and then we get to hang out with those of like mind, while we wonder at the oddness, or childhoods, of those of unlike minds. It seems to me that in a way, you are saying that if it makes you feel hot, it's prurient. That appears to be shalom's and Bob's position, but they seem to become more unhinged by their easily triggered sexual responses than you do.

To: Ilaine who wrote (29654)	1/31/1999 3:00:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

This is a continuation of my previous post about sex/prurience. It's another whole discussion, but: There are men who get erections when they look at a pair of high heeled shoes. Are high heeled shoes 'purient'? Or just sexy? Very long hair is a big sexual turn-on for some men. Are women who grow their hair very long, and then, for heaven's sake, bleach it!, behaving pruriently? There are individuals who seek sexual arousal by looking at pictures of amputees in medical textbooks. Are those textbooks prurient? Was it prurient of me just then to use the words 'erections,' 'big sexual turn-on,' and 'sexual arousal'? There are people for whom those words on the page are more arousing than nihil's post, simply because they are used so properly and without humor. I'm one of them. There is no context proper enough to de-sex the word 'arousal,' to me, personally. But do I think it's a prurient word, or that I am prurient because it is a certain sort of word for me? If that response made me prurient, could 'prurience' be reasonably defined by anyone as a 'bad' thing? The point I'm making is that sexuality of content is easy enough for us to agree on, you and Bob and shalom and me-- though our agreement won't be 100%. This is not at all true of prurience. And even if we manage to agree on a subset of texts or images that are, to all of us, prurient, it is unlikely that we will agree about whether those prurient texts are 'good' or 'bad.' Sexuality and prurience and obscenity and vulgarity do not all mean the same thing.

To: Ilaine who wrote (29654)	1/31/1999 8:48:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Isn't what is fantastic and very sexy about attending events like Renaissance Faires and other pagan festivals exactly what we find erotic about the Wife of Bath and the rest of Chaucer and that time--the idea if you went out to gather flowers or take eggs or apple tarts into town to sell on market day, you might end up at the side of the road with your long dress up over your head, having a real rutting with a sexy stranger the way farm animals do it? In fact, isn't there even something sexy about being around animals, because they are less inhibited, and not quite so monogamous as most of us are in the age of AIDS? In any event, I find my own imaginings of medieval life extremely titillating.