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Sep. 11th, 2006
That's just weird...
Sep. 11th, 2006 07:23 pmSo I'm researching philosopher Thomas of Aquinas for a Humanities skit. Our topic is "pleasure and pain," which (as I'm sure you can imagine) makes things interesting enough to begin with. So I was reading some of the things Aquinas had to say about pleasure. In his Summa Theologica he asks the question, "Is any pleasure non-natural?"
Paraphrasing a portion of his response, with a direct quote included: something unnatural to mankind may become natural to one man through a corruption "on the part of the soul; thus from custom some take pleasure in cannibalism or in the unnatural intercourse of man and beast, or other such things, which are not in accord with human nature..."
Did a thirteenth century Christian scholar just make serious, scholarly reference to bestiality?
I think I'm scared.
On an unrelated note, Austin told me today about an awesome musical called "Zanna, Don't!" A description from http://www.queermusicheritage.us/gm-zanna.html says: "The story of a personable teen named Zanna, who has a need to give budding love a helping hand, plus the keen eye and magic wand to speed the process, ZANNA, DON’T! is set in a world where homosexuality is the norm, and heterosexuals are considered an oddity. The town is called Heartsville, USA. All of the characters are homosexual, or so we think, until one bold student writes a musical about forbidden heterosexual attraction in the army, and the true, closeted desires of two of the cast members come to the surface. A world much like our own, save for this twist on statistical norms, the witty script is full of humor, love, and ironic commentary about social stereotypes." I've listened to the first song and it sounds hilarious. And just now looking for the synopsis I ran across a listing of LGBT musicals that I didn't even know existed, some of which looked interesting...
And that's it for tonight, because I'm getting back to Tommy-boy and Humanities...
Paraphrasing a portion of his response, with a direct quote included: something unnatural to mankind may become natural to one man through a corruption "on the part of the soul; thus from custom some take pleasure in cannibalism or in the unnatural intercourse of man and beast, or other such things, which are not in accord with human nature..."
Did a thirteenth century Christian scholar just make serious, scholarly reference to bestiality?
I think I'm scared.
On an unrelated note, Austin told me today about an awesome musical called "Zanna, Don't!" A description from http://www.queermusicheritage.us/gm-zanna.html says: "The story of a personable teen named Zanna, who has a need to give budding love a helping hand, plus the keen eye and magic wand to speed the process, ZANNA, DON’T! is set in a world where homosexuality is the norm, and heterosexuals are considered an oddity. The town is called Heartsville, USA. All of the characters are homosexual, or so we think, until one bold student writes a musical about forbidden heterosexual attraction in the army, and the true, closeted desires of two of the cast members come to the surface. A world much like our own, save for this twist on statistical norms, the witty script is full of humor, love, and ironic commentary about social stereotypes." I've listened to the first song and it sounds hilarious. And just now looking for the synopsis I ran across a listing of LGBT musicals that I didn't even know existed, some of which looked interesting...
And that's it for tonight, because I'm getting back to Tommy-boy and Humanities...
