I have done several posts as I have been reading "The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations in Human Societies" by James Neill. The premise of the book might be summarized as follows: up until the Middle Ages in Europe as the Roman Catholic Church sought to control literally every aspect of believers' lives - especially every sexual aspect of their lives - homosexuality was prevalent and accepted pretty much across the globe. Then, as Catholic missionaries swept out across the world during the age of European colonization, taking with them neurotic/psychotic "natural law" theories and a bizarre form of asceticism, homosexuality came under attack on a global basis. Just how crazy were these "church fathers"? Here's a sampling on the Church's position on "wet dreams":
A good example of the shroud of sin the 13th century moralists cast around sex is the way they dealt with nocturnal emissions, a natural process whereby the male body eliminates an excessive build up of semen. Even though the process is completely involuntary, occurring when the person is sleeping, the scholastic theologians held that it was still sinful, since it fit the definition of "unnatural" sexual acts , those where the man's seed is outside a proper vessel [i.e., a wife's vagina where hopefully the parties did not enjoy it]. However, if the nocturnal emissions was not preceded by lewd thoughts the night before, the act was only a venial sin. If licentious thoughts occurred the night before, it was a mortal sin. In all cases, penance was to be performed the following morning."
The book is a treasure trove of batshitery which ought to cause anyone with an ounce of common sense and intellectual honesty to run screaming from the Catholic Church's "natural law" justification for sexual repression, hate and bigotry. If one wonders how Roman Catholic priest could become so psychologically disturbed that they sought release through the rape of children and youths, look no farther than the Church's obsession with sex and its "natural law" justifications for harsh sexual oppression. Here is one of the author's conclusions:
The historian G. Rattray Taylor has written that "Medieval Europe came to resemble a "vast insane asylum" and observed a direct correlation between increasing church control over sexual behavior and neurosis in the population." The neurotic reaction to sex of Saint Paul and the early church leaders reached full flower in the widespread sexual neurosis among the Christian of late Medieval Europe.
It was this neurosis that the missionaries then exported around the world, including areas like Africa where cretins and morons in government leadership claim that homosexuality is a foreign import even though the truth is the exact opposite.
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