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The article explores the intersection of Judaism and sexuality through an exhibition at the Jewish Museum Berlin, Germany which presented diverse religious and artistic perspectives on the subject. Topics include the tension between sexuality and religious regulation, the role of marriage and pleasure in Jewish traditions, and contemporary perspectives on gender, eroticism, and identity.

This paper critically reviews the case of a social work student whose professional training was terminated by his University. This followed the student's expression of his religious views about homosexuality on a public social media platform. The student sought a judicial review of this decision on human rights grounds. The High Court dismissed the student's challenge but the Court of Appeal overturned this decision to dismiss on the grounds of proportionality and referred the student back to the University to determine further action. This case is discussed in the context of the complicated positions taken up during the process leading to this legal Judgment, as they have implications for curriculum and pedagogical strategies, fitness to practice processes, and the experience of LGBTQ+ students. The discussion considers how, in light of this Judgment, social work educators can continue to address sexuality as a social justice issue. Critical and queer perspectives can support transformative learning where binary thinking about sexuality and religion is challenged and students can appreciate the impact of their values on others. Recommendations are made for addressing disparities in how sexuality, sexual, and gender diversity are addressed in professional education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on violating the taboos of sex and religion, Faḍīla al-Fārūq's cause is the status and identity of women imprisoned in the domestic realm. Topics include how woman becomes a terrain with different discourses on social practices, beliefs, and religious discourses merge; and how women loses self-ownership and identity, before becoming a site of affirmation, self-emancipation and social norm in Maghrebi literature.

The article explores the use of spiritual and sexual desire within the television program "The Young Pope." Topics include television's role in the discursive construction of sexualities, the theories of Jacques Lacan and Sigmund Freud, and the queering of Catholic sexual mores.

The article offers an analytical Presentation of the Document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission: What is Man? (Ps 8:5). An Itinerary of Biblical Anthropology (30-IX-2019), exposing some aspects of the Theological Message of Gen 1–3. After having presented the context, the purpose and the articulation of the Document, two exemplary reasons for the anthropological message of Gen 1–3 are underlined: a) ’ådåm and its relations; b) In search of the face (Gen 3:8). Finally, three perspectives emerging from reflection on the Document are highlighted. The First Perspective is given by the relationship between anthropology and Christology. The Second Perspective is part of the broad interpretation of the human story in the light of the history of the covenant with God. The Third Perspective concerns the dialectic between creatural Weakness and the life-giving power of Divine Action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores recent Muslim debates on sexuality through an analysis of American Muslim conversations on LGBTQI+ inclusion and sexual norms as they took place in the 'Muslim American public square,' defined as a porous space of debate, analysis, and affect that is marked by intense public scrutiny and hostility towards Muslims. It analyzes religious arguments regarding queer Muslims and contextualizes them as a specific set of patriarchal Muslim responses to the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage in 2015 and to the attack on the Pulse Club in Orlando in 2016, exhibiting an affective investment in a stable Islamic tradition that constructs patriarchal sexual norms as the linchpin of the tradition. Muslim American debates refract broader American conversations while also being marked by distinct positionalities, arguments, and affects that preclude the possibility of categorizing the diversity of Muslim attitudes towards same-sex love and marriage either affirmatively or negatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beneath the appalling incidents of sexual abuse in the Church, there are key theological issues. Along with Pope Francis, I argue that central to this crisis is the abuse of power. I propose that part of the way to address this is through a discussion of the appropriate use of power; and perhaps the best way to think about the appropriate use of power is through the notion of the appropriate use of authority ‐ as service. Here, I suggest there could be the beginning of an ecclesial response that would involve the wider Church along the developing lines of synodality that Pope Francis promotes. After an initial introduction focusing the abuse of authority and the call for a greater synodal way of relating in the Church, there is consideration of the vital foundation of authority rooted in intimacy with God. This leads to an exploration of the centrality of the example of Christ for authentic exercise of authority. Dialogue is seen as a healthy expression of authority, while living the tensions in the exercise of authority suggests a true witness to authority could be the formation of communities of discourse bearing many of the hallmarks of the synodal process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Augustine famously believed fallen human sex to be inescapably bound up with sinful lust. In every sexual act, lust embodies both the sin of the fall (prideful idolatry) and that sin's consequences. John C. Cavadini has extended Augustine's conception of lust to include domination, and even violence. This leaves us with a disturbing question: is sex without violence possible? Building upon Jean-Luc Marion's distinction between idol and icon, this paper locates a solution to the problem of lust in Augustine's conception of friendship. Identifying the beloved as an icon of God entails relating to the beloved without lustful domination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the aspects of habitus and agency in the Corpus Paulinum, a moderated academic e-list dedicated to the scholarly discussion and evaluation of critical questions surrounding the life, influence, teaching, theology and the writings of the Apostle Paul. It further discusses the Christian consciousness linked with sexuality and fear of power in the Church; "Petrus, die Kirche und die verdammte Macht" book by Manfred Josuttis.

A literary criticism of the book "Lord of Dark Places," by Hal Bennett, is presented. Topics discussed include the concept of masculinity in the context of religion and the racial identity of the Black people, the inversion of the social, racial, and gender hierarchies in the context of Christianity, and the conflict between Black nationalist and white supremacy.

The author reflects on the concept of gender identity and sexuality within the strict confines and social norms of a Haitian Baptist church in Brooklyn, New York City. Topics discussed include the socio-historical context of Black identity and its link to perpetual violence and indignities, impact of religious upbringing in the Haitian Baptist church on sexual development, and restrictions for girls and women in the area of clothing, relationship and social interaction.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including race and sexuality, Black feminism, and the impact of religious upbringing on sexual development.

The article discusses Mormon approaches to sexuality, with particular focus given to prohibitions on gay sexuality and non-scriptural secondary texts which define Mormonism's support of heteronormative sexuality. The concept of deuterocanonicity or "second canon" is explored, and the anti-gay Mormon texts of "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" and section 101 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which was formerly part of the Book of Mormon, are examined. The process by which Mormon doctrine is created is also touched on.

Religion continues to be a significant factor in the shaping and performance of masculinities and sexualities in different parts of the world. This article explores how religion influences masculinities and sexualities in general, utilizing some examples from the African context. While highlighting that masculinities occur in the plural, it also underscores the contestations around sexualities. The article probes how religion influences straight, gay and celibate sexualities. It also draws attention to strategic areas that could facilitate the emergence of more liberative masculinities and sexualities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview with scholar Robert Orsi is presented. Topics discussed include his book "Give Us Boys" on Catholic sexual abuse, ethnographic and historical study demonstrates how the Catholic closet made sexuality horribly dangerous for women, for children, for the vulnerable and sexuality is not peripheral to the study of religion, but integral to it.

This paper makes the case that scholars of US religions neglect the relationships between religion and sex, or at least those that exist beyond the spheres of interdiction and, recently, the sexual activities of white evangelical Protestants. This neglect takes shape, I suggest, because of a series of unspoken and largely unquestioned presumptions about religion, sexuality, and the secular. Arguing that scholars' resistance to engaging the intersection of religion and sexual activity except among exoticised "Others" has profound consequences for queer and transgender people after well over a century of pervasive cultural associations between their identities and sex, I urge the field to adhere more closely to the principles of lived religion approaches by taking queer and transgender people at their word when they define something--even something sexual--as religious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on focuses on the Church of Venus, a Seattle-based brothel that advocated for the spiritual life of sexuality. It mentions Church muddied the definitions of secular modernity in questioning the strict divisions among commerce, sex work, and religion, seeking to bring "sex- positivity" to mainstream cultural conversations. It also mentions promotion of sexual freedom through the development of physical infrastructure and alternative communities.

Examines from a Lutheran perspective the sexuality Hamlet complains about in Ophelia and Gertrude. Martin Luther's theology of grace; Primary symptoms of Hamlet's `too, too solid flesh' and symptoms associated with his concupiscence; Play `Hamlet.'

The author talks about the 20th publication anniversary celebration of the periodical by referring to its founding editor Ken Plummer who examined his thesis on gay male Christian partnerships. Topics discussed include the development of research on sexuality and religion, secularist bias in academic and popular discourses of sexuality and religion, and the intersection of sexuality and religion.

The article discusses the relationships among sex, religion and administrative law in the U.S. by analyzing the sexual risk avoidance (SRA) sex education programs of the U.S. President Donald Trump administration and the contraception mandate requiring religious institutions to provide health insurance guaranteeing free contraception by the Barack Obama government. Topics include sexual risk reduction (SRR) or comprehensive sex education (CSE) programs and reproductive health.

Recent studies of Asian religious traditions have critiqued Western philosophical understandings of mind–body dualism and furthered the productive notion of mind–body continuum. Based on intensive fieldwork among two kinds of devotional groups of Bengal—claimants to an orthodox Vaishnavism, who focus on participating in the erotic sports of the Hindu deity-consort Radha-Krishna in imagination and a quasi-tantric group, which claims to physically apprehend Radha-Krishna's erotic pleasures through direct sexual experience—I demonstrate that, although these devotional groups stress on combating theologies, with emphases respectively on the 'mind' and the 'body', in their narrations of religious experiences, however, both groups allude to rarefied phenomenological states of cognition and embodiment. So, while influenced by ideas of (mental) 'purity' and (bodily) 'actuality', respectively, practices of both groups rely on similar states of mind–body continuum. So I argue that the mind–body complex has intensely nuanced articulations in the discursive and experiential domains of these non-Western religious contexts. Through my analyses of the texts and embodiments of these opposed devotional groups, I show that theology gets both organically entangled with as well as challenged by phenomenological experiences. I further argue that explorations in the tenor of religious studies sharply enrich the anthropology of religiosities. Also, such engagements between theology and anthropology have been relatively lacking and need more emphasis in studies of contemporary South Asian religions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the popular depiction of apocalyptic New Religious Movements in the television show "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" revealing how the premise of this sitcom reflects deep cultural anxiety about gender, sex, and religion. It mentions apocalyptic belief contributes to the easy dismissal of women's religious belief and participation in sexual difference as evidence of coercion and abuse. It also mentions space for sexual difference not afforded to members.

This article discusses how European, North American, and Australian churches understand and define the terms sexual misconduct and sexual abuse. The methodical approach is an analysis of denomination-level church policies or guidelines from approximately 20 different denominations. The analysis explores the influence of different definitions of these key terms on church leaders’ perceptions of stories of inappropriate behavior by one of their own leaders or trusted congregation members. My aim is to demonstrate that the power analytical approach is superior to other forms of analysis for interpreting the interactions between those involved. For this study, I systematized the descriptions of sexual abuse and sexual misconduct in the selected church guidelines into five categories: (1) acts, (2) subjective experiences, (3) breaking ethical or cultural standards, (4) sexuality, and (4) misuse of power. A majority of the policies use descriptions of acts. A theoretical framework that includes choices of interpretive perspectives is required. Therefore, the discussion primarily focuses on sexuality versus power for interpreting the term sexual misconduct. A concluding remark is that understanding sexual misconduct as sexuality means acknowledging reciprocal activity, which is desirable for the abuser and often for the leadership of the church. The power analytical approach helps to make visible the objective criteria of being in a position of “power over” another person and is key to connecting responsibility to relational and structural factors. This approach also makes it possible to question who in a context ought to have the power of defining what abusive behavior is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secular scholars have criticized Christian education and counseling on sex as restrictive, ineffective, and outdated. The authors of the current study explored both common non-Christian and Christian approaches to human sexuality with reference to overarching domains of religion, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Secular approaches were classified as the inward approach, the spatial approach, and the temporal approach, whereas Christian approaches were categorized as the traditional and the modern perspectives. Although Christian faith can be signified as a protective factor against casual and risky sexual behaviors, traditional Christian values should be reevaluated in favor of comprehensive Christian approaches to sexuality, which embrace sexual desires as divine gifts for completeness of humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Cultura y Religión is the property of Miguel Angel Mansilla Aguero and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Ancient people envisaged a strong link between what was deemed transgressive religious activities and objectionable sexual practices. Moreover, sexual behaviour considered aberrant was deemed to upset political boundaries which should protect civic and national stability, especially when this behaviour was suspected of effeminacy. Such thinking appears to inform both Romans 1:18–32 and Wisdom of Solomon 14:12–14. Focussing on two passages from these documents, the links between religion, sexual behaviour and politics in the context of the 1st-century Roman Empire are investigated, tracing underlying ideological intersections, connections and divergences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article pays tribute to the contribution made by Yolanda Dreyer regarding critique on the prevalence of patriarchy in society, as well as her defence of homosexuality as a normal sexual orientation. Taking as point of departure her work on the woman as created in God’s image, it is argued that understanding the metaphor ‘created in God’s image’ as referring to rule over all, and not as created as man and woman, has important implications for the relationship between man and woman, as well as the normalisation of relationships between the same sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Population (00324663) is the property of Institut National d'Etudes Demographiques and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Religion has been, and continues to be, a source of external hostility and internal struggle for many sexual minorities. This has potential implications for the observed religious origins and current religious affiliations of individuals identifying as a sexual minority. Regarding origins, self-identified sexual minorities might be less likely than heterosexuals to have come from religious traditions that have tended to be hostile to minority sexualities, as individuals raised within those traditions might be hesitant to identify as a sexual minority even if they have same-sex attractions. Regarding destinations, self-identified sexual minorities might be more likely than heterosexuals to switch away from religious traditions that have tended to be hostile to minority sexualities. We examine these expectations using nationally representative survey data from the 2008 to 2014 General Social Surveys. The analysis shows that sexual minorities do not significantly differ from heterosexuals by the religious traditions in which they were raised. Sexual minorities are, however, more likely than heterosexuals to move away from Christian traditions and towards disaffiliation or reaffiliation with 'other' traditions that include Judaism, Buddhism, and liberal nontraditional religions such as Unitarian Universalism. For gay and lesbian individuals, these patterns of disaffiliation and reaffiliation can be attributed to higher on average education and lower likelihood of being married and having children; however, these sociodemographic factors do not explain the disaffiliation and reaffiliation of bisexual individuals. Further research should explore the different religious experiences of sexual minority sub-groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We will analyze how Hervé Guibert’s Fou de Vincent (1989) develops a “poetic of the antagonistic”, in which the syntagm «du piètre rendu précieux» [«of the trivial made precious»] acts as a keystone. The focus will be brought on Guibert’s propension to sublimate the foul and the vile by combining the appalling with the luminous, the trivial with the apotheotic. What is more, we will show how, by means of an exaltation and glorification of Vincent’s figural instance, overerdetermined by the phallus, the author draws a substantial link between the sexual and the sacred. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior work has demonstrated that religious beliefs and moral attitudes are often related to sexual functioning. The present work sought to examine another possibility: Do sexual attitudes and behaviors have a relationship with religious and spiritual functioning? More specifically, do pornography use and perceived addiction to Internet pornography predict the experience of religious and spiritual struggle? It was expected that feelings of perceived addiction to Internet pornography would indeed predict such struggles, both cross-sectionally and over time, but that actual pornography use would not. To test these ideas, two studies were conducted using a sample of undergraduate students (N = 1519) and a sample of adult Internet users in the U.S. (N = 713). Cross-sectional analyses in both samples found that elements of perceived addiction were related to the experience of religious and spiritual struggle. Additionally, longitudinal analyses over a 1-year time span with a subset of undergraduates (N = 156) and a subset of adult web users (N = 366) revealed that perceived addiction to Internet pornography predicted unique variance in struggle over time, even when baseline levels of struggle and other related variables were held constant. Collectively, these findings identify perceived addiction to Internet pornography as a reliable predictor of religious and spiritual struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines changes in male missionary marriage trends in the late nineteenth century. By examining the number of bachelor missionaries in two Irish Protestant missionary organisations, this paper argues that there was an increased acceptance of unmarried male missionaries in the mission workforce, a change that is reflected in other contemporary mission societies. Using case studies of three Irish Protestant missionary bachelors, this paper shows how bachelorhood influenced men’s missionary experiences in their social relationships, daily life and living arrangements. While accepting missionary bachelors, mission societies continued to emphasise the importance of Christian marriage as the ideal state of masculinity and femininity. Therefore, missionary bachelorhood was constructed as a temporary period of noble sacrifice during which men devoted themselves to mission work, while remaining expectant of marriage in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a novel theory on the interaction of social norms, fertility, education, and their joint impact on long-run economic development. The theory takes into account that sexual intercourse is utility enhancing and that the use of modern contraceptives potentially conflicts with prevailing social norms (religious beliefs). The theory motivates the existence of two steady states. At the traditional steady state, the economy stagnates, fertility is high, education is minimal, and the population sustains a norm according to which modern contraceptives are not used. At the modern steady state, the population has abandoned traditional beliefs, modern contraceptives are used, fertility is low and education and economic growth are high. Social dynamics explain why both equilibria are separated by a saddlepoint-equilibrium (a separatrix), i.e. why it is so hard to transit from the traditional regime to the modern regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous research has generally found that religiosity is associated with negative attitudes toward sexually explicit material (SEM) and a lower frequency of SEM use, no studies have examined the relationship between SEM type and religiosity. In addition, it is unknown how the interrelations between religiosity and type and frequency of SEM use influence the relationship between SEM use and sexual satisfaction. Here, associations among a multi-item religiosity scale (consisting of measures of self-reported faith in God, religious services attendance, and the religiosity of the respondent’s social network), SEM use, type of preferred SEM, and sexual satisfaction were explored using a large online sample of Croatian adults (N = 2,580). In both men and women, religiosity was associated with less frequent SEM use and more SEM-negative attitudes. Guilty feelings following SEM use and SEM-negative attitudes fully mediated the association between religiosity and SEM use among women and partially mediated the relationship for men. Religiosity was also negatively correlated with women’s nonmainstream SEM use. For women, religiosity significantly moderated the association between SEM use and sexual satisfaction, as well as the relationship between nonmainstream SEM use and sexual satisfaction. In line with the erotic plasticity theory, the findings suggest that religiosity affects SEM use and related sexual satisfaction more substantially among women than men. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Greek god Dionysos is often characterized by modern scholarship in a highly conceptualized way. From the perspective of such studies, Dionysos has become a metaphysical concept, a symbol of the primeval human impulses. For such hermeneutics, Dionysos' relation to wine has been considered to be secondary and unessential. The present study is a reassessment of the role of wine in some of the main themes of Dionysiac mythology and cult. These include the ivy, the Theban myth of Dionysos' birth, the Orphic myth of Dionysos, the main festivals dedicated to the god, the Dionysiac madness, the satyrs and the maenads as the main followers of Dionysos, the identification of Bakchos with the Eleusinian Iakchos, rituals such as those of Dionysos liknitēs, the aiōra (swinging), and the flood, the relation of the god to the sea, and the sacred wedding between the Athenian basilinna and Dionysos. I show that not only does wine not represent a secondary or derived aspect of Dionysos, but it can be found at the foundation of all these well-known aspects of Dionysiac cult and myth. Dionysos is essentially what the whole of antiquity recognized and celebrated in him, namely the god of wine. The mythology of Dionysos is the mythology of wine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]