Sexuality

"In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept, And suck’d the honey which thy chaste bee kept."

"Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed."

"Thou seest our mistress’ ornaments are chaste."

"Haply that name of ‘chaste’ unhappily set This bateless edge on his keen appetite;"

"Collatine’s fair love, Lucrece the chaste."

"I snatcht her gowne; being thin, the harme was small, Yet striv’d she to be covered there withall. And striving thus, as one that would be chast, Betray’d her selfe, and yelded at the last."

"He wept for joy, t’ enjoy a wife so fit For his grave mind, that knew his depth of wit, And held chaste virtue at a price so high, ..."

"Highly thus is love disgraced, When the lover is unchaste,"

"But if a kiss prove unchaste, Then is true love quite disgraced."

"In life she is Diana chaste, In truth Penelope; In word and eke in deed steadfast."

"Ne derer is none in Goddys hurde Than a chaste womman with lovely worde."

"Even from the body's purity, the mind Receives a secret sympathetic aid."

"As chaste as unsunn'd snow."

"Chaste as the icicle That's curded by the frost from purest snow And hangs on Dian's temple."

"The very ice of chastity is in them."

"My chastity's the jewel of our house, Bequeathed down from many ancestors."

"Like the stain'd web that whitens in the sun, Grow pure by being purely shone upon."

"So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity, That, when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lacky her, Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt."

"'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity; She that has that is clad in complete steel, And, like a quiver'd nymph with arrows keen, May trace huge forests, and unharbour'd heaths, Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds; Where, through the sacred rays of chastity, No savage fierce, bandite, or mountaineer, Will dare to soil her virgin purity."

"As pure as a pearl, And as perfect: a noble and innocent girl."

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."

"We cast out, then, and banish from our sight those who only wish to seem and not to be virgins. Henceforward I may bring all my speech to bear upon you who, as it is your lot to be the first virgin of noble birth in Rome, have to labor the more diligently not to lose good things to come, as well as those that are present. You have at least learned from a case in your own family the troubles of wedded life and the uncertainties of marriage. Your sister, Blæsilla, before you in age but behind you in declining the vow of virginity, has become a widow but seven months after she has taken a husband. Hapless plight of us mortals who know not what is before us! She has lost, at once, the crown of virginity and the pleasures of wedlock. And, although, as a widow, the second degree of chastity is hers, still can you not imagine the continual crosses which she has to bear, daily seeing in her sister what she has lost herself; and, while she finds it hard to go without the pleasures of wedlock, having a less reward for her present continence? Still she, too, may take heart and rejoice. The fruit which is an hundredfold and that which is sixtyfold both spring from one seed, and that seed is chastity."

"You will tell me, perhaps, that, high-born as you are, reared in luxury and used to lie softly, you cannot do without wine and dainties, and would find a stricter rule of life unendurable. If so, I can only say: Live, then, by your own rule, since God's rule is too hard for you. Not that the Creator and Lord of all takes pleasure in a rumbling and empty stomach or in fevered lungs; but that these are indispensable as means to the preservation of chastity."

"CHASTITY. Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dulness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another's Peace or Reputation."

"The believer knows that chastity is not the ridiculous mania of complex people, but it is the ability to lord it over our bodies with the help of grace so that we can meekly enter, each according to his or her condition, into God's loving plan."

"The authors of antiquity are agreed that this discipline had succeeded in producing the highest examples not only of the purest chastity and sentiment, but also a simplicity of manners, a delicacy, and a taste for serious pursuits which was unparalleled."

"In all that concerns chastity and marriage their principles are of the utmost purity. Everywhere the great teacher recommends chastity and temperance; but at the same time he directs that the married should first become parents before living a life of absolute celibacy, in order that children might be born under favourable conditions for continuing the holy life and succession of the Sacred Science (Iamblichus, Vit. Pythag., and Hierocl., ap. Stob. Serm. xlv, 14). This is exceedingly interesting, for it is precisely the same regulation that is laid down in the Mânava Dharma Shâstra, the great Indian Code. Adultery was most sternly condemned (Iamb., ibid.)."

"There is no evidence that wounded troops care about the sexual orientation of the flight nurse or medical technician tending to their wounds."

"I fully support the president's decision."

"At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy."

"The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it."

"Reignited by the brutal slaying of a gay soldier at Ft. Campbell, Ky., the controversy over gays in the military threatens to become as combative an issue at the end of the Clinton administration as it was at the beginning. In recent weeks, the president, vice president and first lady have separately criticized the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen has authorized an investigation of its enforcement."

"Mr. President, this November marks 10 years since our Nation imposed the discriminatory law known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on the lesbian, gay, and bisexual patriots of our Nation. During the past decade, almost 10,000 men and women have been fired from our Armed Forces simply because of their sexual orientation."

"Furthermore, there is no adequate remedy at law to prevent the continued violation of service members' rights or to compensate them for violation of their rights."

"[We must] repeal the law that denies gay and lesbian Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. It's the right thing to do."

"It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. … I cannot escape being troubled in the fact that we have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me, personally, it comes down to integrity. Theirs as individuals and ours as an institution."

"Are there genetic predispositions to coffee drinking? Highly unlikely. I referred to this kind of donor selection process as grass roots eugenics—where people select donors based upon fuzzy interpretations of genetics, imagining a prototype perfect donor whose desired traits will be passed down to their child. People choose donors with whom they feel they have a connection. If they plan to tell the child how they were conceived, they also want to be able to say good things about the donor who helped create them."

"Screening policies in the human gamete industry reflect larger cultural assumptions that pathologize difference. In my research on both sperm donation in the 1990s up to my current work on egg donation, I have discovered there are a number of reasons a prospective sperm or egg provider may be rejected: too short, too tall, overweight, “socially inappropriate,” not having the “right motivations,” not attractive enough, a variety of “health reasons,” possibly even religion or ethnicity, and so on. The reasons for rejecting a potential donor are often unspoken."

"The London Sperm Bank recently came under public scrutiny for rejecting a prospective sperm donor because he’s dyslexic. Aside from dyslexia, this repository also screens out men seeking to donate sperm if they have ADHD, dyspraxia, Asperger’s and other neurological conditions, many of which have a demonstrated genetic link. On the company’s website, these traits were listed as “neurological diseases,” along with Cerebral Palsy, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Epilepsy, Tourette Syndrome and Multiple Sclerosis."

"I find my blood pressure rising when Clinton's cultural shock troops participate in homosexual-rights fund-raisers but boycott gun-rights fund-raisers... and then claim it's time to place homosexual men in tents with Boy Scouts, and suggest that sperm donor babies born into lesbian relationships are somehow better served and more loved."

"For now the discipline of celibacy remains firm. Some say, with a certain pragmatism, we're losing manpower. If, hypothetically, Western Catholicism revises the issue of celibacy, I think it would be for cultural reasons (as in the East), not as a universal option. For the moment, I am in favor of maintaining celibacy, with the pros and cons it has, because there are 10 centuries of good experiences rather than failures...."

"Divergent views on mandatory celibacy for priests contributed to the reform movements in the 16th century. Martin Luther, a leader of the Protestant Reformation, argued that allowing priests to marry would prevent cases of sexual immorality. He drew upon Paul’s letters for support of his views. On the other hand, leaders of the Catholic Church’s “Counter-Reformation,” a reform and renewal movement that had begun before Martin Luther, did not advocate marriage, but sought to address corrupt practices among the clergy. Desiderius Erasmus, for example, a 16th century Catholic scholar, wrote a powerful critique of corruption in the Catholic Church. His views may well have been shaped by the fact that he himself was the illegitimate son of a Catholic priest. One of the most important developments in this period was the creation of the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, which sought to reform the priesthood in the face of accusations of sexual relations and corruption by, in part, improving the education of priests. In the founding rules of the Jesuit order, emphasis was placed on the importance of celibacy, training and preparation for missionary work, and serving the directives of the pope."

"The fact is for a long time the Catholic Church struggled with its interpretation of Scriptures on priestly celibacy. It wasn’t until the 12th century that priestly celibacy became mandatory."

"Although Christian "clergy," such as bishops and deacons, begin to appear around the year A.D. 100 in early Christian communities, priests emerge as Christian leaders only much later. Priests came to be the ordained clergy tasked with officiating rituals like the Eucharist or Lord's Supper, also known as Communion. And what about their celibacy? Even here, evidence is both unclear and late: there were reports that some bishops at the Council of Nicea, called by Emperor Constantine in A.D. 325 to address the problem of heresies, argued for a consistent practice of priestly celibacy. This, however, was voted down at the conclusion of the council. The debate resurfaced a couple of hundred years later, but still without uniform agreement. Over time, priestly celibacy became a serious point of disagreement between the Eastern Orthodox and the Western Roman Catholic churches and contributed to the Great Schism between the two in A.D. 1054. Pope Gregory VII attempted to mandate priestly celibacy, but the practice was contested widely by Christians in the Orthodox Eastern Mediterranean world. Five centuries later, the issue was once again at the forefront of debate when it became a significant factor in the Protestant split from Catholicism during the Reformation."

"The marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony..."

"Addressing the celibate Teutonic Knights, the Reformer also emphasized Genesis 2:18: “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper who shall be with him.” Setting himself squarely against the Papacy and the Church Councils here, Luther declared: “[w]hoever would be a true Christian must grant that this saying of God is true, and believe God was not drunk when he spoke these words and instituted marriage.” Except among those rare persons ”not more than one in a thousand” Luther said at one point-who received true celibacy as a special gift from God, marriage and procreation were divinely ordained. As he wrote: “For it is not a matter of free choice or decision but a natural and necessary thing, that whatever is a man must have a woman and whatever is a woman must have a man.” The Geneva-based reformer John Calvin put an even greater emphasis on Genesis 1:28. He argued that these words represented the only command of God made before the Fall that was still active after God drove Adam and Eve out of Eden. This gave this phrase a unique power and importance. Calvin added that this “pure and lawful method of increase, which God ordained from the beginning, remains firm; this is that law of nature which common sense declares to be inviolable.” While occasionally acknowledging in unenthusiastic fashion St. Paul’s defense of the single life, the Reformers were far more comfortable with the social order described in Luther’s Exhortation to the Knights of the Teutonic Order. ““We were all created to do as our parents have done, to beget and rear children. This is a duty which God has laid upon us, commanded, and implanted in us, as is proved by our bodily members, our daily emotions, and the example of all mankind.” Marriage with the expectation of children, in this view, represented the natural, normal, and necessary form of worldly existence."

"[T]he great Dutch theologian Desiderius Erasmus, while always loyal to Rome, complained: “Let them prate as they will of the status of monks and virgins. Those who under the pretext of celibacy live in [sexual] license might better be castrated. . . . [T]here is a horde of priests among whom chastity is rare.” [[w:Philip of Burgundy|Philip of Burgundy], the Catholic bishop of Utrecht, admitted that chastity was nearly impossible among clerics and monks who were “pampered with high living and tempted by indolence.” This problem festered until the reform-minded Council of Trent convened in 1545."

"Celibacy is not merely unknown to Islam, it is unintelligible."

"Early sixteenth-century Europe was an era very different from ours. The late medieval Church claimed about one of every four adults in celibate orders, serving either as priests, nuns, or monks or in celibate military and trading groups such as the Teutonic Knights."

"John Paul II granted that this understanding of celibacy applied equally to men and women choosing to live a consecrated life. However, he distinguished between the nature of celibacy as practiced by men and women. The celibacy of women, as a path to realizing womanhood, could be understood only with reference to Christian anthropology and the complementary spousal relationship: “At the same time they realize the personal value of their own femininity by becoming ‘a sincere gift’ for god who has revealed himself in Christ, a gift for Christ, the Redeemer of humanity and the Spouse of souls: a ‘spousal’ gift. One cannot correctly understand virginity-a woman’s consecration in virginity-without referring to spousal love. It is through this kind of love that a person becomes a gift for the other. Moreover, a man’s consecration in priestly celibacy or in the religious state is to be understood analogously. Women’s consecration in virginity was defined in terms of the woman’s role as wife."