Monks V. Nuns

Look...I haven't thrown the thongs away. Rather than any inappropriation, I just imagine the wearing of them would be uncomfortable. Last time we were in the pub and George said "When you're a nun can you come for a drink in your habit and we'll grope you?" and I gave a hesitant maybe...well if I do agree...I may wear thongs...just for a day!

St. Francis of Assisi? Friar Tuck? Cadfael? Caedmon? Gregor Mendel? Ivan Pavlov (Snoop Doggy Dogg)? Thelonius Monk? The Monkees? Karl, you make me SCREAMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!! [%sig%]

Normal service....

there are lots of monk jokes but they tend to be cleaner than nunjokes which invariably revolve around sex. I thik a comedy monk film would be a hit.All the real life monks/friars I know are intelligent, a bit nuts and great fun. Film has always portrayed them as either cold intellectuals or frustrated with their sexuality.

Weren't there monks in the dungeon musical number in "The History of the World part 1?" The nuns came in at the second half of the routine for the Ester Williams pool review.

Reconsider the thongs, Jude. You were bounced down here for your earthwalk to be alive and vital and sexy and human! Just because you're going to be a nun doesn't change any of that. How can you possibly help the world if you're wearing fluffy maroon knickers and a cross-your-heart bra?

Nuns are sometimes portrayed badly, particularly in the girls' school context, eg. The Three Magdalene's (title?), about the way they treated young women deemed to have sinned (pregnant after rape or out of wedlock etc). Nuns have been deeply cruel in these sorts of circumstances. But there isn't so much of the sexual connotation, not even lesbian, agree. Perhaps there isn't a big lesbian culture with nuns because lesbians tend to be iconoclasts and not inclined towards traditional religion, whereas homosexuals often go in for all the life defining ritualistic stuff, to order their guilty thoughts.

Jude, what ARE you doing to me?

I think Nuns are (with exceptions) seen as more cuddly than monks. And there's a mystique attached to all-female communities, given that men have very little of a role in them. As for monks - well they're actually avoiding social roles that are well-defined for them. Certainly in the medieval and renaissance periods, women often had more freedom by becoming nuns than staying in secular society. For men, religious life has always been something of a flight from the outside world.

psychosexual fantasy torture dear

bitch

Maybe she's having one last go at it before they slam the door on her.

Funnily enough I have the same attitude towards lesbians (the few I know, anyway) - there's a sort of carefree dynamic when you know that there's no possible sexual dimension. Went to a nurses' event last year when I was the only straight guy in the group and I still ended up kissing a lesbian which was weirdly sweet (Debbie was there too, no secret!) - more a token of friendship.

I'll hold you to that, Jude.

But Jude, you're also intelligent, a bit nuts and great fun. Are you sure you haven't missed your calling?

If you look at "the Nun's Story" with Audrey Hepburn, she is seen as cute, cuddly, saintlike, and lets face it, quite fit. In the "Name of the Rose" Sean Connery is seen as a hard nosed realist and the young Christian Slater, fit though he is has been tonsured (not nice) and shags a peasant. Karl I recommend Timothy Radcliffe's books, especially "I call you friends" as an exampla of a Monk (Friar) who is deeply spiritual and has in his life challenged vietnam, helped AIDS victims when they were treated as outcasts and is a jolly good read!

Is kissing a lesbian different to kissing a non-lesbian?

narziss and goldmund. the name of the rose. i could go on. the three stooges - one of us is a monk laurel and hardy - a film in which two monks try to get a piano downstairs order of revenge - sly stallone stars as a monk who hunts down the leader of a colombian cocaine cartel to rescue the kidnapped daughter of the blind piano tuner, Brother Vespa Illucuidici della monasteri - an italian comedy starring gregory peck as a monk who discovers a secret formula that turns shy young girls into cactus i could go on.

Sorry guys, I still can't see a monk in a dress and singing, "The hills are alive!" Do they shave their legs?

>>Went to a nurses' event last year when I was the only straight guy in the group and I still ended up kissing a lesbian which was weirdly sweet<< Neil, I suspect your comment would have more impact if you had reported you had kissed a gay (male) nurse in a token of friendship. But kissing a lesbian? OMG! And there was no sexual connotation? Shock horror no probe et al. Lesbians do not necesarily hate contact with men anymore than homosexuals hate contact with women (they often prefer it - and vice versa). The fact that a lesbian kissed you - for whatever reason - isn't really earth-shattering especially since you are a straight male and, as such, would snog any attractive female first and ask of her sexual persuasion only after she has done a runner. :-)

Well, I've been a bit sheltered until fairly recently so I'm still working through things which might be obvious and mundane to you lot. Maybe I ought to snog a nun and see if that's different again. I did kiss a male friend last year (but no tongues, etc!) but he lives in France so nothing unusual there either.

lol!!!

Nuns get up to all sorts in Winterson's 'The Passion'.

Of course, the problem is partly Nuns Have Puns... Nuns on the Run, The Sister Act - I can't think of any Monk related film title punnery without immediately descending into porn - Monks on the ****** and Friar *uck being the first to spring to mind. Anyhow, Gregor Mendel faked his results, insightful and right as he was about his theory, he skewed the results to fit the theory he already had. I think the general public perception of monks is that they are thoughtful, quiet and kind, whereas a sizeable amount of people would have an initial thought about nuns that they are either wet or cruel. (having met some nuns in formative years, I'd plump for the latter) To be honest, I'm sure the Monks are not mourning the fact that they didn't get the celebration of their religious lifestyle equivalent to Sister Act Two, Back in the Habit.

Funnily enough Karl I bumped into an old friend on Waterloo Station last night and she thinks I am following my true calling but heck...its a long discussion...and I'm never wearing the thongs...ever!

i think an experiment in the various styles of kissing would be worthwhile. different groups of people kiss a single heterosexual male and the results are correlated and we see what it coughs up. It might show that if you don't know the sexual orientation of the kissee then it affects your experience. I've kissed many straight men but only three gay men... all in good humour of course, no tongues...(adjusts balls in pants and checks sports results). I wonder what it would be like to kiss a man who later turned out to be gay (would it be felt that you had been deceived?) (would it just be felt?). It'd be like sharing a shower/bath after a sports event and finding out later that the guy you're happily soaping your nuts in front of is a regular commuter on the shitbox express. why does the fact that smeone COULD see you as a sexual object always get int he way? if it didn'[t then we could have shared changing rooms and toilets for both sexes with no fear of the one eyed milkman making a dramatic entrance when the netball team are leaving the showers I've also never kissed a lesbian that I know of although I have enjoyed the intimate company of those ladies who eat from 'both layers of the jaffa cake of love' but i don't see them as lesbians, just godsends.

I heard a rumour (not havin a television myself) that there was a reality TV show which conned some guys into trying to win the affections of a transvestite (and they didn't know) and they sued the programme producers.

ah yes... "controversial new reality series is expected to bring huge ratings to Sky One this autumn. Find Me A Man, due to begin on November 15, features seven "lively and outgoing" young men competing for the affections of a lady whom, unbeknownst to them, is actually a man."

The one where they sued was There's something about Miriam. That something was hidden between her legs. A good friend of mine was the producer. He has since learned his lesson and recently produced the plastic surgery Miss World in China.

...and did Gregor Mendel really fake his results? John??? Andrew??? Oh ye sources of all knowledge

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

what about: Monkey Magic? or the monk who's head glowed in the dark and was diagnosed as having a severe case of tonsurlitus [I'm so sorry, really, that just happened and now i regret it but it's late and monk jokes were never a forte]

This sounds like a new musical number for West Side Story. 'When you're a Monk, you're a Monk.' (finger snapping sound)

>and did Gregor Mendel really fake his results?< No! His theory's on inheritance were dismissed by the greater Scientific community up until about the early 1900s. 'He was way ahead of his time'. The qualitative approach that Mendel used to record his results, compared to todays qualitative analysis, shows an 'inconsistency in methodology', but not a deliberate attempt to falsify those results. "Excuse the pun". It baggers believe that with todays understanding of dominant/recessive traits, there could be any question re Mendel's theory of Inheritance. I suppose that is the nature of any great theory though, Falsification. He did onces try to cross a pea with a mouse..?

I suggest a Marx-Brothers monk-related musical remake Monk-y Business.