Argues that polarity is a major metaphor of western thought, so that as long as masculinity is defined by one pole, femininity is defined by its negation. To challenge traditional conceptions of gender is to challenge the deeply-rooted metaphors and models of control that underlie western culture.
"The work then proceeds to give a critical examination of representative samplings of theories of knowledge from different periods and traditions in the history of philosophy, pointing out the sexual metaphors involved."--BOOK JACKET.
Metaphor has long provided a rich way to speak about the unspeakable, to refer to delicate issues. Sex is one such area. This book follows a cognitive-linguistic and relevance-theoretic approach to the language of sex, considering metaphor as a bridge that brings together mind and language. It does this through the analysis of the antithetical mechanisms of verbal mitigation and offence. These two mechanisms are (more commonly know as) euphemism and (its lesser known companion term) dysphemism. The volume reflects on the social and communicative functions that sexual metaphors perform in a sample of almost two hundred postings taken from internet forums. How do people think about sex? How do people avoid talking about sex? How do people paraphrase sexual topics? It offers an account of how real language users understand sexual taboo in present-day English and also a great grounding in manual corpus work on a qualitative level.
In 'God and the Sexual Metaphor' Dr. Roy C. Price puts forth a compelling argument against sex as a sport and for sexual activity within the boundary of marriage. The author states that God designed sex, not individuals or society, and that human sexual expression in the context of marriage is good in the sight of God. Dr. Price's purpose is to define the sexual metaphor used by God to describe His relationship with His people, and thereby understanding the boundaries established in Scripture for sensual expression. Using sacred writings as a guide to human behavior, and affirming a relationship with Jesus Christ, he discusses the benefits of following moral guidelines and the impartial consequences for contrary behavior. Parents, pastors, youth and youth workers can benefit from the study of this work, as well as anyone looking to shine a light on their own pathway.
Argues that polarity is a major metaphor of western thought, so that as long as masculinity is defined by one pole, femininity is defined by its negation. To challenge traditional conceptions of gender is to challenge the deeply-rooted metaphors and models of control that underlie western culture.
Sharon Moughtin-Mumby considers the often unrecognised impact of different approaches to metaphor on readings of the prophtic sexual and marital metaphorical language. She outlines a practical and consciously simplified approach to metaphor, placing strong emphasis on the influence of literary context on metaphorical meaning. Drawing on this approach, she read Hosea 4-14, Jeremiah 2:1-4:4, Isaiah, Ezekiel 16 and 23, and Hosea 1-3 with fresh eyes. Her lucid new readings reveal the way in which scholarship has repeatedly stifled the prophetic metaphorical language by reading it within the 'default contexts' of 'the marriage metaphor' and 'cultic prostitution', which for so many years have been simply assumed. Readers are encouraged instead to read these diverse metaphors and similes within their distinctive literary contexts in which they have the potential to rise vividly to life, provoking the question: how are we to respond to these disquieting, powerful texts in the midst of the Hebrew Bible?
The title of this volume, Sacred Marriages, consciously plays with the traditional concept of sacred marriage, but the plural form, “sacred marriages,” gives the reader an idea that something more is at stake here than a monomaniacal idea of manifestations deriving from a single prototype. Following the guidelines of one of the contributors, Ruben Zimmermann, the editors tentatively define “sacred marriage” as a “real or symbolic union of two complementary entities, imagined as gendered, in a religious context.” “Sacred marriages” (plural), then, refers to various expressions of this kind of union in different cultures that seek to overcome, to cite Zimmermann again, “the great dualism of human and cosmic existence.” The subtitle indicates that the contributors are primarily interested in different aspects of the divine-human sexual metaphor—that is, the imagining and reenactment of a gendered relationship between the human and divine worlds. This metaphor, which is essentially about relationship rather than sexual acts, can find textual, ritual, mythical, and social expressions in different times and places. Indeed, the sacred marriage ritual itself should be considered not a manifestation of the “sacralized power of sexuality experienced in sexual intercourse” but one way of objectifying the divine-human sexual metaphor.
'There is no doubt that "phantasy" or "unconscious phantasy", as it started to be used in the English translation of Freud's work in the late 1920s and 1930s to differentiate it from "fantasy", is one of the most important theoretical and clinical concepts of psychoanalysis.'- Riccardo Steiner, from the IntroductionIn this outstanding new collection, the vital concept of unconscious phantasy is debated and examined by such luminaries as Joseph and Anne-Marie Sandler, Jean Laplanche, J-B Pontalis, Susan Isaacs and Hanna Segal. Sigmund Freud's seminal paper Formulations of the Two Principles of Mental Functioning heads an impressive collection and provides a welcome reminder of the beginnings of this theory. The inherent difficulties in translating Freud's work have contributed to the conflicting interpretations that are so illustrated so well in the following articles. By collecting together such diverse opinions of Freudians, Kleinians, Lacanians and Neuroscientists on unconscious phantasy, Riccardo Steiner has created a fresh and compelling elucidation of this fascinating subject.
LIke other languages, Latin contained certain words its speakers considered obscene as well as a rich stock of sexual euphemism and metaphor. Our sources for this information range from surviving graffiti to literary works with a marked sexual content. Yet despite its manifest literary and linguistic interest, the sexual vocabulary of Latin has remained uninvestigated by scholars. J. A. Adams's pioneering and unique reference work collects for the first time evidence of Latin obscenities and sexual euphemisms drawn from both literary and nonliterary sources from the early Republic to about he fouth century A.D. Separate chaptes treat each of the sexual pasrts of the body and the terminology used to describe sexual acts. General topics include the influence of Greek language on Latin, changes in the Latin vocabulary over time (including the evolution of sexual words into general terms of abuse), and lexical differences among various literary genres.