Nuns to the rescue...

[Davidontour]

Ladies and gentlemen, from the people who brought you institutionalised brutality, child rape and it's accompanying denial and cover-ups, condom burning, infant abduction and trafficking, homophobia and the Magdalene laundries (all within the last 50 years too), may we present the Roman Catholic church in action 'rescuing' sex workers. You really could not make this stuff up.

[Clyde]

Bishop Brennan: The amount of people's lives irreparably damaged!
Father Dougal: They were only nuns.
Bishop Brennan: Nuns are people too!

[Father Jack has sobered up and is remembering words. He sees Sister Assumpta]
Father Jack Hackett: Nan!
Father Ted: No, Father this is a nun.
Father Jack Hackett: [Terrified] Nun!
[Runs out the window]
Father Ted: [Waves] Bye, Father!
[to Assumpta]
Father Ted: He's just out for his walk

[Davidontour]

Nuns -- useful on Father Ted.
As useful as a chocolate fireguard to sex workers.

[Clyde]

I know what you mean mate, useless shower...

[Davidontour]

This is all part of an attempt by the church to worm it's way back into decent society. They're hoping that by paying lip service to helping 'trafficked and fallen women', people might begin to forget the tsunami of abuse, brutality and deceit the church unleashed on the public so very recently. And of course if it brings in some money in the currently (but I suspect temporarily) lucrative niche market of 'helping trafficking victims', sure it won't do any harm, because all money earned will go towards compensating their own victims right? No? Silly me.

But you can't blame them for having the most solid of brass necks. After all they've always been skilled in promoting shame while feeling absolutely none themselves.

But you CAN blame those gullible enough to fall for it. Why should an unreformed theocratic dictatorship with an appalling abuse record be allowed anywhere near a vulnerable person, trafficked or not? Why indeed should they be listened to at all?

Sex workers ARE amongst the most vulnerable in society, which is precisely why these supposedly holy orders shouldn't be allowed anywhere near them.

[Rachel Divine]

I find this very interesting, speaking of nuns and church.

"Jesus Christ said much about love, but precious little about sex. Although his own life was relatively chaste by local standards, the fine points of sexual behaviour were not his main concerns. He made no statements on carnal relations between the unmarried or homosexuals, he was tolerant of prostitutes, and he was less harsh toward adulterers than the Jews had been. But Jesus the man did not last long in this world, and soon his word was taken up by others. His most influential followers were consumed with sex in all of its permutations and devoted much of their attention to questions of sexual morality. Jesus's indifference never prevented the Christian fathers from devising a violent array of restrictions in the Savior's name.

The dominant figure in the first generation of Christian sages was the Apostle Paul, who taught that sexual behavior could be nearly as bad as murder. Homosexuals, masturbators, adulteres, anyone who sought sexual satisfaction for its own sake were. he said, to be barred from the kingdom of God. Intercourse between husband and wife for the purpose of procreation was the only way for people to join as "one flesh" with each other, though Paul was no great proponent of matrimony either."

[Empirical]

I find this very interesting, speaking of nuns and church.

"Jesus Christ said much about love, but precious little about sex. Although his own life was relatively chaste by local standards, the fine points of sexual behaviour were not his main concerns. He made no statements on carnal relations between the unmarried or homosexuals, he was tolerant of prostitutes, and he was less harsh toward adulterers than the Jews had been. But Jesus the man did not last long in this world, and soon his word was taken up by others. His most influential followers were consumed with sex in all of its permutations and devoted much of their attention to questions of sexual morality. Jesus's indifference never prevented the Christian fathers from devising a violent array of restrictions in the Savior's name.

The dominant figure in the first generation of Christian sages was the Apostle Paul, who taught that sexual behavior could be nearly as bad as murder. Homosexuals, masturbators, adulteres, anyone who sought sexual satisfaction for its own sake were. he said, to be barred from the kingdom of God. Intercourse between husband and wife for the purpose of procreation was the only way for people to join as "one flesh" with each other, though Paul was no great proponent of matrimony either."

The theological reasoning behind the church's abhorrence of sex is fascinating. If you wanted to get into heaven, and of course you wanted to get there, you had to be "pure". To be pure you had to be chaste, or at least celibate. Sex was therefore a "bad thing", but it was recognised that the flesh could be weak. Thus, if you must have sex, you must be married—and we in the church are the only ones who can do this marriage thing properly—and if you have sex, it can only be for procreation, there can't be any enjoyment in it. And the people you procreate should, if at all possible, remain virgins, as they had a "get into heaven free" card.

The gap in the reasoning is this: it's fine to be pure, but what does sex have to do with it? Plenty of other things might make you impure—such as usury. Surely procreating virgins is a "good thing"? So where did the idea of "no sex please, we're Christian" come from? (Unless you were so sex-obsessed, like Augustine, and felt guilty about it.)

[Davidontour]

I have no problem with religionists keeping it in their pants. Just don't tell the rest of us what to do in our bedrooms.

I'd say it's infinitely more perverted to be obsessed with other peoples' sex lives than it is to enjoy something which is after all perfectly natural.

Sensible view: God gave women aesthetically pleasing bodies.
Religionist view: Let's cover them up.

Sensible view: Some people are born gay.
Religionist view: Let's persecute them.

Sensible view: Sex is fun.
Religionist view: Don't do it and FFS don't sell it.

[Rachel Divine]

At the start of Christianism, gay were the first ones to suffer. Actually, were passive homosexuals not the active ones.

Very much was like the Swedish model, illegal to buy but legal to sell, illegal to be passive but legal to be active.

Men were not to act as women (passive).

[Empirical]

At the start of Christianism, gay were the first ones to suffer. Actually, were passive homosexuals not the active ones.

Very much was like the Swedish model, illegal to buy but legal to sell, illegal to be passive but legal to be active.

Men were not to act as women (passive).

I didn't realise this. Early Christianity largely developed in the Greek world, even if it was then part of the Roman Empire. And the Greeks thought that to be manly was to be active, either with a man or boy, or a woman. Women were for procreation, men and boys were for fun. Men who were passive were really looked down upon. I'd guess that early Christian views on sexuality developed from this, at least in part.

St Thomas Aquinas much later tried to show that the earliest Greeks were a sort of proto-Christian in their views; so Aristotle et al weren't really primitive or even pagan. Amazing what you can do with belief.