As I wrote in What is the blue pill? chivalry is a mockery of Christian sexual morality. What was pure was portrayed as perverse, and what was bawdy was portrayed as pure. It was a truly devious joke. We can’t see its wickedness because we have mistaken the parody of Christianity for the real deal.
Whenever I read chivalrous tales the two target audiences are painfully in the room. Each scene is carefully tailored to provide pure delight to both lovesick adolescent boys and the strong independent women who devour romance novels like 50 Shades of Grey.
Today I’ll share a small episode from Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, the epic that not only introduced Lancelot but is generally seen as launching the genre that we call chivalry. In today’s episode Lancelot meets a slutty maiden, and Chrétien de Troyes uses this encounter to teach chivalry’s view of sexual morality. The slutty maiden offers Lancelot information he badly needs if he is going to rescue King Arthur’s slutty wife, Queen Guinevere. But in return the slutty maiden insists that the studly Lancelot have sex with her. Lancelot declines the offer, not because of Christian sexual morality, but because of the morality of romantic love. As chivalry demands, he takes great pains not to slut shame her or otherwise judge the sexual immorality she wears on her sleeve:
Then the damsel said to him: “Sire, my house is prepared for you, if you will accept my hospitality, but you shall find shelter there only on condition that you will lie with me; upon these terms I propose and make the offer.” Not a few there are who would have thanked her five hundred times for such a gift; but he is much displeased, and made a very different answer: “Damsel, I thank you for the offer of your house, and esteem it highly, but, if you please, I should be very sorry to lie with you.”
The slutty damsel then declares that she will not give the studly Lancelot the information he needs, so Lancelot relents. However, he is distressed at the thought of fornicating without the sanctification of romantic love, and he also fears that the slutty maiden will become an alpha widow in the process:
“By my eyes,” the damsel says, “then I retract my offer.” And he, since it is unavoidable, lets her have her way, though his heart grieves to give consent. He feels only reluctance now; but greater distress will be his when it is time to go to bed. The damsel, too, who leads him away, will pass through sorrow and heaviness. For it is possible that she will love him so that she will not wish to part with him.
It is here that we learn that the slutty maiden is a strong independent woman. She leads studly Lancelot into the magnificent castle she has built, a place without men:
As soon as he had granted her wish and desire, she escorts him to a fortified place, than which there was none fairer in Thessaly; for it was entirely enclosed by a high wall and a deep moat, and there was no man within except him whom she brought with her.
(Vv. 983-1042.) Here she had constructed for her residence a quantity of handsome rooms, and a large and roomy hall.
When the time comes to dismount their horses, we are again reminded that the slutty damsel is a strong independent woman. Her moxie greatly pleases Lancelot!
Then he dismounts from his horse, as does the damsel from hers. The knight, for his part, was pleased that she did not care to wait for him to help her to dismount.
Lancelot removes his armor and stows his weapons, and they have a meal. Next the slutty damsel tells Lancelot to wait outside a bit while she gets into bed, and then come join her in bed. But when Lancelot returns, suddenly the strong independent damsel is at imminent risk of being raped. What follows is a bodice ripping scene where Lancelot is called upon to rescue the slutty damsel from a group of armed knights:
Entering one of the rooms, he hears a damsel cry aloud, and it was the very one with whom he was about to lie. At the same time, he sees the door of another room standing open, and stepping toward it, he sees right before his eyes a knight who had thrown her down, and was holding her naked and prostrate upon the bed. She, thinking that he had come of course to help her, cried aloud: “Help, help, thou knight, who art my guest. If thou dost not take this man away from me, I shall find no one to do so; if thou dost not succour me speedily, he will wrong me before thy eyes. Thou art the one to lie with me, in accordance with thy promise; and shall this man by force accomplish his wish before thy eyes? Gentle knight, exert thyself, and make haste to bear me aid.” He sees that the other man held the damsel brutally uncovered to the waist, and he is ashamed and angered to see him assault her so;
Here we are assured that Lancelot’s motivation for rescuing the slutty damsel is purely noble. She is a strong independent woman after all, and he doesn’t own her:
yet it is not jealousy he feels, nor will he be made a cuckold by him. At the door there stood as guards two knights completely armed and with swords drawn. Behind them there stood four men-at-arms, each armed with an axe the sort with which you could split a cow down the back as easily as a root of juniper or broom.
Lancelot briefly considers whether he should intervene against such odds, and quickly conquers his fears. Being a white knight isn’t easy, after all:
The knight hesitated at the door, and thought: “God, what can I do? I am engaged in no less an affair than the quest of Queen Guinevere. I ought not to have the heart of a hare, when for her sake I have engaged in such a quest. If cowardice puts its heart in me, and if I follow its dictates, I shall never attain what I seek. I am disgraced, if I stand here; indeed, I am ashamed even to have thought of holding back. My heart is very sad and oppressed: now I am so ashamed and distressed that I would gladly die for having hesitated here so long. I say it not in pride: but may God have mercy on me if I do not prefer to die honourably rather than live a life of shame! If my path were unobstructed, and if these men gave me leave to pass through without restraint, what honour would I gain? Truly, in that case the greatest coward alive would pass through; and all the while I hear this poor creature calling for help constantly, and reminding me of my promise, and reproaching me with bitter taunts.”
Except, for Lancelot, being a white knight really is easy. Although unarmed and unarmored, he handily defeats the room full of armed knights! He is wounded in the process, but that only makes him fiercer. Lancelot declares that he can easily take them all in battle, and as many others as they might bring:
Then the knight seizes the axe, wresting it quickly from him who holds it; then he lets go the knight whom he still held, and looks to his own defence; for the knights from the door, and the three men with axes are all attacking him fiercely. So he leaped quickly between the bed and the wall, and called to them: “Come on now, all of you. If there were thirty- seven of you, you would have all the fight you wish, with me so favourably placed; I shall never be overcome by you.”
This proves to the slutty damsel that Lancelot is indeed the studliest alpha of them all! She calls off the hoax, for she is a strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man to save her. She was just testing Lancelot, to see if he was chivalrous.
And the damsel watching him, exclaimed: “By my eyes, you need have no thought of that henceforth where I am.” Then at once she dismisses the knights and the men-at-arms, who retire from there at once, without delay or objection. And the damsel continues: “Sire you have well defended me against the men of my household. Come now, and I’ll lead you on.” Hand in hand they enter the hall, but he was not at all pleased, and would have willingly dispensed with her.
Then the slutty damsel calls studly Lancelot into bed with her. He complies, but since the fornication would not be sanctified by romantic love he lays on the bed with no sexual desire for her. The sexual morality lesson of courtly love is heavy handed and unmistakable. Lancelot loves another man’s wife, so adultery is perfectly moral. But he doesn’t love the slutty maiden, and besides he would be cheating on Arthur’s wife:
Not once does he look at her, nor show her any courtesy. Why not? Because his heart does not go out to her. She was certainly very fair and winsome, but not every one is pleased and touched by what is fair and winsome. The knight has only one heart, and this one is really no longer his, but has been entrusted to some one else, so that he cannot bestow it elsewhere. Love, which holds all hearts beneath its sway, requires it to be lodged in a single place. All hearts? No, only those which it esteems. And he whom love deigns to control ought to prize himself the more. Love prized his heart so highly that it constrained it in a special manner, and made him so proud of this distinction that I am not inclined to find fault with him, if he lets alone what love forbids, and remains fixed where it desires.
This of course proves to the slutty damsel that Lancelot is the greatest of knights, having first demonstrated his prowess in battle, and then demonstrated his perfect devotion to the holy entity that is romantic love.
The maiden clearly sees and knows that he dislikes her company and would gladly dispense with it, and that, having no desire to win her love, he would not attempt to woo her. So she said: “My lord, if you will not feel hurt, I will leave and return to bed in my own room, and you will be more comfortable. I do not believe that you are pleased with my company and society. Do not esteem me less if I tell you what I think. Now take your rest all night, for you have so well kept your promise that I have no right to make further request of you. So I commend you to God; and shall go away.” Thereupon she arises: the knight does not object, but rather gladly lets her go, like one who is the devoted lover of some one else; the damsel clearly perceived this, and went to her room, where she undressed completely and retired, saying to herself: “Of all the knights I have ever known, I never knew a single knight whom I would value the third part of an angevin in comparison with this one. As I understand the case, he has on hand a more perilous and grave affair than any ever undertaken by a knight; and may God grant that he succeed in it.”
Haven’t read it through yet, but I just about spit out my breakfast when I saw that headline. Good one.
One big difference between classic chivalry and the modern version: in the old stories the maiden was always young, sexy, and high-born. These are desirable women, albeit immoral. (Note that she takes him to her fortified castle; clearly this is no peasant.) Knights were not expected to behave chivalrously to middle-aged, obese peasants.
Today, men are expected to behave chivalrously to stupid, obese, tattooed, ill mannered, bad tempered, divorced “single mom” landwhales.
This modern variant is thus a perversion on a perversion. If the Lancelot tales were perverse, modern churches are doubly perverse.
What a hoot. This should be converted to audio.
Dalrock, by chance are you of English stock?
Then, as RPL points out, the reality of this in modern “Christian” culture could be enough to make some weep.
Leah has always hated Rachel, and always will.
I remember being confused by Arthurian stories when I was a kid. I couldn’t figure out why Arthur didn’t have Lancelot executed, and his fair bride locked away in a dungeon somewhere. I was way too young to understand anything, but I certainly knew this wasn’t the way a good story runs. Lol.
Today, men are expected to behave chivalrously to stupid, obese, tattooed, ill mannered, bad tempered, divorced “single mom” landwhales.
Bend the knee to these orcs or be excommunicated, either officially or non….
We are but eight score young blondes and brunettes, all between sixteen and nineteen and a half, cut off in this castle with no one to protect us! Oh, it is a lonely life — bathing, dressing, undressing, making exciting underwear…. We are just not used to handsome knights.
What a disgusting story! Almost as disgusting as when churches tell young men to “man-up and marry those ‘re-born’ whores”. I wish I hadn’t! The roots of this mess truly go back to the very beginning, and we will never be truly free of this wicked rot until God, Himself, frees of from it.
Of course, after he gives her the obedience she desires, she will lose all respect for Lancelot and abandon him as she seeks to ride the carousel with another. She had the best, now she will want the rest…
Monty Python really had their work cut out for them. They had to parody a parody, apparently.
Let me see if I have this straight, and correct me if I’m wrong. We went from…
1. The Bible, which states that marriage sanctifies sex, wives must submit to their husbands, and husbands must love their wives like Christ loves the Church, to…
2. Augustine, who stated that loving ones wife too much is sinful, and tantamount to treating her like a whore, to…
3. Courtly love, which posits that “love” (certainly not Biblical agape) sanctifies sex, and therefore a sin like adultery can be virtuous, as long as the adulterers “love” (whatever that means) each other, to…
4. Modern sexual “values”, which posit that every sexual activity (adultery, fornication, cuckoldry, homosexuality, and coming soon, pedophilia, bestiality, etc.) is lawful as long as the participants “consent” (whatever that means) – except for one man and one woman delighting in each other within the context of a fecund, covenantal marriage.
Did I miss something?
@Oscar
That is quite good. I would add in the part where modern Christians adopted the perversion in lieu of the biblical model. This would include Pastor Doug Wilson’s description of emissions of “the distinct aroma of love” that God uses to signal when a man pleases God by pleasing his wife, as well as Wilson’s invention of the wife as house despot. It would also include God talking to husbands through their wife’s (non) burning bush (Mohler’s explanation of why porn is immoral, Dave Wilson/Family Life’s Art of Marriage, and Arterburn & Stoeker’s Every Man’s Marriage). Not to mention Pastor Tim Bayly’s assertion that romantic love sanctifies married sex.
Dalrock,
What is Mohler’s explanation of why porn is immoral?
Notice the pendulum swings
Bible (standard)
-Augustine (an interpretation)
-courtly Love (reaction)
-feminism (reaction)
-Wilson (reaction)
Get back to the Biblical standard
@Sharkly – I remember the Medieval church DID celebrate men who married up prostitutes.
“Fulk of Neiully, a member of the Circle who made the conversion of prostitutes the goal of his preaching, went so far as to convince the Parisian authorities to monetarily reward prostitutes who got married.8 The theme of rescuing the fallen woman is a recurrent one throughout most of the Medieval Church’s history, and stories circulated of men who married prostitutes to reform and rescue them. Certainly, the Church’s view of the prostitute grew more humanitarian in these centuries.”
http://sites.millersville.edu/bduncan/403/prostitution/prostitution-high.html
But I asked this earlier, were there any contemporary writers who fought against the notion of chivalry/courtly love that Dalrock has been illustrating? I can’t seem to find any.
Mohler explains that the problem with pornography is that it thwarts God’s plan for wives to direct their husbands through denial of sex.
According to Mohler, pornography divorces sex from the sanctifying power of romantic love and weakens the wife’s power to control via sex. See his whole article here: https://www.christianpost.com/news/the-seduction-of-pornography-and-the-integrity-of-christian-marriage-part-2-75949/
Also to be fair to Augustine, he was actually finding a middle path to the REAL anti-sex Church Fathers, such as Jerome and others. These discussions appeared in earlier posts on this blog.
“Consider the fact that a woman has every right to expect that her husband will earn access to the marriage bed…”
These words more than explain the death of marriage in the West.
Augustine was incredibly immoral pre conversion, and placed into a high position immediately after his conversion. The fact he was betrothed to a prepubescent child for several years, during his ministry, speaks volumes as to how warped he was
To tack on- I find it ironic that we worship these early church fathers who weren’t qualified to teach when they did, and did not meet the standards to be an elder
Damn Crackers,
There are some medieval works that pushed chivalry without courtly love; that’s one of the problems w/ using the terms synonymously. The Song of Roland is (over)filled w/ chivalry, but Roland spends more time bemoaning the death of his friend Oliver than he does grieving over his fatal separation from Oliver’s sister, Alda, Roland’s intended. She does die of a broken heart after learning that Roland is dead.
@Griffin
And yet it remains true that courtly love is indeed chivalry as we know it. When someone tells you they are raising their son to be chivalrous, what percentage of the time do you think they are referring to Roland vs Lancelot? It has to be less than 1%. Indeed, if you were to tell someone you believe in chivalry, and leave it at that, they would rightly assume you meant the the courtly love variety. They most likely will not know who Malory or Chrétien de Troyes is, but the stories both gave us endure in the popular imagination. If you tell someone you are chivalrous (without caveat) and mean Song of Roland, you are communicating poorly.
Yet you accuse me of communicating poorly for stating what is unarguably true. The chivalry we know is the courtly love variety, not the forgotten ones.
Note that Mohler considers this a fact. It’s not Mohler’s opinion; it’s a fact. But Apostle Paul wrote otherwise.
One of these statements is not like the other.
He was not “incredibly immoral” but entirely conventional: he had a couple of concubines and his engagement was a typical arranged marriage of the day.
Pingback: Fifty shades of Lancelot. | Reaction Times
That feat was earned when they got married. The marital act shouldn’t be based on whether he performs to the standards she sets. Otherwise you got the woman in the head position.
It seems whether single or married…women will always barter sex in order to get authority. It’s not going to happen.
Augustine was incredibly immoral before his conversion. In his Confessions, he has a quote or two that indicates bisexual behavior with “many lovers”, which was common at the time.
As for betrothal, he wasn’t having sex with an underage girl, his mother said “you need to get married” then found him a fourteen your old virgin. When the wedding date came he got cold feet and said “no.” Now, the way he treated his concubine, who had been loyal to him for so many years, and born him a son, that is disgusting.
When talking about Augustine it helps to have actually read his Confessions.
“Typical of the day” goes to show how the church accepted outside cultural influences, even back then
What disturbs me is the great deference given to authors from the past, without considering this question:
Were/are they biblically qualified to be given deference at all?
earl said: “Otherwise you got the woman in the head position.”
I’m ignorant about the “head position”? Is it in the Kama Sutra?
Headship.
That feat was earned when they got married. The marital act shouldn’t be based on whether he performs to the standards she sets. Otherwise you got the woman in the head position.
Exactly. Also known as the Doug Wilson model of marriage.
Dalrock is right, this is anecdotal but every time I hear chivalry being talked about today it is in relation to how to treat women. I have never heard chivalry and valor in combat connected. The closest thing to that would be the crusader symbol or something used in reference to combat units, but I have not seen the word chivalry connected to combat in modern usage.
For chivalry to mean something other than courtly love. There needs to be a vast unlearning and relearning of it as the martial code of warriors free from courtly love.
I wonder if Ignatius of Loyola read similar garbage when he was a young man fantasizing about becoming a knight.
7817
Dalrock is right, this is anecdotal but every time I hear chivalry being talked about today it is in relation to how to treat women.
Agreed. It is now far beyond absurd, too. It’s one thing for our grandfathers, great-grandfathers, etc. to have participated in, but now? Why should a 20-something man defer to a woman who has special privileges he cannot hope to obtain, who will be preferred over him in any situation from employment to domestic squabble?
I have never heard chivalry and valor in combat connected.
Not in public, to be sure.
The closest thing to that would be the crusader symbol or something used in reference to combat units,
Negatory on the “crusader symbol” in the last 30 years. Bad optic for any forces going to any part of the Middle East or Africa.
So according to Mohler the wife is to deny her husband sex, thus refusing to be her husband’s “to have and to hold” like she vowed, and use sex transactionally like a whore to get what she wants? That sounds wickedly selfish to me.
I’m reading some of Mohler’s messed up musings and his off base beliefs leads him to say way too much foolish crap.
Consider the fact that a woman has every right to expect that her husband will earn access to the marriage bed… [The man who looks at pornography, on the other hand] This man need not be concerned with his physical appearance, his personal hygiene, or his moral character in the eyes of a wife. Without this structure and accountability, he is free to take his sexual pleasure without regard for his unshaved face, his slothfulness, his halitosis, his body odor, and his physical appearance. He faces no requirement of personal respect, and no eyes gaze upon him in order to evaluate the seriousness and worthiness of his sexual desire.
LOL! So the real sin is that he got some sexual release for free, without first sacrificing and bowing before the pedestal of the goddess. Damn INCELS are shooting loads of cum without worshipping our goddess! They must be stopped! /S
AL Mohler Jr. goes full Duluth Model: (not worth reading)
https://albertmohler.com/2018/05/23/wrath-god-poured-humiliation-southern-baptist-convention/
Al Mohler Jr. wants you to know he was for screechers(woman preachers) before he was against them: As a seminary student, I followed the only arguments I was given, and supported the idea of women in the pastorate. Challenged by friendly critics to defend my position, I was driven to Scripture—and I was forced to reverse my understanding.
The SBC[Southern Baptists] has affirmed complementarianism — the belief that the Bible reveals that men and women are equally made in God’s image, but that men and women were also created to be complements to each other, men and women bearing distinct and different roles.
Start off with wrong beliefs, crazy zany farce ensues.
Matthew 22:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
1 Corinthians 11:7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
Lol
Correct about these romanticist tracts being composed with adolescent/teen boys and adult women in mind. You teach them the Way of Woman when they’re vulnerable — without a man’s full armor, and without the company/protection of adult men — and you herd their minds towards the FemImperative as default of all humanity.
You do it with exciting and sometimes illicit adventure tales, which the Arthurian texts are. I greatly enjoyed an Arthurian spinoff written just before my adolescence, in the late Fifties — T.H. White’s ‘The Once and Future King’. It was popular in the Sixties. The springboard decade of the final wave of Edenic feminism.
Also, the OP suggests that adolescent boys and adult females share a proximate emotional and spiritual maturity. Who could know!?
The OP is an original and important analysis of second-stage Arthurian saga, revealing powerful socio-political substructures that actual Christians recognize as satanic in origin. My old Lit profs wouldn’t grok that, but they’d give the essay an A.
Heresolong —
Hilarious. Yes all eve oh woe is we’s, fashioning undies . . . dressing and undressing . . .thus when the (inevitable) young knight passes by, well. . . that a Virtuous Lady should be taken at such unawares! (bodice ripping on-deck, and so — the horniest amongst, adolescent boys and adult women — are sated)
Al Mohler Jr. says: The SBC has affirmed complementarianism — the belief that the Bible reveals that men and women are equally made in God’s image, but that men and women were also created to be complements to each other, men and women bearing distinct and different roles.
1 Corinthians 11:9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
The man was created first, by God, for God’s purpose. The woman was made later from the man, for the man, to help him, as he serves his purpose, which he had before any female ever existed. The man was not created for the woman, to complement her: this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
This reminds me a bit of Odysseus and Calypso, who also got the stud into bed through less-than-seductive means.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calypso_(mythology)
@Dalrock
Mohler explains that the problem with pornography is that it thwarts God’s plan for wives to direct their husbands through denial of sex.
Here’s a point for consideration then: If Mohler is against porn because it destroys the monopoly power which a wife should have over her husband’s sexual pleasure, would he also decry government aid to divorced women as an offense against God since it undercuts the bargaining position a husband has when he opts to be his wife’s sole provider of shelter and material goods?
Or would Al be more likely to say that the woman is entitled to those things regardless of whether she has abided by sacred vows of marital fidelity, and that circumventing the husband’s role is a different matter because unlike men, women have the capacity to live righteously without the offer of incentives?
Better think fast Al, because a few women in the church are already insisting that Christian faithfulness demands that you choose the second option . . .
https://mobile.twitter.com/ShannonDingle/status/1080512047295680517
These Arthurian tales are not peculiarly English, for those who might be thinking so. The characters are early Welsh and the write-up which Dalrock is so masterfully unpicking is Norman French, based on the much earlier Welsh characters and adding chivalry to them. The tales merely happened to be written in England but the English were not involved; they were not the ruling class of that age, nor were their own stories counted valuable enough for the Normans to titillate themselves adapting.
Dear Dalrock
You have been reading too many tales of chivalry; it has affected your sanity. I will send the Barber and the Priest round to have a word and for the tales of chivalry to be consigned to the flames. That should do it. What you need is to relax with a wholesome movie. Would perhaps have suited Julie Andrews a little better but there it is, we have Miss Redgrave instead and I can vouch for certainty that this is historically accurate even down to the costumes.
as the idea of chivalry was being developed, was there a separate code for how women engage with men evolving as well?
if not, then it confirms the importance of biblical teaching, that men (of one wife) are to give sacrificial love, but the woman (married to the one man) is to submit to him.
i wonder if this why the Bible never tells men to “white knight” (to extent the term is similar to the instructions given to husbands in Ephesians 5) women that aren’t your wife.
@Opus:
“Camelot” was my first real exposure to the Arthurian legends. We read it along with Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” in 10th grade English class. Even then, I thought Lancelot was a creep and Guinevere a slut.
It wasn’t until college that I saw the film (no VCRs in those days). I had become a Christian by that time, and was shocked at the seductiveness of the film’s message. In the film both the aspects of Chivalry as combat and courtly love were portrayed. I saw (and still see) the movie as a strong attempt to seduce its watchers into the mindset that “love conquers all”, and that every other commitment and belief must fall before it. In other words, a tragedy and a lie, just like most Hollywood films of that or any other time.
Still like the first 2/3 of it, though.
Everybody’s all like “man, chicks and Christian marriage are all f-ed up and I’m over here getting chased by wolves”
DA,
The problem with that situation is that you will never have enough stolen money to pay for everything (SSI/SSDI) so it will always be limited somehow. And insurance is built on shared risk, so allowing guaranteed losses into a program can easily break it, since those coming in will never pay enough to cover their certain costs. Insurance is a mess today and a lot of the argument about that is not really thinking things through.
Sometime in the third to fourth century, the first white knight story is added to the New Testament: John 7:53-8:11
For details of this: http://www.bible-researcher.com/adult.html among many others.
The “woman caught in adultery” is the most favorite Bible story that is not in the Bible. It puts forth Jesus Christ as a white knight rescuing an adulterous woman using a technicality from Leviticus (the man was also supposed to be stoned). Coupled with the something that Jesus Christ NEVER said but is in every translation, “Judge not lest you be judged.” or as in NASB: ” Mat 7:1 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” these have been used to present an undue emphasis on Grace that has rendered modern Christianity unable to respond to the avalanche of filth facing it.
The closest “white knight” story is Hosea. However, Hosea never remarries Gomer, she is left in a state of dependent shame. Sometime I would like Dalrock’s take on Hosea as I have not developed a thoughtful one myself.
There are 2 words in Biblical (koine) Greek often translated “no” or “do not”. The word Jesus uses here is “mei” and ALL translations make the error of translating it as “no”. In English “no means no” and there is no one word for “mei” which is a CONDITIONAL no. It can only be translated by phrases like “do it as little and as carefully as possible” and even if you do not know Greek this is quite evident from the context.
If you watch children at play, or adults interact, you will see a basic difference between the sexes. Men operate within clearly defined rules. Women in a constantly shifting negotiation. Men like it black or white, women want more than 50 shades of grey. Boys will spend much time arguing about the rules of the game, often before playing. Girls make up and change the rules as they go and if asked usually deny there are rules.
This is an excellent thread where men are writing clearly. It will make no impact until clarity of thought is again valued over feelings in our Churches.
I have downloaded a lot of these comments and plan to steal ideas here, thank y’all.
Just re read my comment, poorly written and I don’t know how to edit…oh well.
@Hmm
Who could not enjoy a movie with Richard Harris, David Hemmings , Miss Redgrave (snr) and the hunky future Mr Redgrave (Franco Nero) set in Spain (standing in for Wessex – I thought I recognised that castle from El Cid). Look on the bright side: Rutland Boughton a fine English composer and founder of the first Glastonbury Festival wrote no less than five operas on the subject of the Arthurian legends. Happily for you he is not quite (though once immensely popular) quite in the same league as Richard Wagner and so this quintology (if that is a word) has not been performed since WW2. FWIW another excellent composer, Josef Holbrooke wrote a trilogy of operas on the subject of The Mabinogion (Welsh myths) – likewise unperformed since WW2.
I wonder what Mohler’s thought are on the rampant obesity in our females. I wonder what his thoughts are on starfish sex. How about monthly starfish sex with a 192 pounder? Not exactly the kind of incentive that has the man out trying to lasso the moon for his better half. What would his thoughts be about the motivating sexual force of a fat, tatted, ridiculously entitled, masculine, slovenly ‘maiden’ who yells at football games like a man does and who thinks burping loudly is kinda funny? My bet is that he would blame the man for not being a good enough man to make her want to be a better woman.
@Hmm
Your mention of Tennyson reminds me that when I was a schoolboy my two English teachers – both former pupils of F.R. Leavis – and that may have been the reason – detested all forms of Victorian poetry especially Tennyson. I was therefore when Stateside much surprised to learn from my then (((girlfriend))) how much she loved Tennyson’s verse. My brain is full of Keats, Wordsworth, Byron, Milton and The Bard which I can reproduce as requested but not – which is why I am unfamiliar with The Idylls of The King,Tennyson.
Oddly enough I was given (much to my pleasure) two 50p (ten shillings 10/- in old money) coins at Xmas with Her Maj on one side and the words Benjamin Britten on the other and surrounded by a quote (he had set the poem) from Tennyson. That I never met Britten (as I might have done) is one of my life’s great ‘what ifs’.
@JRT Sometime in the third to fourth century, the first white knight story is added to the New Testament: John 7:53-8:11
Thanks for the links, which include a defense of the pericope being genuine. As I suspected, the defense showed it was omitted in the Alexandrian text family. For me that says enough; since Robinson’s “The Case for Byzantine Priority” (http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/v06/Robinson2001.html) I’m quite convinced of the reliability of the Byzantine text tradition. Most modern translations reject the Byzantine tradition in favor of the Alexandrian, which omits the pericope.
I therefore reject your statement this story was added.
Dalrock
Whenever I read chivalrous tales the two target audiences are painfully in the room. Each scene is carefully tailored to provide pure delight to both lovesick adolescent boys and the strong independent women who devour romance novels like 50 Shades of Grey.
Exactly so, women’s sexual fantasies (which are not porn! Not Porn! Romance!) are more out in the open now than hundreds of years ago. This game of double meaning, double entendre, still goes on, of course, because of the very nature of women.
Hidden estrus is hidden, and in a way implies texts and subtexts.
Paul, that was an excellent response. We will agree to disagree as men should, each convinced in his own mind.
The tweet below is off topic, but the insightful Titania McGrath is making an exceptionally important point.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/01/03/ex-49ers-linebacker-reuben-foster-has-domestic-violence-charges-dropped/amp/
American courtrooms are run by Lance ‘n Gwen. With Jezebel as judge.
Rachel McKinnon I LOVE YOU. If you weren’t as sterile as an autoclave I might request babies from you.
Here’s hoping that s/he/it helps bring Full Equality to women’s athletics. May it please the LORD. Then men will win like everybody knew all along.
RACHEL MCKINNON! I take grievous delight in the shit-eating smirk on your plucked face. May the gold medal that dangles from between your . . . whatever always blaze bright!
Consider the fact that a woman has every right to expect that her husband will earn access to the marriage bed… ~ Mohler
What a pastorbator.
There are a LOT of marriages where the man is the one who avoids sex, and the woman is the one who pressures him to do it. A lot.
“I feel a profound connection with people of colour. Possibly because when I was growing up most of our staff were Filipinos.” — Titania McGrath
Tit — may I call you Tit? — after I’m finished with Rachel, can you have my Titans?
What a pastorbator.
It seems to me that the time has long since passed for people –especially people who consider themselves Bible-believing Christians– to stop paying any attention whatsoever to these secular academic poseurs pretending to be theologians. Then again, the spiritual laziness of most “Christians” that feeds these cretins with their undeserved power and authority.
@JRT thanks for your gracious comment.
For those interested in understanding the two scholarly positions on the variant readings of the NT (Alexandrian- vs. Byzantine priority), I found this excellent introductory article, written for laymen: https://pastorbillington.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/laymansguideenglish.pdf
Well, there are certainly a lot of White Knights in the comments of every newspaper in Boston, tell you that. Point out that women own the joint, they come out in droves to chastise and rescue fair Maidens everywhere. Going back to Lancelot, these sorts of men, I think they’re just projecting their own perceived, or actual in their cases, victim hood onto the women they ‘defend’. Especially in this day and age, it’s quite tangible.
OT, but is this The Wall, and they’ve surrendered, unmarried, at age 35-48? Or are they now ‘Empowered’? They blame misogyny for their early-life desire to look good.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/01/05/what-puffy-coat-says-about-cold/82Nw6U3DQFbzICZvtcJazM/story.html
Many here will remember the epic Western, “The Searchers”. In it is a scene which encapsulates Lancelot’s sh!t test, to a letter.
In the film, Ethan Edwards’ (John Wayne) niece (Natalie Wood) had been abducted by Comanches. Knowing Edward’s savagery, Martin Pawley (Geoffrey Hunter) constantly acoompnies him. This causes friction between Pawley and his fiancé.
She eventually gives up, agreeing instead to marry Charlie McRory.
When Edwards and Pawley return unexpectedly on the eve of her wedding, Pawley and McRory settle their differences with a fistfight, to which the fiancé beamingly says with a sigh, “They’re Fighting over Me!”
This shows us that the Lancelot Shit test has survived into the modern world and is engrained in our culture
This is an excellent piece and your comment about “chivalry as we know it” is an essential part of the argument. Taking that into account, it dispels my past objections to this line of reasoning.
Thank you.
Titania presents herself : “My poetry is uncompromising. My instincts are profound. I am feared by the powerful. I am adored by the oppressed. I am truth. I am Titania McGrath.”
You might think she is joking, although she is not according to her own words.
Well… she is being so ridiculous it’s hard not to imagine she is a fictive person controlled by a SJW-critical satirist, Oh wait… she is!
https://www.thepostmillennial.com/twitter-bans-titania-mcgrath-the-best-twitter-troll-ever/
Happy new year from the Montana chapter of Basically Happy Normal Patriarchal Nuclear Christian Families R Us
(BHNPNCFRU)
https://ljubomirfarms.wordpress.com/2019/01/06/happy-new-year-from-ljubomir-farms/
Paul —
The threads on Tit’s site are funny, too. Especially when folks show up thinking it’s all real.
After I’d laughed at some of the threads, I went back and studied Tit’s photo. The Problem Glasses. The huh? look. Hilarious.
@Paul – thanks for the PDF link re. New Testament manuscripts. It is nice to have it all pulled together in one document.
@ Spike
Never fight over a woman. A woman worth fighting for won’t give you a reason to fight over her. A woman who gives you reason to fight over her, isn’t worth fighting for.
https://www.rt.com/usa/448210-maddow-cia-female-leadership/
Gloria Steinem, of course, was a CIA asset many decades ago. Now the gynarchy isn’t even pretending Equality.
Ephesians 6:12.
MKT posted a few days ago, about https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath
https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2019/01/02/where-most-see-girl-power-larry-kummer-sees-dalrocks-law-of-feminism/#comment-296199
Otherwise I’d never have known. I don’t do Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and Etc. I haven’t even bothered to learn how to use my company issued smartphone, and conveniently never have that giant thing with me, nor do I even know the number for it. Nor does it get coverage where I live. Apparently I’m missing out on a whole other universe of distractions and frustrations.
The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. So I must assume that the folks who are always on their phones, are using a prayer app, am I right?
That’s how it started, now we’re all the way to some men dressing up like women, and together with most women (some dressing up like men), misusing the government to persecute every moral person who won’t go along with the fallacious immoral charade.
Well, that is when they’re not throwing themselves before children as stumbling blocks teaching a “doctrine of demons” that whatever immoral sexual proclivities they may have at any given moment determines their biological sex per a fabricated “gender fluidity ideology” and any resulting sexually immoral behaviors they actually engage in are therefore fully “justified.”
But reality will not be denied and as they sear their consciences, develop serious mental health issues, turn to drugs/alcohol seeking relief, find their ability to earn is materially impaired, forgo all the healthy benefits associated with living a normal life, and commit suicide at a far far higher rate than other demographic on the face of the earth some start to question the choice.
“Truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is, and you must bend to its power or live a lie.” -Miyamoto Musashi
Even C. S. Lewis succumbed to the disorder of chivalry presently under-girding feminism and obstructing godly societal reform: https://youtu.be/GBT9LasyC3E
@American
The chivalry depicted in the talk by Lewis is of the kind that stresses the importance for a man of finding the balance between being heroic and brutal, and being meek but weak. I cannot find fault with it, except perhaps that it lends credit to chivalrous literature, instead of addressing the same topic from an entire Christian context where ‘love’ is the guiding principle that should still apply to those who pick up the sword in government’s service, and thus be meek heroes.
American,
Women have been dressing like men for quite some time (think power suits). Unfortunately that is not headed to trying to be perceived as a man.
“The correct treatment of a girl does not always preclude courtesy and gentleness no more than it always involves them. There is a time for courtesy and gentleness, and a time for harshness. The master must remember that he owns the girl; if he keeps this in mind he will generally treat her correctly. He must be strong, and he must be capable of administering discipline if she is not pleasing. Sex in a woman, as in a man, is not only richly biological but psychological as well, and the words suggest a distinction which is somewhat misleading. We are psycho-physical organisms, or better perhaps, thinking, feeling organisms. Part of the correct treatment of a woman is treating her as you wish; she has genetic dispositions for submission bred into every cell of her body, a function of both natural and sexual selection. Accordingly, what might seem brutal or quick to a man can be taken by a woman in the dimensions of her sentience as irrefutable evidence of his domination of her, her being owned by him, which thrills her to the core for it touches the ancient biological meaning of her womanhood. He simply uses her for his pleasure, because he wished to do so. He is her master.”
John Norman
So sad when pagans make more sense than supposed Christians !
Male dominance is central to female arousal but those wishy washy pastors just hide the truth and make marriage a thing of “courtesy and gentleness” only . No wonder why so many are totally turned off .
Isn’t it the right balance between female submission and male love and consideration that John Normal is stating here ? And this is exactly what the LORD advocates and commands !!
A woman who does not feel “under the joke” will never respond to a man afraid of himself and of his own sexual desires (like most of wimpy western men today ) .
Notice how he says ” her being owned by him”
Doesn’t the Bible say that the wife does not own her body but her husband does ?
The thrill lies in there . And even pagans get it better than dumb churchians who do not obey what the Lord says but rather listen to so called pastors who have been led them astray for decades .
@ Paul says:
January 7, 2019 at 2:33 am
A man can’t be “meek but weak”. Meekness is a virtue. There’s nothing virtuous about a weak man being gentle, because he doesn’t have a better option.
A weak man is gentle, because if he isn’t, a stronger man will make him be gentle. And you can see that when a weak man is around people who are weaker than he is.
Meekness is only valid when a strong man is gentle, because he has the option to not be gentle. Jesus is the best example of that.
Jesus had legions of angels at His command. That’s power. He chose to not use those legions to defend himself, because doing so would’ve undermined His mission. That’s meekness.
But he will use that power when he returns (Psalm 22, Isaiah 63, Revelation 19). And, yet, He is still meek.
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