thacraic said:
Sensuality and sexuality are two entirely different things. Sexuality is who you get it on with, sensuality is the manner in which it is done. That is how I see it. As far as how I relate to other genders that has nothing to do with sexuality either. That is to do with who I am as a person (which is an emotional human being with a mind and a heart) and not who I am in my bedroom.
Homosexuality by definition is having desires towards the people of the same sex and furthermore having intercourse with said people based on those desires. Toughts are one thing. A thought occurrs in your mind but letting the grow into desires is a totally different thing.
I really don't need a lesson in etomology Irvine. Furthermore, I am well aware of what occurred during the time of Oscar Wilde seeing as how he is one of my all time favorite playwrights.
Modern gay life as it is today didn't exist 50 years ago much less 2000. It still does not change the relevance of what was written in regards to it. Look if you don't want to believe what it says in the Bible in relation to that, hey man that is up to you. But don't deny what it is saying.
And finally its not my definition of sexuality, it is any standard English dictionary's. I am sure you have one lying around seeing as how you seem to be so well-versed in word origins.
well, based upon the above, you evidently do need a lesson in understanding personal, social and political contexts of words, which is the definition of ETYMOLOGY: The origin and historical development of a linguistic form as shown by determining its basic elements, earliest known use, and changes in form and meaning, tracing its transmission from one language to another, identifying its cognates in other languages, and reconstructing its ancestral form where possible.
i understand it's much easier to reduce people into "acts" when presented with a reality that doesn't lend itslef into tidy little boxes and easy labels. however, sexuality, to most people, is a multidiemsnional thing, it is not simply about who i get off with. sex is a very sensual experience, so it makes further sense that you can't extricate one from the other; you may have a sensual experience that isn't sexual, but it's hard to have a sexual experience that isn't sensual. certainly, sex is a large part of any adult relationship, but it stands to reason that you love those with whom you are physically intimate in a way totally unique from even the most profound of friends.
now, let's leave aside the demeaning reduction of homosexuality to a sexual act. you claim, and it does seem textually substantiated in the Bible, that homosexuality is a sin -- it's something bad that a person freely chooses to do, like, say, steal. the question begged, of course, is why same-gender sexual acts are wrong in the first place. in the case of, say, kleptomania it's a no-brainer: someone else is injured directly by your actions; they're robbed. but, in the case of homosexual acts, where two consenting adults are engaged in a private activity, no one is injured. the opposite: someone, often an outcast, a historically despised minority, is loved.
"just say no to acting on your thoughts," appears to be the Church's message. so what is a homosexual to do? must i live denied, because of something i cannot change, a unitive sexual act? i cannot love a woman in the way that i can love a man. would you have me excluded from a loving relationship -- for no fault of my own -- and doomed to a loveless life as a result? no one should be singled out and stigmatized for something he cannot change, especially if that something is already a source of pain and struggle. how Christian.
finally, your "modern gay life" thing. how quaint. homosexuals have been around forever. men have loved men, men have fucked men (and same with women) forever (since you seem preoccupied with copulation as central to the identity of a homosexual). what is new is that homosexuals can now live lives of dignity and respect because society has changed. it is understood that homosexuality isn't an illness, isn't an uncontrolable impulse that flows from "thoughts," but utterly involuntary, natural, and as central to an individual's understanding of himself and the world as the heterosexual's sense of being heterosexual.
what we are all arguing is that since a modern understanding of homosexual came about 100 years ago, Paul could not have been talking about what i've spend several paragraphs elucidating. i'm fully willing to forgive Paul's (and The Bible's) ignorance on this matter.