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Wesley J. Smith: Now NYT Book Reviewer Lauds Explicit Depiction of Bestiality
First Things/Secondhand Smoke ^ | 2/7/11 | Wesley J. Smith

Posted on 02/07/2011 4:20:12 PM PST by wagglebee

A few days ago I complained about positive book reviews for a new book that partially involves explicit depictions of sexual intercourse between a chimpanzee and a woman, with the reviewers either lauding the bestiality or praising it with non damnation. I saw the acceptance of bestiality/literary porn as a disturbing symptom.  Here is part of what I wrote in that post:

This is a real storm warming.  Positive and pornographic depictions of bestiality are nothing to smile about or shrug off.  Standing against the normalization or acceptance of bestiality is far more important than having our “sensibilities” offended.  As I have written elsewhere, it is a crucial matter of defending and upholding human dignity.

And now–just as I expected–the grand dame of book review publications, the New York Times Book Review, seals the degeneration.  Not only does the reviewer Christopher R. Beha–yes,of course! the editor of Harper’s–find the bestiality perfectly fine, but he looks down his intellectual elite nose at those who wouldn’t agree.  From “Primal Urges:”

Hale’s daring is most obvious in his portrayal of the relationship between Bruno and Lydia, which eventually breaks the one sexual taboo even Nabokov wouldn’t touch.

Such material will prove an insurmountable barrier to certain readers, the same ones who will never pick up “Lolita.” And the depictions of interspecies love are certainly discomfiting, but not for the reasons you might imagine. Ultimately, the point of these scenes is not to shock us but to ask what fundamentally makes us human, what differences inhere between a creature like Lydia and a creature like Bruno that disqualify the latter from the full range of human affection. In a twist that sounds heavy-handed when summarized but is expertly managed, Lydia suffers an illness that leaves her helpless and aphasic, reduced to her animal self, making the differences between the two seem even more superficial, and their need for each other even more moving.

Please. We rubes understand the subversive game that is afoot among the liberal intellegentsia when they laud works that undermine traditional morality, and more specifically–as in Beha’s statement quoted above–applaud destroying the principle that being human is something unique, important, and special.

Disdaining even fictional accounts of human/animal sexual intercourse is important to both upholding standards of moral decency and a proper respect for human exceptionalism.  Color me disgusted, but alas, not surprised.


TOPICS: Books/Literature
KEYWORDS: bestiality; moralabsolutes; sexpositiveagenda
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To: VeniVidiVici

21 posted on 02/07/2011 5:05:04 PM PST by Leisler (Our debts are someone's profit. Follow the money, the vig.....)
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To: metmom

You dust your TV on occasion……

For economic reasons (not religious) I grew up without a television so I never grew interested in one. My child didn’t grow up with one on and when she was old enough they just didn’t interest her but she reads all the time.

There is a TV on in one room for someone ‘for noise’, a business news network to which I never give any mind to until one day in the middle of September 2008 and ‘something’ caught my ear. I turned on every TV in our home and they never go off. Since that time I have crashed three computers (and I didn’t know how to use the Internet until the latter of 2008. I have had the audacity to ask complete strangers in a parking lot, store, mall, restaurant, and places I barely remember now, questions. I have gone through two printers and read sometimes twenty hours a day. I am in a full sprint now watching every move this thing makes.

It is beyond my comprehension that you would even presume our Father’s intentions toward S&G or our country.

I don’t judge you, I was just like you! I will tell you ‘this thing’ wants to come through and it will slice the top of your head off and gather everything you hold dear and you won’t even realize it. I am doing everything in my power and humanly possible and I will be shown mercy if I can at least yell to all that I love, “DUCK”.


22 posted on 02/07/2011 5:27:56 PM PST by forest153 ("There's a snake in my boot!")
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To: wagglebee

There is no depth of depraved evil they will not indulge in and promote.

Who would have imagined a couple of decades ago it would get to this?

Hunker down time.


23 posted on 02/07/2011 5:28:18 PM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: forest153

Are you familiar with Sodom and Gomorrah?


24 posted on 02/07/2011 5:40:49 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: forest153; metmom; trisham; little jeremiah; DJ MacWoW
It is beyond my comprehension that you would even presume our Father’s intentions toward S&G or our country.

The quote about Sodom and Gomorrah and God's judgment of America is from Billy Graham's late wife Ruth (though various sources attribute it to Billy Graham).

Aside from actually raping an angel of God, the evils of Sodom and Gomorrah have been condoned and even celebrated by the American left.

25 posted on 02/07/2011 5:53:22 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: wagglebee

I fully expect major stuff hitting the fan in the near future. This mass promotion - practically enforcement - of evil, will not go on forever. God is in ultimate control. He will only allow to go so far, and then something - I have no idea - will occur. It will not be pretty.

I am sure and certain of this.


26 posted on 02/07/2011 6:05:11 PM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: wagglebee
The quote about Sodom and Gomorrah and God's judgment of America is from Billy Graham's late wife Ruth (though various sources attribute it to Billy Graham).

I never knew that. I just heard it long ago and agreed with it.

27 posted on 02/07/2011 6:12:11 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: wagglebee
WAGGLEBEE!

Oh my, not you as well?

Have you truly read this part of our Father's letter to us?

God's messengers were not raped! They blinded everyone and next Lot and his family are heading for the hills!

Read, read, read, and then think about what you are reading!

I don't know where else to start.

I'm busier than a three-legged cat in a barn full of rats and you two knuckleheads can't read. READ!

I understand why all you folks don't want to look at this world right now, it is horrible. But if you don't watch or read so you know what is going on for your self at least read our Father's letter yourself, not what some other person who listened to someone else and all of them are just coughing up the same ole hairballs. Y’all are reading hairballs. Get yourselves an old KJV not an NIV and read.

28 posted on 02/07/2011 6:27:55 PM PST by forest153 ("There's a snake in my boot!")
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To: forest153

Could you explain what is your viewpoint of sodomy?

Just so I undertand your comments, which up to this point, I don’t.


29 posted on 02/07/2011 6:39:55 PM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: little jeremiah
little jeremiah,

I'm sorry I meant to say hello to you and your comments were very nice and I wanted to tell you to hang in there.

lj, I don't think I have ever been asked that question before, nope, never have.

Our Father's letter to us is so amazing it continually awes me. Every line is a flawless perfectly faceted diamond; many connections and many layers. It is not difficult to read and understand. As you walk with it the facets and layers begin to come in and flow over time. It literally unfolds and reveals everything, absolutely everything.

Don't read with your conscious completely engaged. Read it like a curious child. Then walk with the people you are reading about, feel the sand, hear the animals, and think about why and how people do things now, even in our technologically rich time. There is no difference.

Sodom and Gomorrah is a very complex example we are given to understand.

I am concerned that if I pop open a can of tree (my viewpoint) and just pour it out it might scramble your egg. Would you mind if I study on this and post in a little while? I'll post here and it will end up in your mail.

30 posted on 02/07/2011 7:11:58 PM PST by forest153 ("There's a snake in my boot!")
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To: forest153

Sorry, gotta go for a little while. Thanks folks. lj, I’ll send you a note in just a bit.


31 posted on 02/07/2011 7:18:30 PM PST by forest153 ("There's a snake in my boot!")
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To: forest153; Admin Moderator; metmom

Mod, some of us were wondering about forest here.

I think it’s clear now that he’s been huffing the paint can or something of that nature.


32 posted on 02/07/2011 7:59:00 PM PST by little jeremiah (Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. CSLewis)
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To: forest153; little jeremiah; wagglebee; trisham; DJ MacWoW; BykrBayb

Seen any black helicopters lately?

You are showing signs of being seriously unhinged.


33 posted on 02/07/2011 8:25:54 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: forest153
Sodom and Gomorrah is a very complex example we are given to understand.

Actually not. It's pretty simple, really.

There were not 10 righteous people to be found there.

God nuked them.

34 posted on 02/07/2011 8:29:26 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: little jeremiah; metmom

I don’t know as they ban people for being slightly “cracked”. Checked posting history and most of them made sense.


35 posted on 02/07/2011 8:33:29 PM PST by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
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To: little jeremiah; forest153; Admin Moderator; wagglebee; trisham; DJ MacWoW; BykrBayb

I dunno, DJ... some of its posts were pretty incoherent to me.

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:forest153/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change


36 posted on 02/07/2011 8:35:18 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: forest153; Lead Moderator; Religion Moderator

Mods, could you please take a look at the irrational personal attacks by this person. The Holy Bible is not hair balls.


37 posted on 02/07/2011 8:36:43 PM PST by BykrBayb (Somewhere, my flower is there. ~ Þ)
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To: metmom

Yes. Some were.


38 posted on 02/07/2011 8:49:31 PM PST by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
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To: BykrBayb

You liked the “hairballs” too? lol I cannot understand people that insist if you don’t read a certain Bible then you’re not reading God’s Word. Legalism in any form is death.


39 posted on 02/07/2011 8:51:51 PM PST by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)
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To: BykrBayb; GilGil; forest153; DJ MacWoW; wagglebee; little jeremiah; trisham

This post is rather odd.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2611354/posts?page=49#49

“Well GilGil, first I’m going to take you honestly, that all you wrote fell out of your brain—are your own thoughts. Now you have said a lot of things and some are pretty serious so I also must consider you are pretty concerned about all this. And you would not have posted this on Free Republic lest you be one of those who are getting some very perverted pleasure in seeing our country get a pounding then spreading worry to a lot of very sincere people.”


40 posted on 02/07/2011 8:52:23 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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