Saturday 31 July 2010

"Not-a lesbian", "Not a Saint", Benedetta Carlini,Visionary Nun (1590 - 1661 )

Earlier this week, the Catholic Church marked the feast day of SS Martha and  Mary. In my post here, and in the comments thread for Kittredge Cherry's corresponding post at Jesus in Love Blog, there was some attention given to the nature of their relationship. Were they literally "just" sisters? Was the word a euphemism for a different kind of relationship? Is it fair to call them "lesbians"?  Does it matter?

I believe that the very attempt to force people into sexual categories is a trap. This is what has created the myth in the first place of a normative heterosexual identity within an opposite sex, monogamous marriage. The truth is that in nature and in human societies the world over and in all periods of history, relationships and forms of sexual expression are bewildering in their diversity. Trying to apply modern words to historic patters is particularly dangerous, as the attempt risks burying the past in the baggage carried by those words. This was clearly illustrated for me when I read this morning about Bernadetta Carlini, an Italian visionary whose description as a "lesbian nun" clouds more than it illustrates - even though the one thing that is not contested in her story is that it featured regular sex with a woman (sometimes described as the earliest recorded instance of lesbianism in modern history).