I am a nun groupie. I find convents and the sisters in them fascinating. I like the way nuns glide along like serene, female Merlins (usually without the beard) in flowing gowns and exude the same mystical aura as the ancient Celtic sage himself. I am not alone in this fetish, people, gay straight or bi fantasise about nuns, develop crushes and tell jokes about them. Okay, so let’s get down to the nitty gritty...nuns get to live (co-habitate?) in close proximity with lots of other women. They regularly drink heady wine by romantic candlelight, have group singsongs and afterwards, I’m sure there’s always some romantic, secret place in the convent where two sisters can be alone together. Life in a convent then could be described as a life of wine, women and song. Failing that, there’s always the infinitely wise Mother Superior who inspires them to climb every mountain and go teach a bunch of motherless kids to sing in perfect harmony. “I was found guilty of having a particular friendship.” One ex-member of this closeted group told me. ‘Particular friendship’ sounds quite cosy doesn’t it? It implies bestest friends and all that. The phrase could even be a secret lesbian street code as in… Q. “Excuse me, are you perhaps particular about your friendships?” A. “Actually I’m very particular about my friendships.” Particular friendship is, in fact, the term used by the Catholic Church to describe a close relationship between two nuns. They regard such bonds as ‘destructive to the community,’ and say it ‘encourages breaking of the rules’. One Catholic hierarchy source told me that because nuns take a vow of chastity then a compensatory lesbian relationship (gotta grin at that one!) might develop from such friendships. The fact that a nun’s life might well attract lesbian women and compensatory has sod-all to do with it, is probably something they do not want to think about. If two nuns are thought to have a ‘particular friendship’ then I suspect holy water is thrown over them quicker than you can say ‘never were there such devoted sisters! I know from statements made by ex-nuns that one half of the particular friendship is speedily transferred to a distant convent. Aww, shame, you just get one particular friendship going and damned if they don’t whisk you away somewhere else and you have to start all over again! There have been some memorable films about particular friendships, nuns and convent life. I first experienced nun lust watching the enigmatically gorgeous Audrey Hepburn gave a haunting performance in The Nun’s Story (1959) She was excellent in the role of a young nurse who decides to join a convent in order to work in a Missionary hospital in the Congo. Another film that tried to satisfy the public’s fascination with the Sisters is Agnes of God (1985) Jane Fonda was great in the role of the brittle, lapsed-Catholic, chain-smoking shrink. Meg Tilly was convincing as the childlike yet disturbed young nun suspected of strangling her newborn baby and Anne Bancroft excellent as the stern, charismatic Mother Superior, whom I suspect went on to feature in a lot of women’s Mother Superior fantasies.
To link to this page, copy the following code to your site:
All Papers Are For Research And Reference Purposes Only!
You may not turn these papers in as your own! You must cite our web site as your source!
