Argues that polarity is a major metaphor of western thought, so that as long as masculinity is defined by one pole, femininity is defined by its negation. To challenge traditional conceptions of gender is to challenge the deeply-rooted metaphors and models of control that underlie western culture.

"The work then proceeds to give a critical examination of representative samplings of theories of knowledge from different periods and traditions in the history of philosophy, pointing out the sexual metaphors involved."--BOOK JACKET.

Metaphor has long provided a rich way to speak about the unspeakable, to refer to delicate issues. Sex is one such area. This book follows a cognitive-linguistic and relevance-theoretic approach to the language of sex, considering metaphor as a bridge that brings together mind and language. It does this through the analysis of the antithetical mechanisms of verbal mitigation and offence. These two mechanisms are (more commonly know as) euphemism and (its lesser known companion term) dysphemism. The volume reflects on the social and communicative functions that sexual metaphors perform in a sample of almost two hundred postings taken from internet forums. How do people think about sex? How do people avoid talking about sex? How do people paraphrase sexual topics? It offers an account of how real language users understand sexual taboo in present-day English and also a great grounding in manual corpus work on a qualitative level.

Argues that polarity is a major metaphor of western thought, so that as long as masculinity is defined by one pole, femininity is defined by its negation. To challenge traditional conceptions of gender is to challenge the deeply-rooted metaphors and models of control that underlie western culture.

In 'God and the Sexual Metaphor' Dr. Roy C. Price puts forth a compelling argument against sex as a sport and for sexual activity within the boundary of marriage. The author states that God designed sex, not individuals or society, and that human sexual expression in the context of marriage is good in the sight of God. Dr. Price's purpose is to define the sexual metaphor used by God to describe His relationship with His people, and thereby understanding the boundaries established in Scripture for sensual expression. Using sacred writings as a guide to human behavior, and affirming a relationship with Jesus Christ, he discusses the benefits of following moral guidelines and the impartial consequences for contrary behavior. Parents, pastors, youth and youth workers can benefit from the study of this work, as well as anyone looking to shine a light on their own pathway.

The title of this volume, Sacred Marriages, consciously plays with the traditional concept of sacred marriage, but the plural form, “sacred marriages,” gives the reader an idea that something more is at stake here than a monomaniacal idea of manifestations deriving from a single prototype. Following the guidelines of one of the contributors, Ruben Zimmermann, the editors tentatively define “sacred marriage” as a “real or symbolic union of two complementary entities, imagined as gendered, in a religious context.” “Sacred marriages” (plural), then, refers to various expressions of this kind of union in different cultures that seek to overcome, to cite Zimmermann again, “the great dualism of human and cosmic existence.” The subtitle indicates that the contributors are primarily interested in different aspects of the divine-human sexual metaphor—that is, the imagining and reenactment of a gendered relationship between the human and divine worlds. This metaphor, which is essentially about relationship rather than sexual acts, can find textual, ritual, mythical, and social expressions in different times and places. Indeed, the sacred marriage ritual itself should be considered not a manifestation of the “sacralized power of sexuality experienced in sexual intercourse” but one way of objectifying the divine-human sexual metaphor.

LIke other languages, Latin contained certain words its speakers considered obscene as well as a rich stock of sexual euphemism and metaphor. Our sources for this information range from surviving graffiti to literary works with a marked sexual content. Yet despite its manifest literary and linguistic interest, the sexual vocabulary of Latin has remained uninvestigated by scholars. J. A. Adams's pioneering and unique reference work collects for the first time evidence of Latin obscenities and sexual euphemisms drawn from both literary and nonliterary sources from the early Republic to about he fouth century A.D. Separate chaptes treat each of the sexual pasrts of the body and the terminology used to describe sexual acts. General topics include the influence of Greek language on Latin, changes in the Latin vocabulary over time (including the evolution of sexual words into general terms of abuse), and lexical differences among various literary genres.