Comments on: Boxing Out Joseph Cornell

By: wordnerd

wordnerd — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:57:23 +0000

That doesn’t sound like a boxing movie to me.

By: eric

eric — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:50:58 +0000

wordnerd: Boxers, unlike nuns, practice temporary abstinence. For further research, you might seek out the Ryan O’Neal/Barbra Streisand film whose plot turns, as I recall, on this very question. The film flopped, possibly because O’Neal was not exactly up to Mickey Rourke standards as a convincing pugilist, but also because he was just the first layer of its ridiculousness: in the end (SPOILER ALERT!!!!), they don’t abstain and he doesn’t win, but that’s okay because somehow his not winning means that they get to not abstain some more. I seem to recall a teary Streisand throwing in a towel that floats poetically around above the ring, where the two leads indulge in teary/sweaty slo-mo foreplay while the credits roll.

By: wordnerd

wordnerd — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:54:07 +0000

I should have said besides sports and art.

By: wordnerd

wordnerd — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:43:14 +0000

Why pick on sports? What other human endeavors would be enhanced by abstinence?

By: wordnerd

wordnerd — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:57:16 +0000

How come nuns don’t win more gold medals?

By: dc

dc — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:53:03 +0000

eric: In my last comment, I at first called to the sex/sport theory a “myth,” then thought better of it and changed “myth” to “belief.” I’m a bit skeptical, but there certainly could be something to it. And I don’t doubt the effectiveness of acupuncture; I tried to think of a disease that isn’t currently treated by acupuncture, but maybe diabetes doesn’t fit the bill.

By: eric

eric — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:11:00 +0000

wordnerd: psychiatry is too broad a field to be tarred with your brush. I would also be very surprised if there wasn’t something to the whole idea of refraining from sex. You don’t have to be a follower of Freud to notice that sexual tension IS a tension, and that releasing that tension might lead to an overall languor or slackness. Acupuncture can be extraordinarily effective… Of course David is right: Cornell’s was a rationalization.

By: wordnerd

wordnerd — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:28:43 +0000

Would you count psychiatry as an orthodoxy of modern medicine? It’s a fine candidate for retrospective ludicrousness.

By: dc

dc — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 08:19:09 +0000

Ruth: Interesting to hear that the belief goes back to at least the 30′s, and was prevalent in Europe too. I suppose that the identification of libido with virility and athletic prowess must be pretty universal, and it’s just a quick logical step from there to the belief that sex would sap one’s vitality and strength. I’d be curious to know whether similar beliefs are held in cultures more remote from ours as well.

There’s something quaint about the notion of “sapping” and “draining” vital energies; it reminds me of pre-socratic theories about the four humors, and illness being caused by an imbalance among yellow bile, black bile, etc. And it was only about 100 years ago that bloodletting stopped being a widespread medical treatment. You have to wonder which of modern medicine’s orthodoxies will look as ludicrous a century from now. Maybe American hospitals will be treating diabetes by using acupuncture to redirect people’s ch’i in another 100 years. I wouldn’t bet on it, but…

Getting back to Cornell briefly, I think it’s possible that he believed what he told Leila Hadley about fearing that sex would hurt his ability to make art. I also believe, however, that even if he had convinced himself of that, it was still a rationalization rather than an explanation.

By: ruth gutmann

ruth gutmann — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:47:18 +0000

I recall as a child in the 1930s reading that those competing in sports events should refrain from having sexual relations because it would sap their strength. Some coaches actually made that a rule for their teams or those they trained. (I wonder how they thought they were going to enforce it or if they simply assumed that a poorly performing player had disobeyed them).

Now I wonder how it is that I remember something I couldn’t possibly have understood.