Soliloquy in an International Cloister

Watch your step as Brother Lawrence takes you inside the monastery walls of a five hundred year-old international order. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wish you had ignored your hormones and joined the monastery.

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Location: Rome, Italy

24 April 2006

Sex in the celle

Well, that got your attention.
Yes, today BroLo will answer make-believe questions sent in by make-believe readers from around the world about sex, specifically the lack of it, in a cloistered environment.

Q: How do the brothers manage to live celibate lives?
A: I cannot answer for anyone else, but personally, I would have to say badly. Occasionally, one of my married friends will try to console me by pointing out that, really, sex is not all that it's cracked up to be. Yes, that would explain the mad rush toward celibacy we're seeing. And those 500 million or so condoms sold in the U.S. each year? Probably filled with rice and thrown at weddings. Another friend told me, "You can be married and still be lonely." Perhaps true, but there's nothing like sex to take your mind off loneliness, is there?
Q: Yes, but...
A: Forget it. I will not be consoled.
Q: You're all gay, aren't you?
A: I know at least one of us is not. Trust me, our sexual orientation is not something we talk about amongst ourselves. The thought that one of the brothers could be evaluating my posterior as I walk down the corridor would freak me out. I can say, however, that I have never been propositioned by another brother of the Order, although I was propositioned by other men on a few occasions. In fact, I have been propositioned more often by men than by women. This signifies one of three things: 1) Women do not find me attractive; 2) women have more respect than men for the vows I have taken; or 3) I need to change my cologne (George Michael Signature Collection. Marketing slogan: Take a long, hard whiff of this).
Q: That is more information than I wanted to know.
A: Then why are you still reading?
Q: Do you still build tunnels to convents of women in order to facilitate secret trysts?
A: This is absolutely false. We now hire cheap, immigrant labor to build the tunnels.
Q: You're joking, right?
A: Maybe. Why? Does your convent lack a tunnel?
Q: Is it true that celibacy is easier for women than for men?
A: I would seem so. A survey taken about ten years ago indicated that among the three vows taken by religious—poverty, chastity and obedience—women rated obedience as the most difficult vow and chastity as the easiest. Men, on the other hand, rated chastity as the most difficult and obedience as the easiest. This corresponds with my personal experience, in which women have had no difficulty in refraining from having sex with me. In that sense, I guess celibacy has been easy for me.
Q: This celibacy business sounds difficult. How can I help?
A: To paraphrase the lion in the Wizard of Oz, I only want you to do one thing for me....
Talk me out of it!

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

excellent

24 April, 2006 09:35  
Blogger BroLo said...

Thanks. I think it might be my opus magnum. It's sad to burn out so soon.

25 April, 2006 03:50  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So how IS the tunnel coming along?

25 April, 2006 14:06  
Blogger BroLo said...

I'd like to know myself, but I can't speak Spanish.

25 April, 2006 16:18  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree with the survey. When I asked my then fiancee whether she would be vowing to obey me she laughed so hard her lungs flapped from her mouth.

26 April, 2006 10:16  
Blogger BroLo said...

Yeah, it's not like the good old days.

26 April, 2006 15:54  

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