Christ was stripped, whipped, beaten up, thrown in a cesspool, and as for the crucifixion preparations, watch the soldiers closely. According to Garrett Epp's essay, and the work of Sarah Beckwith, the above was considered to be devotional literature! If the description didn't clue you in, be advised that I refer to the dodgy medieval genre known as 'passion plays,' recently revived in Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ." And guess what? It turns out Gibson played down the violence after all, judging from the description above, from a fourteenth century passion play, which shows the above happening to Christ's body. And guess what, the centurions apparently urinated on his body as well. Oh, and then there's the icon panel in which a naked Jesus is flourishing the cat of nine tails in one hand, and also staring down at a female disciple with a large, throbbing spear, pointing to the curiously vaginal oval slit in his side... What goes on in the minds of the Christian viewer? According to some contemporary feminist and gay theorists of the human body, what happens is an oscillating identification with the scene that is enacted before one. In other words, the conservative Christian spectator is supposed to identify with the battered and bruised body of Christ, but may actually also switch back and forth, identifying with the persecutors. Don't forget, the process of producing the battered, bruised and tortured body is all for the "good" of humanity, and if Christ "took it like a man" on the cross, then suffering is "good" for us lesser mortals too, or so they think. Because of the above, should we neccessarily be surprised when we encounter little clues to this in their wider social outlook? For example, HIV/AIDS "shouldn't have" led to decriminalisation of male homosexuality in New Zealand, the threat of possible abuse of unwanted kids is "no grounds" for abortion, hitting toddlers 'teaches them to obey' (and is called 'loving discipline...) and so on. And they have the nerve to call us obscene??!! At times like this, I'm glad I switched to a nice vanilla faith, like Wicca... Recommended: Sarah Beckwith: Christ's Body: Identity, Culture and Society in Late Medieval Writings: New York: Routledge: 1993. Garrett P. J. Epp, 'Ecce Homo', in Glenn Burger and Steven F. Kruger (eds), Queering the Middle Ages. UniversityofMinnesota Press: 2001. Craig Young - 14th April 2006