Abstinence

This paper presents a Platonist and Indo-hellenistic ascetic and renunciant view of sexual desire and sexuality and the necessity of celibacy on the spiritual path and concludes that for the many who won't be celibate contemplative ascetics/philosophers lawful and legitimate sexual activity is confined solely to heterosexual intercourse in the context of an indissoluble monogamous marriage.  Thus, it advocates the traditional sexual morality totally in opposition to the modern, naturalist, post-sexual revolution world.  This traditional sexual morality is exactly what the divine Plato advocates for the many in the Laws.

This essay refers to 'attributes' of the Absolute and shows how they are reflected in specific facets of contemplative asceticism and renunciation and that this is the way to embody the Absolute in this world.  It attempts to establish contemplative asceticism and renunciation 'a priori', in a way, directly on the basis of metaphysical and spiritual facts and the nature of the One, without recourse to external authorities or traditions.

This essay shows and discusses that, exactly contrary to what the world thinks, worldly and bodily and sensual pleasures and desires and pursuits are actually pain and misery and deprivation, and celibate, vegetarian, teetotalling contemplative asceticism and renunciation is pleasure and happiness and sufficiency.

早在1998年，何春蕤教授已...指出：

當性議題浮現時，多元文化理念之下的性教育實踐至少必須包含各種不同研究取向、不同流派，甚至互相衝突的價值觀與學說；在政治光譜上至少做到傳統保守派、自由開明派、前瞻激進派等各派觀點多元並陳，在言談中列舉討論各派如何看待該議題（例如婚前性行為、性騷擾、同性戀、代理孕母、性工作等等)，而非假定只有一種中立客觀的「正確」性觀念或正確性教育。（註 26）

我們必須一起終結貞潔教育造成的惡性循環與自我實現的預言，以及這種教育意識型態已對學生產生的三種傷害。教師、家長與決策官員都應承擔責任，一同積極面對性，自在、開放地學習性，讓性教育可以擺脫道德與信仰的迷霧，回到行為與健康的務實考量上（註 27），進而成為學生發 展整全人格，開拓視野，增權賦能的人生智慧之源。

建議引用：
高穎超，2016，〈讓研究證據說話：為什麼貞潔教育無效又有害？〉。《性別平等教育季刊》74：99-112。
Kao, Ying-Chao. 2016, March. "Evidence Speaks: Why is Abstinence-only Sex Education Ineffective and Harmful?". Gender Equity Education Quarterly (74):99-112.

While early modern scholars have produced a plethora of research on Florentine refectory paintings, Plautilla Nelli’s Last Supper of c. 1550-1568 continues to be one of the least studied works of its kind. This paper therefore examines the symbolic, religious, and gastronomic significance of the foodstuff depicted by Plautilla Nelli in the Last Supper for her own convent of Santa Caterina da Siena in Florence.
Supported by archival documentation, early modern dietary treatises of the period, and scholarship on female religious penitential practices, this paper argues that Nelli’s choice of foodstuff depicts a Lenten dinner. To support this claim, I analyze the inclusion of lettuce, fava beans, and a whole cooked lamb through careful consideration of the convent’s financial registers, sixteenth-century emblem books, medical treatises, and the convent’s own Direttorio, which articulated the code of conduct for the nuns of Santa Caterina. In the context of early modern female devotional practices, this paper concludes the lettuce represented the concept of abstinence, the fava beans referred to typical Lenten fare, and lastly, the cooked lamb served as a visual reminder of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
This paper contributes to the scholarship of a little-known Florentine artist while expanding on the existing interpretations of Last Supper imagery. My research builds on previous interpretations of Nelli’s Last Supper while successfully contextualizing it within a gastro-centric notion of spiritual wellness in the early modern period.

Introductory courses dealing with sex, gender and sexuality are usually quite biased, going as far as to deny the reality of biology. Drawing on the Catholic tradition (Aquinas), this article presents an accessible argument aimed at restoring deliberative balance in the classroom.

In the long passage of De abstinentia, IV, 2–18, Porphyry mentions a series of “groups” (ἔθνη) as examples of abstinence from animal food: the ancient Greeks of the “golden age”, the Lacedaemonians of Lycurgus’ era, the Egyptian priests, the Essenes among the Jews, the Magi among the Persians and the gymnosophists among the Indians. Such an association does not seem at all accidental, since Porphyry refers to a tradition in which these communities have similar habits of life, including the prohibition of eating meat and drinking wine, sexual abstinence, absence of diseases and wars, separation from the civil sphere, devotion to the sacred. All these elements constitute the specific connotation of a human existence that evokes the “time of the origins”, substantially a paradisiac dimension, far from history. It is a deliberate symbolic shift. This brief research will investigate the reasons and the deep meaning of the connection based on utopian life traits.

The present literature review aims to examine a range of reciprocal effects between alcohol abuse and family relations: as individuals and as a system. The study targets the mutual relationship between alcohol abuse and the family. Alcohol abuse is being examined to affect the personalities of family members and the functioning and interactions of the family as a system. The family in turn is examined in terms of contributing to the onset, alleviation or persistence of alcohol abuse. Accordingly, recovery from alcohol abuse would necessitate the involvement of family members besides the main subject of abuse. An ethnographic study would be used to examine the direct and indirect mutual effect families and alcohol abuse have on one another.

In this research, the nation-state forces certain archaic cultural forms and practices on the current youth population. This is a result of the lack of adequate communication between the state and the Moroccan youth. Thus, Morocco continues to press on teaching abstinence-only sex programs since 2005. This research attempts to Bridge the gap of communication through articulating Moroccan youth's perceptions and their relation with globalization and religion. The first part of the Analysis argues that globalization shapes sexual education is received. The positive perception of sexual education is due to glocality since the individual youth identifies with the western culture he or she witnesses on media and the internet. This leads to an urge to experiencing sex outside of marriage. The negative perception of sexual education is due to grobality, yet this is a minority within the sample. In the second part, participants perceive Islam to be for sexual education. Then, there is a need for sexual safety especially since youth are already engaging in premarital intercourses. Sexual education would keep them away from STDs and pregnancies out of wedlock. Thus, the Moroccan youth's perception favors sexual education and seeks to implement it as a means of dealing with premarital relationships.

This is a seminar paper for a course on theoretical approaches to early Christian studies. In the course, we examined the role of theory and how it can be used to illuminate our understandings of early Christianity, and we read various theories and examples of how scholars have applied these theories to early Christian studies. For our seminar papers, we were asked to apply a theory to an aspect of early Christianity. I apply Homi Bhabha's postcolonial theory to the emergence and eventual dominance in early Christianity of a particular interpretation of the figure of the eunuch in Matthew 19:12, namely 'eunuch' as a metaphor for 'celibate.' I argue that we can identify two cases of 'imperial hybridity' undertaken by early proponents of Christian celibacy: the hybridizing of the symbol of the eunuch in the text and in reality, and the mimicry and eventual hybrid takeover of Roman ideals of masculinity. My argument is exploratory and speculative, but looking at this history through this theoretical perspective can help illuminate some aspects of the history that would perhaps not otherwise be apparent. It can help us focus on the conditions of possibility of various possible interpretations of the verse in the context of early Christianity in the Roman empire. It can also highlight the ways that real eunuchs and gender/sexual minorities are scapegoated in battles over interpretation, gender, sex, and power. Finally, it can help us see that insofar as the dominant interpretation of the verse and the dominant Christian marginalization of gender/sexual minorities are based on patterns resembling imperial hybridity, they retain some instability and some vulnerability to potential disruption.

Many studies have examined the risk factors for relapse in alcohol-dependent patients within the first year of treatment, and have generally focused on two personality dimensions: emotional instability and difficulty in establishing relationships. In this study, we examine if these weaknesses remain in prolonged alcohol abstinence. To do so, we administer the NEO PI-R to two groups of subjects. Group 1, Inactive Drinkers (ID), consists of 51 patients with at least two years of abstinence (average length of abstinence for this group is 6.2 years); Group 2, Recently Detoxified Drinkers (RDD), comprises 93 patients who have recently ceased consuming alcohol. Based on NEO PI-R scores, our results evidence that inactive drinkers experience significant reduction in emotional instability and improvement in relationships to others. We further observe that, with long-term abstinence, these personality dimensions normalize, ceasing to be risk factors for relapse. Additionally, we find that this long-term amelioration of traits altered by alcohol amounts to an improved behavioral adaptation to life events rather than an actual change in personality.

Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) in the United States has recently adopted an approach based on the principles of the Recovery movement-a view of treatment informed by addiction-as-disease models but also incorporating social, psychological, and spiritual components. Although organizations that administer drug treatment services claim that the shift represents a more client-centered, individualistic approach, it may not meet the needs of the many individuals who use MMT to reduce the harms of drug use, like overdose, rather than as a way to become abstinent. In this article, I use interview data from treatment providers to argue against institutional claims of Recovery as an individualistic model. My research demonstrates how, despite the wide variety of treatment goals among people on MMT, the Recovery discourse positions and organizes treatment strictly as abstinence-based, self-help. Moreover, I show how the Recovery model serves as the justification for an expansion of clinics' ability to surveil and intervene in aspects of peoples' lives which had previously been seen as outside of MMT's purview, including nutrition, public service, and spirituality. In conclusion, I argue that Recovery restricts MMT's ability to reduce harms, like overdose, in the lives of people who use drugs, and recommend that MMT adopt a more open-ended, low-threshold approach to treatment.

This study examines youth sexual agency during sexuality lessons in a New Zealand secondary school. Employing poststructuralist discourse analysis, examples are highlighted in which girls (and boys) gain access to sexual agency. Through conversation, girls are simultaneously positioned as ‘asked’ and ‘pursuer’ and boys as ‘asker’ and ‘pursued’ whilst abstinence and virginity are imbued with sexual agency for both sexes. This study demonstrates that it is discursive versions of agency which hold central importance in youth sexual development. Thus the ‘capacities for sexual action’ which are fostered in classroom conversation cannot plausibly be separated from agentive sexual practices of young people beyond the classroom’s walls.

There is a concerted research effort to investigate brain mechanisms underlying addiction processes that may predicate the development of new compounds for treating addiction. One target is the brain's opioid system, because of its role in the reinforcing effects of substances of abuse. Substance-dependent populations have increased numbers of the mu opioid receptor (MOR) in fronto-striatal regions that predict drug relapse, and demonstrate disturbances in these regions during the processing of non-drug rewards. Naltrexone is currently licensed for alcohol and opiate dependence, and may remediate such disturbances through the blockade of MORs in fronto-striatal reward circuitry. Therefore, we examined the potential acute modulating effects of naltrexone on the anticipation of, and instrumental responding for, non-drug rewards in long-term abstinent alcoholics, alcoholic poly substance-dependent individuals and controls using a monetary incentive delay (MID) task during a randomi...

Is the monster apart from, or a part of the Self? If the monster is the Other, not the Self, then is that Other intimately intertwined with the Self? Is the monster that which the Self denies, represses, or sheds in order to be? The monster has been with us in art and literature for centuries and we cannot seem to erase it from our thinking. More than ever, in fact, we are bombarded with images of monsters, with humanity s constant re-creation of the monster. One can also ask: Is it the monster masking as humanity or humanity masking as the monster? Is the monster intrinsically inhuman or is it depicted as such because humanity seeks to censor ignore/dismiss that which is different? The chapters in this collection examine the imagined monster as humanity s (re)-creations of monsters and the monstrous beyond the traditional physical representations in the attempt to scrutinize if the true monster is actually within us all and not limited to any outward physical monstrous representation.

The current overdose crisis in the United States emphasizes the importance of providing substance use treatment programs that are not only effective but tailored to meet the specific needs of the populations they serve. While Methadone Maintenance Treatment (MMT) is considered to be among the best strategies for reducing rates of opioid-involved overdose, its ability to attract and maintain patients may be hindered by a recent focus on policing the non-opioid substance use of people on the program. This paper uses interview data from treatment providers to examine how clinicians conceptualize and organize MMT in regards to patients' use of non-opioid drugs. Responses demonstrate that some treatment providers are increasingly monitoring their patients' use of non-opioid substances and punishing them for infractions, up to and including discharge from treatment. This approach will likely result in increasing rates of patient dropout and a lack of new admissions among people who use non-opioid substances. This article argues that including non-opioid substances in MMT's mandate restricts its ability to improve public health, including by preventing overdoses, and recommends instead that MMT adopt a more individualized approach, shaped by the needs and goals of the patient rather than those of the clinician. ARTICLE HISTORY

Martin Luther and St. Augustine have written a great deal on the topic of sexual abstinence, as it relates to it being, or not being a virtue within the conjugal union. The latter argued that sexual abstinence is a human virtue, but insofar as it is observed within the conjugal union, and as a means for procreation alone. Thus, in The City of God, sexual abstinence observed in this way, brings about a love in conjugal, chastity that keeps individuals on the right side of the boundary of evil, beyond that which lies within the area of moral fault and deviant, sexual inclinations: concupiscence, in essence. This, according to Augustine, leads to the receiving of His saving grace. The former rejected sexual abstinence as a human virtue, arguing for the ordinariness of Jesus' body. Thus, the body, along with its desire and its sexuality, was created good and will be saved. Likewise, according to Luther, while the fall propagated sin, God's grace justifies and saves the whole of the human person, while all the while, purporting that the pleasures enjoyed within the conjugal union, is not generally sinful, but that the consequences of its pleasure makes it unfitting during times set aside for spiritual activity, if the passions are not well regulated.

Alcoholism was one of the most burning social problems in the 19th century. The first to declare a fight against it were the Catholic Church and bourgeois morality, which both saw it as a sin and as a moral failure on the part of the alcoholic. At the end of the 19th century, a different, scientific attitude prevailed, which saw alcoholism as a condition and alcohol as poison. This new understanding had a considerable impact on the contemporary anti-alcohol movement, which to a large extent had replaced the struggle for moderation and started to endorse complete abstinence. In Slovenia, the new view of alcohol and the problem of alcoholism established itself at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1905 the Piščalka (The Whistle) magazine was published, which treated alcoholism from a scientific point of view. It supported a complete abstinence from alcoholic drinks and declared alcohol to be poison. Its progressive views were met with resistance by conservative elements in the Catholic Church, followed by heated polemics between the “Whistlers” and the Franciscan Stanislav Škrabec. The plan of the then Slovene anti-alcohol fighters, of whom the large majority were still priests, to establish a network of antialcohol
movements, however, did not come to fruition. They
only founded the Abstinence Society under the leadership of
Janez Evangelist Krek. Its members committed themselves to
abstinence over a certain period of time. Through lectures and distribution of flyers and by holding social events, the society tried to dissuade Slovenes from consuming alcohol. However, in spite of their enthusiasm, they had no success. For financial reasons, the Piščalka ceased publication as early as 1906.

El síndrome de dependencia al alcohol es una enfermedad multifactorial, ambiental, cultural, social y genética. Son innumerables las investigaciones que han intentado elu- cidar los posibles mecanismos neurobiológicos de este síndrome para entender los cambios fisiológicos y comportamentales del individuo, de tal manera que se puedan brindar alter- nativas farmacológicas que ayuden a controlar este tipo dependencia.

Esta revisión describe el papel de la neurotransmisión involucrada en el síndrome de de- pendencia al alcohol, principalmente la relacionada con el glutamato, la dopamina, los opioides y en especial el ácido γ-aminobutírico (GABA), porque la activación del receptor GABAA (receptor canal de cloro) desencadena un efecto inhibitorio a nivel neuronal, y en individuos alcohólicos presenta hipofunción, la cual no le permite modular la recurrente excitación neuronal obteniendo como resultado un estado de desinhibición/hiperexcitación típico de alcohólicos. Por otra parte, los genes que codifican para las subunidades de los receptores GABAA ubicados en los cromosomas 4 y 15 han sido asociados con alcoholismo, al presentarse fuertes relaciones entre el desequilibrio de unión entre estos genes y el fenotipo de las ondas β en los electroencefalogramas de los individuos con el síndrome de dependencia al alcohol y sus descendientes.

De acuerdo a las investigaciones en el tema, finalmente proponemos las posibles vías y sus mecanismos de control implicados en el síndrome de dependencia al alcohol.

PACS: 87.19.L-

Correct and consistent use of condoms has been reported as effective in the prevention of transmission of HIV. There have been many studies reporting on attitudes (perceptions) of communities on condoms and other aspects of HIV and AIDS and yet there is paucity of data on the perception towards condoms and abstinence by law makers.

Follow a decade of cinema relatively silent on virginity loss, films from the 2000s onward both reflect and help constitute American culture’s anxious preoccupation with subject. In Abstinence Cinema, Casey Ryan Kelly examines the rhetorical and political weight of films about virginity from the Twilight film series to The 40-Year-Old Virgin. This book connects the emergence of more conservative and fearful representations of sexuality with the success of the contemporary abstinence-until-marriage movement. Kelly shows how many contemporary films overinflate the personal and social value of remaining chaste, imploring audiences to think more carefully about the potentially dangerous repercussions of sexual activity. This book shows how pro-abstinence discourse in film and society stifle national conversations about sexuality and cultivate nostalgia for a world before feminism and sexual liberation.

Twenty-nine cigarette smokers completed a smoking motivation questionnaire and had expired-air carbon monoxide (CO) and plasma nicotine concentrations measured prior to abstaining from smoking for 24 h. Before and after the abstinence period, the subjects rated mood and physical symptoms known to be affected by cigarette abstinence (e.g. irritability, restlessness). Scores on the "dependent smoking" subscale of the smoking motivation questionnaire correlated significantly with overall withdrawal severity, craving, and increased irritability. "Indulgent smoking" scores correlated positively with increased hunger. Pre-abstinence plasma nicotine concentration significantly predicted craving, hunger, restlessness, inability to concentrate and overall withdrawal severity, while expired-air CO predicted craving and restlessness only. Usual daily cigarette consumption did not significantly predict any withdrawal effects. The data indicate that pre-abstinence measures of smoking motivation and smoke intake may provide a guide to withdrawal severity on smoking cessation and that smokers with a high pre-abstinence nicotine intake experience the greatest discomfort.

Se realizó un estudio descriptivo y transversal de 200 adolescentes de 10-19 años de edad, pertenecientes al área de salud América I del municipio de Contramaestre, provincia de Santiago de Cuba, desde enero hasta diciembre del 2016, a fin de caracterizar a quienes consumían bebidas alcohólicas. Resultaron bebedores 177 y el inicio de la ingestión fue más frecuente entre los 10-16 años de edad. Se evidenció un riesgo de consumo patológico en el sexo masculino. Los consumidores de riesgo, perjudiciales y dependientes alcohólicos manifestaron la necesidad de ingerir alcohol en las actividades, puesto que les producía efectos favorables; por tanto, se propuso fomentar la educación antialcohólica entre los integrantes de este grupo poblacional./A descriptive and cross-sectional study of 200 adolescents with 10-19 years belonging to America I health area in Contramaestre municipality, Santiago de Cuba province was carried out from January to December, 2016, in order to characterize those who consumed alcoholic drinks. There were 177 drinkers and the beginning of consumption was more frequent between 10-16 years. A risk of pathological consumption was evidenced in the male sex. The harmful and alcoholic risk consumers, manifested the necessity to drink alcohol in the activities, since it produced them favorable effects; therefore, it was proposed to foment the antialcoholic education among the members of this populational group.

ABSTRACT. Anticipatory coping skills are important for the maintenance of abstinence from alcohol and other drugs. Nevertheless, there are no instruments available to evaluate them in the Brazilian context. This paper describes the first developments of an instrument that permits the assessment of this repertoire, which involved several steps. Initially, based on the literature, on similar instruments and interviews, 92 items were written, including 14 skills classes, defined and exemplified in the text. Referees conducted the semantic and content analyses, and 24 items were excluded from the list. This new version was submitted to an operational pre test and a pilot study with participants treated for abuse or addiction to alcohol or other drugs. New adjustments were made and the final set of 67 items was named Anticipatory Coping Skills Inventory for Abstinence from Alcohol and Other Drugs (IDHEA-AD, as in Portuguese). Each one of those steps is discussed and proposals for future studies are presented. Keywords: coping, relapse prevention, abstinence, addiction, social skills.

RESUMO. Habilidades de enfrentamento antecipatório são importantes para a manutenção da abstinência de álcool e outras drogas. Apesar disso, não se dispõe de instrumentos para avaliá-las em contexto brasileiro. Este artigo descreve as etapas iniciais da construção de um instrumento de medida para a avaliação desse repertório, o que envolveu várias etapas. Inicialmente, com base na literatura, em instrumentos semelhantes e em entrevistas, foram redigidos 92 itens, que contemplavam 14 classes de habilidades, definidas e exemplificadas no texto. A qualidade semântica e o conteúdo dos itens foram aferidos por juízes, resultando na eliminação de 24 deles. A nova versão passou por um pré-teste de funcionamento e estudo piloto com participantes em tratamento por abuso ou dependência de álcool ou outras drogas. Novos ajustes foram realizados e o conjunto final, de 67 itens, recebeu o nome de Inventário de Habilidades de Enfrentamento Antecipatório para Abstinência de Álcool e Outras Drogas (IDHEA-AD). Discute-se cada uma das etapas e são apresentadas propostas para estudos futuros. Palavras-chave: enfrentamento, prevenção da recaída, abstinência, adição, habilidades sociais.