A Nun's Life

October 4, 2008 8:37 PM

When I was growing up, I did not dress up as a nun for Halloween. When I was a young, impressionable Catholic school girl, I did not secretly (or otherwise) pine for the veils, habits, odd religious names, and overall mystique of the nuns who taught me. The whole “nun” thing kind of snuck up on me when I wasn’t paying much attention. A Nun's Life is the eclectic personal blog of Sister Julie, a Servant of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and a Star Wars fangirl.
posted by amyms (18 comments total)

This thread is useless without pics

I kid, I kid!
posted by leotrotsky at 8:44 PM on October 4, 2008

This thread is useless without pics

Funny you should mention that. Sister Julie is soliticiting pics to "change the face of nun imagery on the web."
posted by amyms at 8:50 PM on October 4, 2008

Photos of Catholic sisters and nuns are difficult to come by here in the World Wide Web. The Internet collection of nun photos is abysmal. I’m tired of looking for images and coming up with caricatures of nuns and erotica.

Oh, hey, speak for yourself, Sister Julie.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:03 PM on October 4, 2008 [5 favorites]

It would seem like a good idea for there to be nuns blogging.

Nuns in hospitals can be amazing, generous, compassionate, dedicated.

Some pleasant images of Catholic nuns.

Post about the Singing Nun.

Adding what is likely to be an actual NYC subway trio image.
posted by nickyskye at 9:50 PM on October 4, 2008 [1 favorite]

Thanks for those links, nickyskye. I'm not Catholic, but I grew up around a lot of amazingly cool nuns who were affiliated with the hospital where my mother worked during my formative years. My husband was raised Catholic, and went to Catholic schools, so he has good and bad nun stories.
posted by amyms at 10:03 PM on October 4, 2008

I wish I could link images, but as everyone knows, we can't have nice things on the internet. (No relationship to Aerostich except as a satisfied customer. I don't even own the shirt.)
posted by spacewrench at 12:23 AM on October 5, 2008

You know, if you create a religion that obsesses about sin and the need for sexual abstinence prior to the holy sacrement of marriage, and then send a load of boys to be schools to be taught by young 'brides of Christ', all dressed up in the Western Equivalent of the hijab, then you really shouldn't be surprised that those little boys grow up to fetishize those brides of Christ.

The creation and proliferation of jerk-off material is a predictable next step.

Nuns in hospitals can be amazing, generous, compassionate, dedicated.

But sometimes rather less so than you'd expect.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:34 AM on October 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

I spent twelve years in the Catholic educational system, PeterMcDermott, and the few nuns I encountered were all strapping, homely middle-aged-to-elderly women. I expect that the fetishization of nuns in erotica--like that of 'Catholic schoolgirls'--largely appeals to those who have had little contact with Catholicism. It's probably a descendant of the sort of Othering of the Catholic Church often found in popular art from Protestant nations during the time when religious conflict ran high--say from the time of Shakespeare to that of the gothic novel--and the Church was often seen as a den of hypocritically-concealed vice. (Which dovetailed with the image of Italy and Spain, whether because of their Catholic connection or otherwise, as hotbeds of passion and lust imperfectly constrained.)

Maybe the contemporary situation is different over there, since you have that manufacturing plant for all things Catholic off your western shore, and Catholic vocations didn't collapse there until several decades after they did here in the United States.
posted by Makoto at 4:24 AM on October 5, 2008 [6 favorites]

Well, that explains the lack of Protestant nun erotica on the web.
posted by salishsea at 5:00 AM on October 5, 2008

I did not dress up as a nun for Halloween.

In high school, on Halloween, this one guy came in dressed in a habit, with ammo belts across his befalsied chest carrying a toy M-16. He said he was 'Sister Rambo.' He owns a bagel shop now.
posted by jonmc at 5:29 AM on October 5, 2008 [5 favorites]

Sister Julie is pretty cool. Pity about the URL, though.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:25 AM on October 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

I also spent twelve years in the Catholic educational system, and there were a few doe-eyed 20-something nuns sprinkled in among the elderly. A 10-to-1 ratio against, though.
posted by rokusan at 7:29 AM on October 5, 2008

There are some more nun links in this previous MeFi post.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:29 AM on October 5, 2008

...and I suppose you believe this whole complex, immune URL system just sort of "evolved" out of millions of accidental collisions of molecules, without any intelligent intervention?
posted by sneebler at 10:28 AM on October 5, 2008

The Karate nuns article appears to be down, but I love this picture forever.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:00 PM on October 5, 2008 [3 favorites]

I used to like those stickers you could get, to put over the government health warnings on the lid of cigarette packets. One of my favourites was "Even Nuns Have Habits".
posted by turgid dahlia at 3:07 PM on October 5, 2008

I parsed that url as "anus life."

I am going to hell.
posted by wires at 7:10 PM on October 5, 2008

A strange thing I was always curious about wrt nuns: I've worked in health care for many years, in two states, and I've never seen a priest come in who did not have the best insurance money can buy; yet I've never seen a nun come in who was not on Medicaid or Medicaid/Medicare as their only coverage. I'm sure I haven't yet met all nuns, but I've wondered if this is somehow part of the vow of poverty.
posted by troybob at 7:18 PM on October 5, 2008 [2 favorites]