Queer Imaginings

Hedonism, asceticism, and the transformation of desire

TL;DR:

• Christians often frame desire within a choice between repression and libertinism: you either flee from desire or indulge it. But MacIntyre writes that the simple flight from desire is just a form of hedonism, taking desire as a given that decides for us how we are to live.

• Sarah Coakley helps us see that repression isn't asceticism, because it h…