eroticismEmotions are socially constructed appraisals of given situations
grounded in cultural beliefs and values. Laughter is, for instance, a
metonym whereby emotional physiological effects represent the emotion.
Emotional judgments involve the self more deeply in relationship to other
persons, things, or events. Emotions are culturally relative in large part
because they are learned, acquired, or nurtured within a particular reli-
gious culture rather than acquired naturally, and different emotions become
identified by others within a religion. If different situations within a reli-
gion trigger emotional responses, such as humor or fear, there is no cross-
cultural, universal, objective situation that explains all innate responses.
Emotions involve moral judgments pertaining to social situations. By
expressing pity for a person suffering from old age, illness, or mental
incapacity, emotions elicit a prescribed or expected response that is cultur-
ally ingrained in a person. Moreover, emotions possess moral conse-
quences for the way persons relate to others and the social system.Further reading: Lakoff and Kovecses (1983); Lynch (1990)EROTICISM
This concept is derived from the Greek term eros (desire, love), although
eroticism is not simply about desire and love. Eroticism is excessive in
its nature; it also tends to be marginal with respect to the prevailing social
structure, its marginal characteristic marking the limits of human experi-
ence. Eroticism is potentially subversive because it is marked by insatia-
bility and ceaseless desire; it is not the act of sex itself because it possesses
more in common with anticipation than fulfillment. Eroticism is more
like the sexual tease that does not end and is never fully satisfied. There
is a close association between eroticism and religion in that they both
render visible the bodily nature of religious experience. Christian, Hindu,
and Muslim mystics write about their experiences in erotic terms.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, the Song of Songs expresses an individual’s
love of God in very erotic terms in a manner similar to Christian, Islamic
and Hindu mysticism. In the Hindu tradition, the poet Jayadeva in his
Gītāgovinda expresses the love relationship between the goddess Rādhā
and Krishna as an intense, passionate, violent, and erotic encounter that
occurs within a context of divine play in a world of joy and bliss. The
erotic nature of their relationship is heightened by its dangerous and
illicit quality. Within Krishna devotional religion, there is also a close