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French to English translations [PRO] Medical - Medical (general)
French term or phrase:monstruosité
I have "... sauvagerie, monstruosité et bestialité sont autant de noms pour désigner l'idée d'une aberration sexuelle". I presume that, as aberrations, "sauvagerie" is "wantonness" and "bestialité" is "bestiality", but I'm drawing a blank as to what aberration "monstruosité" might be.
I see now I was looking at the wrong side of this couple. As this baron never is and avoids being a werewolf in her presence, the "danger" is purely psychological. So it's the wife fearing that she could become or see herself as sexually deviant. A bit like these women crazy about men when they are in prison, and loosing all interest in them once there are out. Interesting how every little additional bit of information creates a totally different picture!
I translated the sections as "we should ask precisely what, at a deeper level, motivates the wife’s fear. Does she fear that the wolf will eat, would kill her? Probably not. It is more likely that she fears the wolf will render her wanton, since wantonness, monstrosity, and bestiality are all words which have been used to designate sexual aberrancy."
I must admit I'm now completely baffled. That a werewolf is labelled "... sauvagerie, monstruosité et bestialité" is perfectly understandable. But after reading the story, I can't see why that would be an "aberration sexuelle". Being a werewolf can fairly be described as "aberration" - no doubts about that. But I can't find anywhere in this story why it would be an "aberration sexuelle"? There no mention of this baron Bisclavret needing to turn into a werewolf to be able to have sex - that would be an "aberration sexuelle". If a women discovers that her husband is a hitmen, would that make being a hitmen a "sexual aberration"? Or is it a similar case to Victorians seeing sexual elements in ordinary table legs?
I suppose a warewolf would stoop to that sort of thing - cutting the wife's nose off!! Standard stuff for a warewolf perhaps. Cheers! Obviously needs anger management therapy:)
Quote: "Isn't there always some kind of grades/levels of "aberration"?"
Traditionally, not always!
Just look at the Old Testament fundamentalists, who would claim that eating shellfish, cutting your hair, 'casting your seed upon the ground', or 'lying with a man as your wife' are all equally serious 'abominations' in the eyes of the Lord...
So I think in the kind of context we are talking about, even in a modern document, we need to take it in the perspective of the period of the literary work in question.
Of course, with the added context, we now know that basically we are only really talking about one particular kind of depravity... or at least, not the whole gamut of possible ones.
Thanks Liz. Yes, maybe I misclassified it - it was late and just I'd given up on trying to find it in Kraft-Ebbing. The original is from ~1160 and the word used there (if I'm interpreting it correctly) for what exactly the wife objects to is surprisingly graphic. One can certainly see her point of view but she ends up getting her nose bitten off (literally!)
Glad you posted where this text was from, there was me thinking "I've never had a medical text like that!"..posting it under "Medical" made me think it was more scientific. I can sympathise with the werewolf's wife, FWIW. Cheers! There are limits folks:)
The text is from a modern academic article about "Bisclavret" - a werewolf. In the lay, his wife betrays him since she doesn't want to sleep with someone who becomes an animal (even though she has never seen him in this state). I originally thought that these were distinct aberrations which she feared but, on reflection, I now agree with Tony.
Whichever way you try to interpret the ST, something doesn't add-up. "... sauvagerie, monstruosité et bestialité sont autant de noms pour désigner l'idée d'une aberration sexuelle". this looks like a list of synonyms/adjectives related to "une aberration sexuelle". Without the rest of the text, it's not clear if it's about one specific "aberration sexuelle" - which could only be bestiality, but then "sauvagerie, monstruosité" are not synoyms for bestialité [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoophilie]. Leaving aside the fact that what is "normal" varies hugely from one place/time to another, if "une aberration sexuelle" is about any "aberration sexuelle" using "sauvagerie, monstruosité et bestialité" to describe any possible one would sound a bit out of proportion, even for some hard-line puritan? Isn't there always some kind of grades/levels of " aberration"?
I think you're looking at this the wrong way round, D.
I believe they are not claiming that these are different types of sexual aberration, but rather, that all these are words used to describe (almost any kind of) sexual perversion.
These charming terms have all at one time or another been used torefer, in particualr, to homosexual behaviour — "the love that dare not speak its name".
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
19 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
monstrosity
Explanation: as a grossly malformed animal, plant, or person.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 23 minutes (2013-01-18 20:53:33 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
sexual malformation or grossly inappropriate behavior
Drmanu49 France Local time: 15:46 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English, French PRO pts in category: 5346
Grading comment
Thanks Drmanu49.
Notes to answerer
Asker: Thanks Drmanu49, That's certainly true but is there a "sexual aberration" rather than a physical one?