Erin Runions Summary

In her lecture, Erin Runions, began by explained that in the bible disgust starts as disgust toward an ethnic group. This disgust then becomes disgust toward different kinds of sexual practices. Next, she argues that in America, the intuitive reaction to gay sex is one of disgust and she wants to convert that disgust into humor thinking with affect theory. Affect theory is an unconscious movement in the body felt physically and that feeling is then labeled as emotion. From this she argues that society teaches people what is disgusting. She believes affect can go a different way as we could name things something else such as happiness or desire. Also she defines non heteronormative as not having proper sexuality, family not organized around the mother, the father the children. When Runions states that she wants to use humor she means turning it into something more positive and ironic. As an example she uses Rehab who does not fit the heteronormative roles as she is not married, is strong, is in charge, and does not fit the norms of marriage and monogamy making her a queenair (unusual or odd). According to Runions, the humor (irony) in this story is the fact that Rahab is not of higher position in society and she is control of the situation. She is in control of both the spies and the king who are all me and higher than her …show more content…
The student then asked Runions if the story would have had a different effect if Rahab had been a man instead of a woman? Runions asked the student what she thought and the student said that in the bible women are not portrayed as important as men and she also though that since Rahab is women she has a different view on the situation. Runions added that women are usually not portrayed as strong or the subject of all the verbs which makes the irony or humor more apparent. Not only is Rahab a woman but also a prostitute taking control of the king and the