I think it is fair to conclude that some clerics, monks etc. have always been living in this parallel world of what was supposed to be protective against lust.

*Cough*...read the stories about Milwaukee priests. I knew quite a few of the ones who made the newspapers.

Pre-'56 praxis was men/boys 'on the books', but not in real life; there were very few--if any--trained boy singers. In this area, there was only ONE parish boy-choir (metro population around 1 million at the time) active through roughly 1960. Therefore, adult choirs were mixed. Women were in the loft in lots of churches, going back before my time.

But it's not about mixed choirs; it's about using only men for Chant Propers. That's custom, not law nor regulation--but based on law/regs which were in force for centuries. So happens I got the stink-eye from a priest for having the gall to use women to sing part of the Propers--and one of those women was a Jewess!! Horrors!! However, in a prior assignment (EF) I stuck with the custom. A successor two generations down is using women to sing part of the Chant Propers; there was some mumbling, but it's going fine, I guess.

Yes, I'm acquainted with the history, and have probably paid for the non-transgression, of using women and that Jewess, too. That's the biz we're in.