Medieval Sex- when do we ever talk about anything else?

[highlyeccentric]

Had a lovely dinner with the CMS last night; took daiskmeliadorn along for the joys of a real medievalist experience. I enjoy talking history with Bron- someone has to remind me, every now and again, that Theory is important even if it does make my head hurt.

Some time ago I linked to this In the Middle post, asking if there was heterosexuality in the Middle Ages. And I put up my fairly incoherent rant about people getting all tied up over homo/heterosexuality and missing all kinds of interesting things about eroticism in the middle ages.
The original post I linked to was very theory-heavy and made my head hurt. Much more to my liking is this entry, How About Them Fightin' Binaries. Karl Steel looks at medieval french poetry and the use, by female characters, of accusations that a man is more interested in other men, as an insult to his manhood. What this means, I don't know, but I like the fact that he uses source study to question Theory.

Speaking of Binaries, an Interesting Thing over on IHM is Blood and Medieval Identity. Something to read if i ever have spare time.
One of the downsides of thematic history like that is that isolating a single factor from the rest of the cultural makeup can create some pretty strange history... not to mention a tendancy to look at, say "medieval identity" as a homogenous thing. I can't tell if the book reviewed here is an example of this problem or not, I'd be interested to see.

Comments

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Innnnnteresting.