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Well, of course the middle ages would never invent sex toys - that chastity belts exist now can only mean they are recent, because people had not kinky fantasie

• peterwwillis 11y ago
  Kink was a lot easier back then, because anything other than man-on-woman top-down missionary penetration was either not considered sex, or was blasphemous/unnatural. But there's also evidence of a lot of kink going on, even if it was somewhat tame by today's standards. The simplest examples were fashion that emphasized the male's, uh, manliness, like the poulaine shoes and codpieces. The most popular sex trope of the day was probably 'the wayward nun' and 'the mischevious monk'. Plenty of people have written about sexual misconduct in the clergy - probably far more than was actually happening - because of the inherent naughtiness of the chaste getting away with lascivious behavior. Then there's just the stories in general of religious or political figures being objectified and chased after like veritable Ricky Martins, and of course, always gallantly rejecting all these people trying to fuck them all the time. Sir Gaiwan and the Green Knight, a poem from the 14th century, does much with the trope of Knights as manly men who are constantly being lusted after and rejecting random women's objectification of them, and has plenty of bondage jokes, apparently. One of my favorite stories is from a book on the history of flagellation. There was some traveling monk who got called on by a woman while he was passing her house, and she was asking him for help or something, so of course he went in with her - while her husband was away - but only to help, of course. Once inside, she throws herself on him, trying to fuck him for like a good four hours, him rejecting her advances the entire time of course. Finally he succumbs. (Awwww, poor monk!) And as a result of her wickedness, he flagellates her for another couple hours so she can pay for her sins. When the husband comes home to see his wife beaten & flogged by this monk, the monk tells him the whole story. The husband's response? Thank god you beat & flogged her! Now she won't have to pay for her sins in the afterlife! The Handbook of Medieval Sexuality goes over some other common examples of 'unusual' sex documented in the middle ages, such as homosexuality, cross-dressing/gender role change, prostitution, contraception, castration, etc. And sure, we had to wait 'til the 17th and 18th century to see famous examples of kinky personalities such as John Wilmot and the Marquis de Sade, but you have to assume there were others rejecting the puritan attitudes of the day before them.
  • iSnow 11y ago
    Thanks for the interesting posting. I was trying to speak facetious, but well, that bombed.