GLR September-October 2023

ond chapter. Although he interprets it as a medievalism, the music video is narratively more akin to Handel ’ s Messiah — covering the entirety of biblical history from the Gar den of Eden to the End Times. I ’ vewatched it countless times, trying to appreciate the complex sequence of images and allusions

definitely not courtly love.) Nicholas devises an elaborate ruse to make a fool and a cuck old of the carpenter. While Alisoun is mak ing merry with Nicholas, the parish clerk, Absalon, pesters Alisoun for a kiss in the pitch of night. She mischievously proffers her rear out the window. “ Ful savorly ” he

EROTIC MEDIEVALISMS Medieval Pleasures Empowering Marginalized People byElan Jus ti ce Pavlinich Routledge. 175 pages, $160.

crammed into three minutes. Lil Nas X ’ s face is on all the char acters in the eye-popping digital extravaganza. His Orpheus-like character in Eden ends up being seduced by a Satanic serpent. Enslaved and in chains, he is sent to face a Colosseum filled with his high-drag personas, who sit in judgment. They execute him with a steel butt plug to the head. His ascension into heaven abruptly turns into a pole dance down to hell. Once there, he gives Satan the lap dance of his life before snapping his neck and seiz ing his corn-rowed horn-crown. Pavlinich focuses on the explicit gay eroticism, particularly the anal sex, in the lyrics:

kisses it before realizing his mistake: “ For well he knew a woman has no beard. ” Absalon returns, intent on getting his revenge. When Nicholas tries to replicate the stunt, Absalon sodomizes him with a red hot poker. All three men become the laughingstock of the town while Alisoun gets her way: “ Thus swyved [fucked] was this carpenteris wyf, For al his kepyng and his jalousye. ” Agbabi ’ s poem elevates cunnilingus as the preferred (French) “ kiss ” of the tale ’ s sexually assertive heroine. Pavlinich elucidates Agbabi ’ s clever adaptations of medieval stylistics turned to modern femi nist purposes. His final chapter ties BDSM to diverse medieval roots. He follows a common interpretation of BDSM as the eroticization of power play, rather than its original medicalization by 19th-cen tury psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing as a pain-based per version of sexual instinct. Leather fetish clothing draws on the allure of midcentury motorcycle gangs and working class mas culinity, while the dungeon and torture chamber theatrics are a clear medievalism alluding to the Catholic Inquisition that began in the 12th century. (And there are countless other BDSM narra tives with more contemporary scenarios like Nazi concentration camps, black-ops interrogations, or psychiatric wards.) Pavlinich especially highlights medieval elements like the deferred ecstasy of chivalrous knights contrasted with the pleasures of their broth erly bonding rituals. There is perhaps no more widespread iden tification with pain than the Christian iconography of the Passion of Christ: humiliation, flagellation, and crucifixion all for love, re demption, and eternal life. Pavlinich elegantly interconnects the

Romantic talking? You don ’ t even have to try You ’ re cute enough to fuck with me tonight ... I wanna sell what you ’ re buying I wanna feel on your ass in Hawaii I want that jet lag from fucking and flying Shoot a child in your mouth while I ’ mriding

Lil Nas X defiantly came out in 2021 as a queer “ power bot tom, ” and Pavlinich uses the video as a launching pad for ex amining medieval texts on sodomy. The crimen nefandum (unmentionable crime) alluded to numerous sinful sexual acts (all well represented in Montero ). The most detailed opus on sodomy was by an 11th-century Italian monk: the Liber Gom orrhianus . There, as in other texts, the sodomite is associated with a range of pejoratives: effeminates, barbarians, the sinful and unrestrained, those reeking of the stench of the anus. Pavlinich further draws on medieval associations of sodomy

with Satan. “ Montero, ” however, alludes to this medieval (and Classical) phobia only to criticize a history that still burdens queer people and — in particularly religious ways — those in the African-American com munity. Lil Nas X, Pavlinich argues, has created an erudite and sensuous pæan to sodomy and queer salvation. The third chapter focuses on “ TheKiss, ” by Nigerian-British poet and performer Pa tience Agbabi. The poet was named Canter bury poet laureate in 2009, leading to the 2014 Telling Tales , a modern collection of stories inspired by Chaucer ’ s work. “ The Kiss ” is an interpretation of “ The Miller ’ s Tale, ” which relies on Old French fabliaux : the raunchier, funnier counterpart to courtly poems. The central character in “ TheMiller ’ s Tale ” is eighteen-year-old Alisoun: “ As any weasel was her body graceful and slender. ” She is newly wed to an old, “ richchurl ” of a carpenter who jealously guards her. One of his boarders is Nicholas, a poor yet charm ing scholar who grabs Alisoun by the queynte (cunt) and eventually seduces her. (This is

thematics of medieval mysticism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and the transcendental po tential of BDSM. A postscript makes the case for how a seemingly scholastic, esoteric pursuit like medieval studies is full of liberatory polit ical potential. Americans are likely to see further decades of legal assaults on LGBT folks and drag queens in a cynical appeal to conservatism and “ traditional values, ” thanks to the legacy of the MAGA faithful. However, exploring contemporary culture through a medievalist ’ s eyes uncovers all sorts of radical inspirations for resistance. Simultaneously, a queer eye for the me dieval guys also uncovers all sorts of erotic aberrations that put the lie to the American Christian fantasy of “ traditional values. ” Widespread lecherie is probably more the norm than the marital missionary posi tion — in the Middle Ages and in Middle America. Pavlinich does a masterful job of making his scholarly insights seductively accessible to all and should draw a broader queer audience to medieval studies.

The faggot trusted no-one Nothing Not even time But we are bound Less by time Than the watchmaker Fears What James Baldwin said The cutting gets fainter Like Oscar Wilde was Stitched up in court For telling The truth about love That it forgets Truer now than then Healing is not great

About time About fear

S IMON M ADDRELL

TheG & LR

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