My dear fellow defrocked priests and banished nuns,
Know this!
2015 is almost over and the winner for the “Bad Sex in Fiction” award took place on December 1st.
Apparently 2015, had no shortage of fiction which depicted some of this “funny business” as we at CEU Medieval Radio call it. So it was very hard to pick a winner…. Ugh…
So anyway, it got David Clark at the Independent thinking about what piece of recorded writing would win such a contest if all the great, gleaming corpus of medieval literature was rifled through until we could finally, triumphantly finger one example of some truly awful “Bad Sex in Medieval Fiction.”
Check the link to his article: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/who-would-have-won-the-medieval-bad-sex-in-fiction-award-a6755461.html
He found some pretty funny examples of medieval writings referring to “the deed.”
First, you should know that the church’s recorded recommended penance for having sex with a pig in the Middle Ages was 7 years of fasting! Seven years??? That’s a little harsh! We at CEU Medieval Radio would be going hungry if we lived in the Middle Ages, I can tell you that much!
Secondly he found this little gem of a 10th century Anglo-Saxon poem:
Question: What am I?
I am wonderful help to women,
The hope of something to come. I harm
No citizen except my slayer.
Rooted I stand on a high bed.
I am shaggy below. Sometimes the beautiful
Peasant’s daughter, an eager-armed,
Proud woman grabs my body,
Rushes my red skin, holds me hard,
Claims my head. The curly-haired
Woman who catches me fast will feel
Our meeting. Her eye will be wet.
Answer: an onion, of course!
10th century people had their minds in the gutter obviously. That’s why I don’t read anything to do with the 10th century, and I recommend you, and all your household, do the same.
So you see, whether it is filthy poems, or church recommendations on sexual matters, there is no shortage of bone-chilling, sultry, spine-tinglingly horrible smut to feast your insatiable eyes upon in the body of medieval literature. If you can find any such thing in your own medieval literature collection, don’t hesitate to post it here on our website, or just on youtube. Post it somewhere, is the point!
And, uh… Merry Christmas and happy holidays too.
CEU Medieval Radio 