#sex and sexuality

[craycraybluejay]

You know how a pretty obvious majority of kinksters are submissives? You want to know a big part of the reason why it's hard to find a dom that's into the same hard kink you are?

Ask a hardcore masochist what they think of being whipped.

Then ask a hard sadist what they think of whipping someone.

Do you notice that the sadist/dom will often either dance around an answer or try to use soothing language/euphemism not unlike the way how in many places people are still expected to discuss sex if at all. Gentle, calculated language.

The issue is, especially with a new surge of purity culture overtaking so-called "leftist" online circles, is that fantasy becomes a moral judgement.

Sub with a noncon kink: "I want to be raped" (cnc but like. People can talk ab it how they want don't cancel me fr.)

Response from Normies: "well that's weird and kinda dark but ok"

Dom with a noncon kink: "I want to rape"

Response from Normies: "I'm calling the police and you should kys and you're also a sexual abuser and even though you haven't said anything about kids you're also also a pedophile :)"

Not only does the attitude of murderous hatred against doms/tops with hard kinks/fetishes/paraphilias make it difficult for them to practice those kinks (safely and ethically) out of fear of social backlash if it's ever found out even if both they and their partner[s] had a great time and are fine-- but, it actively puts innocent people in danger by equating thoughts and attractions of ANY KIND to the act of hurting others against their will. It equates fantasy, which can oftentimes be played out safely if in a modified way with real harmful actions.

Also, kink is still illegal in many places, so don't "its illegal" me about harder kinks. Law is not morality, none of us are free until all of us are free, etc. You get the gist.

You want to see more doms? Meet someone who can indulge your "scary badwrong" sexy feelings? Then maybe don't actively promote a culture where you put ANY kind of attraction or kink under fire. It doesn't matter if it'd be unethical to act out in real life. Some of the most common kinks worldwide are unethical as fuck to act out irl, including rape. That's why we have cnc, come on, guys.

You know what? In fact, you SHOULD actively shun people who shame others for their sexual feelings. EVEN if you think it's gross. EVEN if it wouldn't be ethical to act on irl. Let these types know that their puritan ideals are NOT accepted here. Let them know that if they want to go to church they can do that but not in your space, not forcing other (non consenting!) people to listen to their hateful and repressive ideology.

Like, hey, I'm not into ABDL, for example. But I will defend to the death other people's right to be into that. To think and feel whatever they think and feel. You think diapers are sexy? Great! I don't personally see the appeal, but you do you boo. There is no Correct Way to be sex/kink negative. Either you believe in thought crime or you don't.

And yes, this post includes "harmful" paraphilias (I put it in quotes because they're only harmful if acted on), sadomasochism, mutilation fetishism, etc etc. Every "gross" or "evil" kink, fetish, para you can possibly imagine. The stuff that makes you horny is just stuff that makes you horny, and being horny is normal. Being "weird horny" is also normal. No one deserves to experience shame, let alone public harassment or hate over feelings they most of the time don't Choose to have. Be mindful of puritan rhetoric and strike it down when you see it.

#important #psa #hard kink #nsft topic #pro para #pro kink #the 'dom shortage' #obv there are other factors but this is just a connection I'm pointing out #purity culture #purity wank #puritans #sex and sexuality #tw r@pe mention #p3d0 panic/the trend of calling everyone you don't like a p43d0phi13 despite that that's as i said before #NOT the same thing as csa or ANYTHING like that and simply an experienced attraction #attraction is not r@pe; foot fetishists r not going to randomly hump ur foot and same w ever other kink #thought crime #puritanism #the purity culture wave #discourse #except if you disagree pls block me this is a pro kink blog forever and ever #thoughts are thoughts #anti para people scare me bc if u think someone cant help but have sex with someone/something theyre attracted to... #what EXACTLY are you going to do if someone romantically rejects you???????????? #turning the argument around here. if this is your belief then i do not trust you around me and my loved ones #because if attraction is action then i am scared for the people you are attracted to #because it isn't. and the fact that you think it is says more about you than anyone you hate for their attractions

[transmutationisms]

so i saw that ask you responded to re: problematic kinks and i was wondering what your thoughts were regarding like. non offending pedophiles (dont think of that as a kink but its what the ask made me think of). i hear a lot about restorative justice and how that relates to sexual assault but i have no idea what the approach is to stop offenses from happening if someone is worried they will escalate. i don't think porn addiction or whatever is real or that certain porn always leads to certain behaviors/perceptions but i never really see escalation in general ever talked about. is it just a shame cycle that stops people from changing? or is it a hardwired thing?

the reason you're stuck is because you're treating child sexual abuse, asymmetrically, as though it is a function of individual attraction or desire. when we talk about other forms of child abuse, we don't invent a psychological state that inexorably compels the perpetrator to commit abuse, and we understand the abuse to arise in the context of children's social, legal, and economic disempowerment. furthermore, when we talk about sexual abuse of adults, we don't present it as the inevitable outcome of an irresistable desire, or really as having anything to do with desire in the first place; it is a form of violence that both arises from and perpetuates structures of misogyny, racism, ableism, &c. when you try to discuss csa by discoursing about The Pedophile, nefarious individual afflicted with an evil and uncontrollable desire, you treat csa as though it is ontologically distinct from both other forms of child abuse and other manifestations of sexual abuse. this is a myth that specifically justifies closer family control over children, despite the fact that most csa comes from people the child knows and is structurally disempowered in comparison to: parents, priests, doctors, &c. this framing is not just fruitless but harmful.

#sex and sexuality

[apostate-in-an-alcove]

Gonna start telling these sex negative, puritanical freaks that my favourite hobby and interest of all time is sex just to make them squirm.

#like babe you shaming me for being so open and comfortable with my sexuality makes you a loser #sex and sexuality are not dirty abd disgusting #sex and sexuality #purity culture #sex negativity #like yes my favourite hobby is reveling in my own sexuality thank you #you should try it sometime babe

[mibellwaters]

Come play with me 🔞🔞

#sexy breast #sex and drugs #good morning america #sex and gender #sexy costumes #sissy pussy #sex and sexuality #sexy nerd #sex content

[hotangels6776]

#sex and gender #sex addiction #sex and pay #sexy costumes #sexy breast #sexy chick #sex and couples #sex and sexuality

[gay-jewish-bucky]

I just want to say that, while I get where it comes from, responding to the MCU mocking Steve's virginity post-serum and pre-ice with "Well, he and Bucky have been banging since the '30s," unintentionally plays into the wider social issue that drives their ridicule:

The notion that a, now "suddenly" (as said in this post, prior to the serum, Steve's virginity is irrelevant to them because of an ableist desexualisation of disabled people and our bodies), physically desirable and masculine man like Steve Rogers isn't sleeping with every woman he encounters is seen as inherently deficient and less of a man for it, that there is something fundamentally wrong with him.

It's and issue with how virginity in men is viewed by society at large.

While most articles I've found talk about this harm in relation to cisgender, heterosexual manhood (along with the double standards women often face) this is an issue that harms all genders and orientations.

Virgin-Shaming (TV Tropes):

Due to a Double Standard that emphasizes male promiscuity and female chastity, this trope more commonly applies to males than females. Virginity is seen as something silly that men need to get past as soon as possible...

Nature Abhors a Virgin (TV Tropes):

The negative attribute in question is defined very broadly. It can simply mean that they lack self-confidence, experience with women, or that they just aren't real men.

Unexpected Virgin (TV Tropes):

Due to a long-standing Double Standard, men are the most common examples of this trope. In fiction, men past puberty are often expected to have had sex.

Of Course I'm Not a Virgin (TV Tropes):

Everybody Has Lots of Sex is a concept so ubiquitous in modern western media, that the very idea that any character, for any reason, is a virgin is something that comes off as alien and bizarre. ...This trope is most common with characters who, given what other information we know about them, would have logical reasons to be a virgin.

Sex Is Cool (TV Tropes):

In the media, sex is often portrayed as "cool". If you're not having sex, then you're a snivelling misfit and a loser.

Virgin-Shaming: Having Sex Out Of Peer Pressure Robs Us Of Our Right To Choose (shethepeople):

Generally, if a person has not had their first time, they are subjected to offensive jokes about virginity. It is assumed that a person becomes ‘mature’ only when they have had sex. Otherwise, they are seen as the innocent kid of the group... Virgin-shaming is more common among men. This is because our society defines the masculinity of a man with his sexual prowess. The more sexually experienced a man is, the more masculine he is. Since men do not ‘lose’ anything if they are not a virgin, it is assumed that no rational man would say no to sex. When patriarchy has invested freedom, power and the right to complete pleasure in the hands of men, there is no reason considered valid enough for a man to deny sex, apart from some fault in him.

Sexually active women? Sluts. Virgin men? Losers. (The Strand):

Men, however, are generally far less encouraged to think out their decisions when it comes to when they’ll lose their virginity and to whom. In fact, rarely will you hear anyone refer to having “taken the virginity” of a man. Instead, men are more pressured from their compatriots to find a conquest as soon as possible to shed their virginity in order to seem more manly. For men, the pressure is quite the opposite. Once puberty hits, men are expected to become machines of sexual activity and to seek out conquests almost immediately... Why do men see the choice to abstain as so unnatural? Why do they feel the need to compare their “body counts,” as if it’s a measure of their manhood? Possibly, because men are taught that they are responsible for convincing women to sleep with them; that they’re the hunters and women are their prey. This message is hammered in by other males, as well as by pop culture.  ...The reflex to judge others for not acting as society dictates is ingrained in us from childhood, but when you question those norms, you begin to see how utterly ridiculous it is to force those views on individuals.

Stigmatized Virginity and Masculinity (DigitalCommons at The University of Nebraska - Lincoln):

Virginity status is one way to make meaning of one’s sexual identity, with individuals often viewing virginity as a gift, a stigma, or a stage in the process of growing up (Carpenter, 2001). Viewing virginity as a stigma is congruent with hegemonic masculinity and cultural-level masculine sexual scripts of using heterosexual sex to define manhood (e.g., Humphreys, 2013). 

When Having Sex Is A Requirement For Being Considered ‘A Real Man’ (Mel Magazine):

As Fleming explains, virgin-shaming is present in any social space where having sex is an implicit requirement for being considered “a real man.” ...Fleming says the virgin status is ascribed to someone and, when used as an insult, implies a failure of masculinity. Fleming’s paper tries to illuminate how certain groups subscribe to a dominant form of masculinity requiring men to objectify women and explains that being a virgin in this context means disobeying the rules of masculinity. (After all, you can’t really claim to be objectifying women if they’re not even letting you have sex with them.) In the recently published study, Fleming and Davis frame virgin shaming as a “manhood act,” one which allows men to be seen as belonging to the more privileged gender. One of the primary manhood acts, he says, is having heterosexual sex — and bragging about it. More broadly, virgin-shaming has the effect of suppressing alternative forms of masculinity that don’t necessarily place a high value on scoring with chicks; Men who act differently or hold a different kind of masculinity don’t get the opportunity to express that masculinity as much, while the dominant “hegemonic” kind endlessly gets repeated, putting down those competing masculinities. That repeats the cycle of men experiencing stigma for being virgins. The images we see in the media set the bar for what is normal and desirable. A large part of masculine protagonists in films, for example, portray an almost effortless ability in courting women. These sorts of images very easily become a model of what the pinnacle of manliness looks like, reinforcing the notion that, to be manly, one has to be “scoring” with chicks. ...What virgin-shaming could be used for, besides simply a way to look manly in comparison to someone else, was to actually bring the male virgin into conforming with the norms: essentially, to get him laid so he’s a man like the rest of the gang.

The 'Problem' of Male Virginity (Everyday Feminism):

One of the things that I’ve seen come up over and over again in the aftermath of the UCSB shooting is the number of men... talking about the shame and pain of being a male virgin. They talk about feeling broken or unworthy, that they’ve missed some sort of open time frame where they could lose their virginity and now they’re (metaphorically) screwed. It feels like everyone knows – like you’ve been branded by a giant V. One of the reasons why men tend to freak out about the idea of being a virgin – especially being a virgin past college – is that we’ve grown up in the shadow of a cultural narrative that we believe to be law. The Standard Virginity Loss Narrative tells us that men are supposed to lose their virginity by a certain age – sometimes by age 18, sometimes by 21. The earlier you lose it, the better off you are... The narrative is fiction. It’s an idealized, heteronormative, suburban middle class ideal that the vast majority of us don’t live in.  The story turns our sexual development into a performance, just as masculinity is often a performance. And just as traditional masculinity is a fragile thing, any minor deviation from the Virginity Narrative throws the whole thing into disarray. When men fail to live up to this entirely arbitrary standard, we feel not just as though we’ve failed but that we’re failures. We’re defective. Wrong. And there will be plenty of people eager to reinforce the narrative, to mock us, and tell us that this deviation from the narrative calls our masculinity into question. Just as the gender police are eager to punish people who don’t live up to the traditional definitions of manhood. It’s not really surprising, to be honest. We fetishize virginity in men and women, just in opposite ends of the spectrum... But losing his virginity, on the other hand? That’s when the world is supposed to open up for you. The coming of age narrative for men inevitably links losing one’s virginity with becoming a man.  When you cry and moan about how awful it is that you haven’t had sex yet, you contribute to the problem. You’re helping to perpetuate the idea that virgin = defect. Even when those complaints are turned inward and you’re silently castigating yourself, you are continuing to reinforce that there’s something wrong because you haven’t had sex yet. You have to learn to let go of being defensive about it or feeling embarrassed, to stop responding as though being a virgin means you’ve done something wrong or that there’s something wrong with you. It means you have to consciously reframe your own thought patterns, reminding yourself that not having had sex yet has no bearing on your value as a person no matter your age. “You’re still a virgin.” “Yes, and?” “Have you ever even seen a woman naked before? “Not yet, so?” The people who will mock you and try to shame you are of no account; they’re showing themselves to be assholes, and why should you care about the opinions of assholes? Your value doesn’t come from who you have or haven’t slept with. It doesn’t come from where you fall on the bell-curve of starting sexual activity, whether you were precocious or a late bloomer.

#marvel #mcu #steve rogers #steven grant rogers #sex and sexuality #marvel critical #mcu critical #sexism #long post

[une-sanz-pluis]

What do you think about the homosexual rumors of Henry V?

I'm generally in favour of them and do my best to perpetuate them, cf. this tag on my personal blog. But, I (sometimes) try to be a ~serious history blogger so I will endeavour to give you a more considered answer.

As a ~serious history blogger, I'd say it's probably more accurate to speak about speculation of Henry V's sexuality than "homosexual rumours". To me, "rumours" implies things contemporaneously said and recorded about Henry V and, while I would argue that there are things that may allude to his being in some way queer, there is just no evidence that explicitly, irrefutably does that or evidence that raises the possibility of his queerness in a way that has to be addressed by historians, even if they end up denying the possibility of queerness or can't definitively say whether he was or wasn't queer. This doesn't mean there is no possible way Henry V could be queer, only that it's one of those things that we don't and can't know for certain.

Medieval Attitudes to Sexuality

We don't have a lot of evidence of specific individuals engaged in same-sex behaviour in medieval England and what evidence that exists is generally from when people were outed (often in a legalistic sense) or in the form of political smears. In the latter case, we have no idea of these smears had some element of truth in them. Both Edward II and Richard II, for example, were linked explicitly with sodomy by their contemporaries. While today we associate sodomy with a specific sexual act, in the Middle Ages it encompassed a whole host of sexual sins and was often invoked in non-sexual discourses to suggest something was "against nature". In the case of Edward II and Richard II, sodomy was invoked alongside a narrative that they were ruled or lead astray by their unworthy favourites - when as kings, they should have been the ones who did the "ruling". This genre of criticism has been labelled discursive sodomy. We can't and don't know whether they did or did not have a romantic and/or sexual relationship with their favourites or what "sodomy" their accusers imagined or believed they had committed but in the case of Edward II, at least, the appearance of the (untrue) narrative that he was murdered by the insertion of a red-hot poker into his anus not too long after his death heavily implies that not all of his contemporaries and near-contemporaries viewed the allegation of sodomy to be purely political or unlinked to same-sex behaviour. If you're interested in a discussion getting into the specifics of Richard II's sexuality, I'd recommend this post by @shredsandpatches

Another issue with the discussion of medieval sexuality is medieval attitudes to sexuality were very different from our own. Our modern categories of sexual orientation (e.g. heterosexuality, homosexuality etc.) did not exist in the Middle Ages - this doesn't mean that medieval people didn't experience and/or act on sexual attraction in the way these categories describe, just that they didn't have the same ways of conceptualising and categorising sexuality as we do. Some sexuality historians avoid using these terms, viewing them as what W. Mark Ormrod, when discussing Edward II, described as both anachronistic and futile:

anachronistic because medieval attitudes to sexuality were so different from our own, and futile because the nature of the evidence makes it impossible to tell what Edward actually did – let alone what he thought himself to be doing – whether and when he engaged in emotional and physical contact with women or men.

Personally, I don't have issue with using modern sexuality categories in casual settings or as a quick shorthand, but when I'm pretending to be a ~serious history blogger, I try to follow that viewpoint and use the word "queer" because it encompasses a whole range of experiencing sexuality and gender without tying it to specific and modern identities that weren't available to the people I'm discussing

We also have to be careful when discussing medieval sexualities for two more reasons. One: we understand and accept today that an individual's sexuality is determined by how they experience sexual attraction but we rarely, if ever, have access to a medieval person's inner thoughts to know how they experienced sexual attraction and can only go off sexual behaviour, where the evidence unsurprisingly skews heavily towards to relationships between men and women. We know that people can and do have sex in ways that don't "fit" with their sexual orientation for a variety of reasons - they might be closeted, experimenting, figuring out their sexuality or trying to have children - and we need to recognise that this could be the case for at least some medieval people. Two: what we today might view as sexual behaviour, such as kissing or sharing a bed, wasn't necessarily sexual to a medieval eyes, and we need to ground our conclusions in their context.

So, with that lengthy preamble but very basic introduction to medieval sexuality and its problems over, let's move onto Henry V.

Henry V's Sexualities

Discussion of Henry's sexuality have two additional problems. Firstly, Henry's reputed wild youth has often been assumed to have been both sexual and heteronormative - i.e. he had a lot of sex with a lot of women - and this isn't aided by the fact that historical Henry is often conflated with Shakespeare's wild prince Hal, whose wildness is also often generally assumed to be both sexual and heteronormative and who is often depicted as having casual sex with women*. Secondly, Henry's reputation as a great warrior king has meant that, as Katherine J. Lewis notes, his gender is often seen to have been so normative and idealised as to be invisible and in need of little scrutiny and I would argue the same is true for his sexuality (excepting revisionist takes by historians such as Ian Mortimer, who treats Henry's sexuality as monstrously other).

I know that what I'm about to write will have someone wanting to jump in and get all "BUT" and "well, actually" so three disclaimers:

It is very difficult to know for certain whether two men (or two women) actually had sex 600 years ago - and impossible if we don't have explicit evidence (which we rarely do). However, just because we lack evidence does not mean everyone was "straight". The stigma around same-sex behaviour means that we would expect a paucity of evidence, which we have. Additionally, we need to be aware of what Ruth Mazo Karras calls the "double standard of evidence" where men and women are often assumed to be lovers despite a lack of evidence, but the possibility of women and men engaging in same-sex behaviour requires explicit evidence of genital contact.

As I've already said, there is nothing that is clearly suggestive of Henry V engaging in same-sex behaviour. He was not linked explicitly with sodomy, despite the broadness of the term, and nor do we find him depicted as a king unreasonably attached to an unworthy favourite. Firstly, it is reasonable to assume that more queer people existed than what we have evidence for. Secondly, the narrative of queer kings as kings ruled by their favourites is a stereotype, born from discursive sodomy, and it is entirely possible that this allowed for queer kings who didn't (or who weren't made to) embody the tropes of discursive sodomy to go under the radar.

"But we have all these stories about Henry V's wild youth where he was having sex with loads of women and the epic romance with his wife." I will get into this more detail below but we should probably view such claims sceptically. Secondly, the evidence of "sex with lots of women" is actually very limited.

* There are a number of queer readings of Shakespeare's Hal but these are rarely leave academia to end up on stage or screen. There are three retellings of the Henriad that depict a queer Hal: My Own Private Idaho, Tessa Gratton's Lady Hotspur and Allen Bratton's Henry Henry.

Speculation

The arguments that I've seen put forward to suggest that Henry engaged in same-sex behaviour come from three different types of evidence:

Preferring the Company of Men. Henry married late and spent most of his reign on campaign and with men, away from women. His court was also lacking in women.

Sharing a bed with Scrope. Henry, Lord Scrope of Masham was known as Henry's bedfellow which means they were lovers.

Sharing a tomb with Courtenay. A story circulated that Henry's close friend, Richard Courtenay, was buried in the same tomb as him, which suggests they were lovers.

Neither of these are a smoking gun, the first two for fairly obvious reasons, and the third because Courtenay is not in the same tomb as Henry.

Preferring the Company of Men.

It is true that Henry married late but if Henry's sexuality did play any kind of role in the delay, it was in a very minor role. We know that his marriage had been considered since 1395, when John of Gaunt negotiated for his marriage to Marie, the daughter of the Duke of Brittany and when Richard II proposed he marry Michelle de Valois, daughter of Charles VI of France. We also know that he was the subject of multiple marriage negotiations in Henry IV's reign - at first with Isabelle de Valois (daughter of Charles VI, Richard II's widow), Catherine of Pomerania (sister to Erik of Pomerania, King of Norway, Denmark and Sweden), an unnamed daughter of Charles VI, Catherine de Valois, and one of the daughters of the Duke of Burgundy (I don't think a name was ever specified). These never eventuated for various political reasons. The delay in his marriage when Henry became king was likely due to seeing his marriage to a French princess as a necessary part for any long-term peace with France (regardless of how he truly envisioned the form that peace would take). I don't think we can argue that Henry's behaviour here was because of a lack of sexual interest in women, but simply because negotiations fell through and because, in the end, the marriage to Catherine was deemed a vital part of his plans with France.

It is true that Henry's court was primarily a homosocial environment but that was the way courts were "supposed" to be (Richard II, for instance, was heavily criticised for having too many women at court and for combining his household with his first queen's). It is also true that by the time Henry came to the throne, the majority of his female relatives who might be expected to play a role in his court were either dead or living overseas, having made advantageous marriage alliances arranged by Henry's father and grandfather. Ian Mortimer's assertion that Henry barred Joan of Navarre and Margaret Holland, Duchess of Clarence from his court on basis of his dislike of Joan and of Margaret's husband, is simply without foundation, and indeed they played important, visible roles in his reign, both at court and away from court, until Joan's arrest on treason charges and Margaret's widowing. Given the tendency for chroniclers to elide the presence of women, it's also possible that other women were at court but their presence went unrecorded and there are at least four who should probably be considered as influential figures in Henry's reign: Joan de Bohun, Countess of Hereford, Elizabeth of Lancaster, Countess of Huntington, Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland and Philippa de Mohun, Duchess of York.

Sharing a bed with Scrope.

As I mentioned above bed sharing was not seen as a solely sexual act and it often occurred as a gesture of trust, affection and intimacy between men. I also don't believe that chroniclers that often implied sodomy rather than explicitly naming it would casually reference the king having sex with his male best friend. In Scrope's specific case, I'm only aware of his sharing a bed with Henry as being recorded by Monstrelet, which raises the question of how a Burgundian chronicler knew they shared a bed but not one English chronicler knew about it to make mention of it. Likely, Monstrelet was invoking bed-sharing to show the intimacy of their relationship, borrowing from the English narratives that depicted Scrope as a deeply trusted friend of Henry who then callously betrayed him.

Now, there are some things to note. The first is that just because Monstrelet is the only chronicler (afaik) to reference the bed sharing does not mean that Henry and Scrope didn't share a bed (and if Scrope was as close to Henry as the chroniclers imply, there's a good chance they did). The second is that while bed-sharing was not primarily seen as sexual, it doesn't preclude the possibility that sex did occur between two members of the same sex sharing a bed. Thirdly, despite not mentioning the bed-sharing, chroniclers often invoked a highly intimate relationship between Scrope and Henry. Here's Thomas Walsingham on Scrope:

He was so highly regarded by the king that discussions on private or public matters were usually brought to an end by his verdicts. For in all his actions he showed such a restrained gravity and sanctity that the king judged that all his pronouncements should be carried out just as if they were oracles fallen from heaven. If an important embassy had to be sent to France, the king thought that Henry Scrope was the man who had the ability to perform this task.

This, to me, seems to invoke the trope of the unworthy favourite who has an unreasonable hold on the king. Perhaps Scrope was the most unworthy of the late medieval favourites: his betrayal of Henry was an actual betrayal instead of the image of a "loving knight serving his lord with his body and sword" twisted into treason by his enemies.

Sharing a tomb with Courtenay.

At some point after October 1953 when the grave of Richard Courtenay, Bishop of Norwich was rediscovered in the chapel of St Edward at Westminster Abbey, a story circulated that Courtenay's remains were found inside Henry's tomb, which led to speculation that that they had been lovers. Obviously, this doesn't prove they had sex but it is a quite unusual gesture, suggesting a great degree of intimacy. This same intimacy is apparent in the small number of double-tomb monuments commemorating two individuals of the same-sex (e.g. Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe, Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge), and Jessica Barker notes that while we don't/can't know if the couples were lovers, their joint burial and memorials do mark a "significant moment in in queer history because they present same-sex relationships as analogous to married couples". Courtenay has no memorial in the chapel, much less one that impales his arms with Henry's as is the case with Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe, but Henry's gesture of sharing his tomb space with Courtenay is deeply unusual and suggests a great deal of affection and intimacy.

Unfortunately, the story just isn't true. As far as I could find, Henry's tomb has never been opened which means that Courtenay's remains can't have been discovered alongside his. There is also a fair bit about Courtenay's grave that has been made public. Westminster Abbey displays the ring they found in his grave, Lawrence Tanner records the discovery in his memoirs, and a couple of articles about St Edward's chapel published archaeological drawings of Courtenay's grave and remains that show he was buried alone and his tomb is located under the steps of the northern turret of Henry V's chantry chapel.

There is still something very telling about Courtenay's place of burial. St. Edward's chapel was, quite simply, an exclusive burial space. It was where almost every single king and queen of England between Henry III and Henry V were buried and those few burials that didn't belong to monarchs were often quite closely connected to the royal family or from an earlier period. Space was also becoming tight - Henry VI struggled to find a place for his own burial (which never eventuated due to his deposition and murder) and the lack of space was probably why Edward IV chose to be buried at Windsor (and possibly why Henry IV chose to be buried in Canterbury Cathedral). The closest, albeit imperfect, parallel to Courtenay's burial in the chapel was that of John Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury - who had been buried there on Richard II's orders, causing outrage that a man of common blood should be buried amongst kings. Courtenay was of noble descent but not of the highest echelons of society, let alone closely related to the royal family. Why then did Henry order Courtenay's burial in such a prestigious place, risking scandal and outrage?

We can say a little more about Courtenay, too. He seems to have been implicitly trusted by Henry. Walsingham's statement about Scrope, that Henry thought Scrope should head all important embassies to France? Isn't quite correct. Scrope didn't lead any of the principal embassies to Paris - Courtenay did, "perhaps," Jeremy Caton writes, "because he knew the king’s mind better than his colleagues." The Gesta Henrici Quinti, which is was written by a chaplain in Henry's household and largely believed to be part of Henry's propaganda, details the moment of Courtenay's death, "in the presence of the king who, after extreme unction, with his own hands wiped [Courtenay's] feet and closed his eyes". The closest parallel to Henry's handling of Courtenay's corpse that has survived appears to be Richard II's touching of Robert de Vere's corpse when it was returned to England for burial.

Obviously, none of this "proves" that Henry and Courtenay were lovers or that Henry experienced and engaged in same-sex behaviour. But it does suggest the possibility.

I discussed this in more detail on my personal tumblr but without pretending to be ~serious history blogger sometime ago and I keep meaning to write a serious version of that post and one specifically about the account of Henry attending to Courtenay on his deathbed.

The Wild Youth and the Wife

To begin with, sexual attraction does not always operate on a binary. People can be attracted to one gender or they can be attracted to more. Nor does sexual behaviour, as I said above, necessarily indicate how one experiences sexual attraction. So it is entirely possible that Henry could have sex with women and still be sexually attracted to men and vice versa. One does not necessarily preclude the other.

The Wife

I've already written a simply massive post detailing the evidence of his relationship with Catherine de Valois. The reality is that we don't and can't know what their relationship was like. The framing of their marriage as a romance is, simply put, a myth. It was a standard marriage for their class and situation and we should not rely on the stories that Henry fell instantly in love with Catherine upon seeing her portrait or hearing his ambassadors report on their meeting with her. These are tropes out of courtly romances and fairy tales.

If we try to determine anything about their sex life from the surviving evidence of their marriage, we run into trouble. We don't have access to their bedchamber to know when they had sex or what they felt about the sex they did have. The only explicit evidence of their sex life is that it resulted in a son. I don't say this to conclude "and therefore they only had sex the one time" - I would be very, very surprised if that's the case. The point is, however, that the marriage is not proof of Henry's "straightness".

The Wild Youth

I've also written a bit about the story of Henry's "wild youth". Two Latin lives written in the mid-to-late 1430s explicitly invoke Henry's sex life, such as the Vita et Gesta Henrici Quinti (translated here by Anne Curry):

an assiduous pursuer of fun, devoted to organ instruments [an intentional double entendre] which relaxed the rein on his modesty, although under the military service of Mars, he seethed youthfully with the flames of Venus too, and tended to be open to other novelties as befitted the age of his untamed youth.

For some historians, this is proof that Henry had a lot of casual sex with women. Others cite two reports by contemporaries (Richard Courtenay himself and the Earl of Ormond) who claim that after his coronation, Henry did not have sex with women after coming to the throne as evidence that it was notable to what came before. Ian Mortimer even speculates that Henry had "an unfortunate experience [that] left him fearing women as sexual beings" that resulted in this turnaround.

However, we have no explicit evidence beyond these two Latin lives that imagined Henry "seeth[ing] youthfully with the flames of Venus" for Henry's youthful indiscretions. There is not the slightest hint of an illegitimate child, nor is there any woman we can link to Henry in a plausible sexual relationship. There are also no surviving criticisms of lecherous behaviour or that his court as Prince of Wales was a hotbed of debauchery - we find similar criticisms for the likes of Edward III, Richard II, Edward IV and Richard III, and for Henry's brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.

This, of course, doesn't prove or mean that Henry didn't have sex with women during this time. It could just be that the evidence doesn't survive. Although some medieval mistresses are incredibly famous, most are unknown - Henry's brothers had five known illegitimate children and we don't know who the mothers were for any of them. It's also possible that Henry's sexual relations with women were on a strictly casual basis, that he was unusually lucky with the highly unreliable forms of birth control or that any illegitimate children that he fathered died young enough that they left no mark on the historical record. It's also possible that if he was having sex, perhaps he wasn't having sex with women. The apparent gap between the comments on Henry’s sex life and the lack of evidence could be read suggestive of something unspeakable – a vice that medieval people considered too horrible to be named. It's also tempting to see a link between the invocation of Venus and Thomas Walsingham's complaint that Richard II's favourites were "knights of Venus rather than of Bellona", a war goddess.

It's also possible that his sex life was simply unremarkable. The comments about Henry's sex life might simply be, as has been suggested, a cover for Henry's conflicts with his father. They may have been a cover for suspicions that he harboured Lollard sympathies.

Henry's Sexualities

As I've outlined, we simply don't know how Henry experienced sexual desire and attraction to know whether he was queer or straight. I can see the possibility that he was queer, that he had romantic and/or sexual relationships with Courtenay or Scrope.

I have also wondered if he experienced little to no sexual attraction or had little interest in sex. If we take the statements that he was abstained from sex between his coronation and his marriage at face value, if we take the lack of concrete evidence for his "seething in the flames of Venus" at face value, it's possible to read him as experiencing sexual attraction in a way similar to asexuality.

My thoughts are, in short: that we don't and can't know but there is the possibility of queerness there.

Sources:

Gesta Henrici Quinti (c. 1417), eds. and trans. Frank Taylor and John S. Roskell (Oxford University Press 1975)

The Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham, trans. David Preest (The Boydell Press 2005)

The First English Life of Henry V, ed. C. L. Kingsford (Clarendon Press 1911)

The Chronicles of Enguerrand de Enguerrand De Monstrelet, Volume 1 of 2, trans. Thomas Johnes, 1840.

Henric Bagerius and Christine Ekholst, 'Kings and favourites: politics and sexuality in late medieval Europe', Journal of Medieval History, 43:3 (2017)

Jessica Barker, Stone Fidelity: Marriage and Emotion in Medieval Tomb Sculpture (The Boydell Press 2020)

Judith M. Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (University of Pennsylvania Press 2007)

Judith M. Bennett, "Remembering Elizabeth Etchingham and Agnes Oxenbridge", The Lesbian Premodern, eds. Noreen Giffney, Michelle M. Sauer, Diane Watt (Palgrave 2011)

Jeremy Caton, “The King’s Servants”, Henry V: The Practice of Kingship, ed. G. L. Harriss (Oxford University Press 1985)

Anne Curry, Henry V: From Playboy Prince to Warrior King (Penguin Monarchs 2015)

R. G. Davies, “Courtenay, Richard” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004)

Sylvia Federico, "Queer Times: Richard II in the Poems and Chronicles of Late Fourtheen-Century England", Medium Ævum, vol. 79, no. 1 (2010)

Ruth Mazo Karras, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others (Routledge 2017)

Ruth Mazo Karras and Tom Linkenen, “John/Eleanor Rykener Revisited", Founding Feminisms in Medieval Studies: Essays in Honor of E. Jane Burns, eds. Laine E. Doggett and Daniel E. O'Sullivan, (D. S. Brewer 2016)

Katherine J. Lewis, Kingship and Masculinity in Late Medieval England (Routledge 2013)

Peter McNiven, "Prince Henry and the English Political Crisis of 1412:, History, vol. 65, no. 12 (1980)

Peter McNiven, Heresy and Politics in the Reign of Henry IV: The Burning of John Badby  (The Boydell Press 1987)

E. Amanda McVitty, ‘False knights and true men: contesting chivalric masculinity in English treason trials, 1388–1415′, Journal of Medieval History, 40:4 (2014)

Robert Mills, Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages (University of Chicago Press 2015)

Ian Mortimer, 1415: Henry V's Year of Glory (Vintage 2010)

W. Mark Ormrod, "The Sexualities of Edward II", The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, eds. Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson (York Medieval Press 2009)

Lawrence Tanner, Recollections of a Westminster Antiquary (John Baker 1969)

Tim Tatton-Brown, “The Pavement in the Chapel of St Edward The Confessor, Westminster Abbey”, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 153:1 (2000)

#henry v #richard courtenay bishop of norwich #henry scrope lord masham #ask #anon #sex and sexuality #god ok i'm done with this and am taking a break from responding to asks i'm aware that i've got more to answer #but i need to have a life and do stuff for me

[skooodles]

Vanessa Del Rio is pro home video masturbation

#sex and sexuality #vanessa del rio #hustler magazine

[craycraybluejay]

It is meaningful and necessary to post unmarketably depraved horny shit in a world where capital is eating sex. And puritans are beating it with hammers.

Anyway.

Guro lolita sibcest torture noncon latex monster transformation massive age gap massive flesh wound sexual suicide mother son torrented synth robot trans girl transsexual rat man musk big spiky penis leather cockring urethral sound sadomasochism cumflation furry piss free use drug porn.

#words #nsft #hornyposting #anti capitalism #anti censorship #anti anti #anti purity culture #sex and sexuality #tw sui ment #hard kink #become unmarketable

[thebroccolination]

So I just found out that sex toys are illegal in Thailand.

Someone I follow on TikTok made a video about it, so I looked it up, and I thought it’d be a good thing to share. Since I’m on the international side of Thai BL fandom. I think, because a lot of the people working in BL are queer and progressive, we can sometimes get a skewed perception of just what they’re up against in their country. Sex toys have been such a non-issue in every country where I’ve lived, I wouldn’t have even wondered if this was the case in Thailand.

It really underscores how much of a positive influence Thai BL can have domestically. Like when First and Khao spoke out about AIDS, or whenever Boun and Prem give thoughtful answers about gender and sexuality, or when any of them posts in favor of marriage equality, it’s not just a given. It’s not expected of their society, though I’ve been told by Thai fans that younger generations are demanding it more and more. It’s admirable to me that they’re continually using their platform for good in an actively conservative country.

I have definitely taken for granted the prevalence and accessibility of sex toys, so I’m glad this popped up on my FYP. It reminded me that there will always be more context to learn about a place, especially when you don’t live there.

#thailand #thai bl #sex and sexuality

[christinaroseandrews]

When you think of Ancient Rome, what often comes to mind is debauchery coupled with almost puritanical morals. Orgies. Vestal Virgins. Nero and Caligula. You know, the juicy stuff that peppered both HBO and PBS. 

But what was the truth? Is it closer to the sex fueled fantasies of 1970s x-rated films and pearl clutching Christian saints? Or is it the dry and politics heavy shenanigans of I, Claudius.

The truth is amusingly revealed in this really fun historical quick-read by LJ Trafford.

First off, I need to level with you. I got this book because of the cover. This is one of my favorite paintings in the history of ever (Lorenzo Lotto’s Venus and Cupid) and every time I go to the MET in NYC I have to spend some time communing with it. It’s just that bonkers and fun and faboo. (I have a thing for odd Renaissance and Medieval art.)

So I should have been clued in that by selecting this picture the book itself is also just as fun and whimsical as the painting, and like the painting there is a whole lot more going on when you scratch the surface. Using primary sources of the day, Trafford explains that like many cultures and civilizations that there was nuance and hypocrisy when it came to Ancient Roman views on sex and sexuality. And that like many ancient (and let’s face it, modern) civilizations that the expectations differed between classes and genders.

The book is written in an amazingly readable format, and I often found myself laughing out loud at several turns of phrase. I managed to read this book while undergoing treatment for two different kinds of cancer and it was just the distraction I needed. The author was a tour guide in a previous life and it shows. The way the history and primary resources are presented are geared for a lay audience who wants to learn more after binging HBO’s Rome or Masterpiece Theater’s I, Claudius.

Readers do need to be aware that there is a lot of swear words, but this shouldn’t be surprising considering the graffiti that has survived from the period. It can be shocking if you think of Rome as a bunch of stuffy senators and pearl-clutching early Christians. But Rome is/was a very earthy and messy place (often literally) and this book doesn’t shy away from that.

I honestly enjoyed it. 

Five Stars.

If this is your jam, you can get it here.

If you like these kind of honest reviews, please consider supporting us here!

I received an ARC via NetGalley.

**Review delayed due to cancer.

#book review #nonfiction #history #roman empire #rome #ancient rome #sex and sexuality #cw: sexism #cw: classism #cw: homophobia #cw: slavery #cw: historical people being awful to each other #five stars #rose and lark review books

[une-sanz-pluis]

[Froissart] recounts in detail how the news was greeted by the noble ladies at court, stating how the Duchess of Gloucester, the Countesses of Derby and Arundel, and other great ladies descended from royal blood marvelled at how Gaunt had disgraced himself through this marriage. The marriage made Katherine first lady of England until Richard II remarried, and the royal ladies said ‘it should be a great shame for them that such a duchess, come of so base a blood, should go and have pre-eminence before them; they said their hearts would break with sorrow’. Whether this really happened we do not know. However, as there was no Countess of Derby at the time of Gaunt and Katherine’s wedding (Mary, wife of Henry of Bolingbroke, had died two years earlier), it seems unlikely to have been an event actually witnessed by Froissart.

However, his knowledge of the English court would suggest that his portrayal was accurate in tone if not in detail. The objection at court, as portrayed here by Froissart, would appear to be based on status, with the disgrace lying, as Philips has argued, not in Katherine ‘being the mistress of a great man . . . but in getting above her baseborn station by presuming to marry the man she slept with’. The great ladies of the court have no sense of outrage at any previous immoral liaison, but have a heightened sense of the damage done to their personal prestige, having to give way to a woman of lower status. The conclusion can be drawn that, had Katherine been of noble birth, there would have been no objection to the marriage from the ladies of the court – but the affair may then have been more of a scandal. Katherine was good enough to be a mistress, but not to be Gaunt’s official consort, whereas a woman good enough to be a duchess would surely not have paraded publicly as a mistress: ‘English elite society was materialistic and pragmatic enough to tolerate marriages between merchant and gentry, or gentry and aristocratic, groups, if worldly ambition were served thereby, but powerful taboos, born out of intense class consciousness, lurked just below the surface.’ Indeed, males of the gentry and aristocratic classes had mistresses without suffering condemnation, but the women were either prostitutes or women of lower status who were themselves married or widowed and presumably therefore considered women of the world. Certainly the class issue can be seen to arise when marriage occurred. Elizabeth of Lancaster’s elopement with Holland was a scandal until they married, whereas de Vere’s conduct with Agnes Lancecron became a scandal when his noble wife was unceremoniously dumped for a woman who was a mere waiting maid. It was on the marriage of Agnes to de Vere, and Katherine to Gaunt, that both women were emphatically described as being of low birth. But Froissart suggests that the manner in which Katherine conducted herself was in actual fact of the standard desired in noble ladies: ‘Catherine Roet, however, remained duchess of Lancaster, and the second lady in England, as long as she lived, and she was often with the king. She was a lady accustomed to honours, for she had been brought up at court during her youth.’ This implies that Katherine was able to hold her own among the highest ranks of society. And surely Gaunt would not have married a woman unable to carry out duties by the side of the King. But Froissart’s style is problematic – his flowery and chivalrous prose shows he was influenced by romance literature. Furthermore, ‘he was always reluctant to criticise the wealthy and influential, especially if they came from his native Hainault’. In this respect, it is notable that, when being disparaging about Katherine, Froissart calls her Swynford, but when being complimentary he calls her Roet. The maiden apparently cannot be faulted, but the widow can. Moreover, the mistakes Froissart made with regard to her children, and to the presence of the Countess of Derby, cast doubts over the accuracy of his comments on Katherine. However, it does seem highly likely that the royal ladies at court would have found it objectionable to make way for a mere knight’s daughter, while at the same time it is highly probable that Katherine did excel at court etiquette, as a result of both her court upbringing and her role as governess.

Jeannette Lucroft, Katherine Swynford: The History of a Medieval Mistress (The History Press, 2010)

#katherine swynford #john of gaunt #froissart #role of mistresses #historian: jeannette lucroft #sex and sexuality