I do not recall how I came to find Eleanor Janega’s Going Medieval blog, but I know damn well why I still have it in the ol’ feedreader: it’s because it’s good to have someone on hand to 1a) correct widespread misconceptions about the medieval, to which I am definitely party as much as anyone else, and 1b) to point out prevalent attitudes in the present that are clearly rooted in the medieval, but also because 2) as a long-standing fan of fine turns of phrase, I get plenty of pleasure out of pretty much every post.

In the case of this one—an inquiry into the very medieval attitudes about women’s sexuality held by internet douchebros, which manages to hit all three criteria above—many of the turns of phrase in question come from the medieval sources themselves. The gems include Constantine the African’s observation that “males derive pleasure only from the expulsion of a superfluidity”, which makes ejaculation sound like some sort of hard-sf propulsion physics experiment—Clute’s Appleseed, anyone?—as well as his claim that female pleasure is driven, in part, “from the desire of their fervent vulva”. If there isn’t already a sex-positive lesbian punk band out there called Fervent Vulva, there bloody well should be.

But often Janega’s own turns of phrase, distinctly and delightfully non-academic, are just as fun, if not more so: the title of this post is clipped from her paraphrase of the medieval “humoral” explanation for female desire, and has a freakish poetry that I greatly admire.