Tokens, Tarses, and Naked Arses: Gender and the Politics of Body/Bawdy Talk in Late Medieval Britain

This dissertation explores the stakes of sexually obscene language in late medieval England and Scotland. My exploration of illicit sex talk calls into question prevailing paradigms in both obscenity theory and Medieval Studies. Obscenity theorists have focused largely on the transgressive nature of sex talk, claiming that it reinforces the parameters of the culturally licit through its taboo by clearly delineating the accepted from the obscene. Similarly, scholars of medieval obscenity have seen that transgression as operating chiefly in the service of the Catholic Church by dissuading individuals from sin. Diverging from these narratives, I argue that obscenity was also a socially productive tool for writers and readers alike, as pastors, poets, and scribes repeatedly represent the positive role that obscenity played in medieval society. For them, obscenity has the power to strengthen homosocial bonds, to shape sexual practices, to imagine a new ethics of heterosexual erotic exchange, and to redefine prevailing ideals of masculinity.;Starting with pastoral condemnations of obscenity and concluding with the relentlessly obscene poetic duels of the Scots flytings, my dissertation chapters move from the cloister to the court. I explore how many medieval writers represent the possibilities of obscenity not only in terms of transgressive heterosexual exchange---bawdy language catalyzing illicit intercourse---but also in terms of instructive same-sex discourse. In this dissertation, I contend that medieval writers and readers exploit obscenity's power to interrogate gendered sexual scripts and to posit more empowering and tenable options in their place.