Originally published in 1991. Covering courtship, disclosure, diversity, and public implications, the essays here discuss topics such as erotic magic, nakedness, physicians’ attitudes about sex, boy-love, saints and sex, and the politics of sodomy, as they were manifested in medieval Europe and the Middle East.

1. Introduction Part 1: Courtship 2. Before the Male Gaze: The Absence of the Female Body in Old Norse Jenny Jochens 3. Erotic Magic in Medieval Europe Richard Kieckhefer 4. A Medieval Physician’s Guide to Virginity Esther Lastique and Helen Rodnite Lemay Part 2: Disclosure 5. Texts, Naked and Thinly Veiled: Erotic Elements in Medieval Italian Literature Christopher Kleinhenz 6. A Fifteenth-Century Physician’s Attitude Toward Sexuality: Dr. Johann Hartlieb’s Secreta mulierum Translation Margaret Schleissner 7. Sex and Confession in the Thirteenth Century Pierre J . Payer Part 3: Diversity 8. A Smorgasbord of Sexual Practices Cathy Jorgensen Itnyre 9. "Fawn of my Delights": Boy-Love in Hebrew and Arabic Verse Norman Roth 10. Bestiality in the Middle Ages Joyce E. Salisbury 11. The Story of the Völsi, an old Norse Anecdote of Conversion Andreas Heusler, translated by Peter Nelson Part 4: Public Implications 12. Saints and Sex, ca. 500-1100: Striding Down the Nettled Path of Life Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg 13. Penis Captivus: Penis Captivus: A Historical Note J.D. Rolleston, Three Cases of Vaginism C. Grant Loomis 14. Politics of Sodomy: Rex v. Pons Hugh de Ampurias (1311) James A. Brundage