On obscenity and modernity

It will come as a surprise to exactly zero regular readers that I have been contemplating the concept of obscenity lately. What may come as a surprise to you, however, is exactly why I have been thinking about that. And friends, it’s not because medieval people are being prudes – it’s because we are, now.

This actually comes up for me rather a lot because of my book. You see, the very excellent One and Future Sex (which is available now in paperback! So if you haven’t got a copy yet I am choosing to interpret this as a personal slight!) has a very gorgeous fifteenth-century image on it which features both the Virgin Mary and Eve. (Yeah, it’s that one up there at the top. Nice right?) I chose it because it does a great job encapsulating medieval and modern conceptions of women. In that we can either be perfect virgin mommies are we are temptress sinners who will drag all of humanity to its ruin. (Freud referred to this as the Madonna-Whore complex when it exhibits itself in individuals, but this is a Deulezian blog, and also I don’t believe in the individual, and society already expressed these concerns historically, so hey ho.)

Anyway, great image! Historical! Religious! It also means that I cannot advertise my book online, and that it gets flagged as obscene imagery on social media sights. I am being serious.

This has happened because of a really bad piece of legislation in the United States called FOSTA/SESTA. It’s one of those gross paternalistic attempts to “save” women from sex work, which of course only makes the lives of sex workers dramatically less safe.[1] As a part of this, anything that mentions sex, or any images which show nudity – more particularly nude women – get flagged as potentially part of a sex trafficking scheme or something. (Fun fact – most trafficked people work in the agricultural sector, or also very commonly in nail salons. But apparently that is all fine and we need to focus on what some idiot thinks sex trafficking is because they’ve seen Taken.)

I want to be as clear as possible – the primary victims of SESTA/FOSTA are sex workers, who have a harder time advertising, see themselves criminalised, and miss out on ways to organise, find each other, and work more safely as a result of it, but there are knock on effects as well. It is, for example, almost impossible to do online sex education. And also I can’t sell a book with a picture of Eve that is half a millennia old because it’s just TOO DAMN SEXY.

We’re posting it anyway cuz I am allowed on my own damn blog.

This would be incredibly funny if it wasn’t affecting my livelihood, because it just shows how here in the twenty first century, we are way more prudish than medieval people were. Medieval people a) can absolutely handle a picture of Eve being naked, and b) also understand it in a religious context which, in theory, should nullify the who sexy thing.

To be fair, this does not always work, and is part of the reason that Protestants went all iconoclast, but fundamentally medieval people erred on the side of “if you are finding yourself turned on by this painting of Eve that is a you problem.” We, apparently are unable to do that, and have decided that Eve must be protected from being sex trafficked and also your sensitive eyes must never behold her shameful sexy boobs.

So, obviously this is something that I think about a lot because I am constantly pinching the bridge of my nose as I am once again told that my attempts to promote my book have been flagged as a sensitive image. But, I thought about it again the other day when I was in Bologna.

The Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna

One of the primary reasons I was eager to get back to Bologna was to see the so-called Chapel of the Magi in the Basilica of San Petronio. And, yes, the Magi are cool and stuff. But in my opinion? It has one of the most incredible Hell frescos ever created. Painted by Giovanni da Modena (c. 1379-c. 1455) in the fourteenth century, it is incredibly detailed, and features recognisable local figures. (LMAO, get their asses Giovanni.) They are all suffering ironic punishments in the hereafter based both on whether they fell prey to one of the seven deadly sins, or if they are one of the sinners against God.

For those not in the know, the seven deadly sins are of course, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth, Pride, Wrath, Envy, and Greed. The more esoteric sins punished up top in the realm of sins against God include the punishment of the schismatics, idolaters, and enchanters.


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Now this fresco made an incredible impression on me when I first saw it is a bright young thing back in the mists of time, and I was eager to get back and have a stare at it with the benefit of my big brain and a PhD in medieval history. After all, it played a role in my decision to ruin my life by dedicating it to the study of the medieval, so, surely, I should check back in with it these years later and see if it missed me.

In the intervening years, the good people at San Petronio had decided that a good way to make some extra money for the upkeep of their fine and excellent church was by cordoning it off and putting it behind a curtain. Fair enough, in my opinion! We are all out here trying to survive and keep ourselves afloat in late-stage capitalism, and medieval churches need to be maintained! If it was going to cost me five euro to visit my friend, five Euro they shall have! However, as I bought my ticket I was also informed that photos of the fresco weren’t allowed. This made me slightly sad, but once again I thought, well, fair enough! They want to sell me some postcards of it afterword, so I guess they win this round.

The closest I could get to a picture, outside of the gates of the chapel.

I am a bit of a stickler for rules at historical sights, so while I had photographed the fresco from the church floor outside the curtain which was allowed, I duly followed the rules inside the chapel. I was very very busy going “Oh! LOOK!” and pointing at various things anyway, so hey ho.

When I emerged half an hour later I popped back to the gift shop and bought a whole book on the fresco for a further sixteen Euro, so eager was I to get hold of an entire picture of the thing, and also contribute to its upkeep.

Anyway queue me and my charming boyfriend having an aperitivo outside the church afterwards, me pulling out the book to have a look, and flipping immediately to the close ups on the images of the sin of Lust, only to find that they are incomplete.

Readers, I lost it.

I mean, of course what I wanted to look at was the bit about Lust. That’s my whole job! That’s it! It dominates the bottom right corner of the fresco, so it’s closest to eye level for people actually in the chapel. It also means that when you are behind the curtain outside you can’t even see, let alone photograph, a little bit of it.

And baby let me tell you, it is worth photographing. See, you know how above, I was like “medieval people thought it was weird if you were turned on by a picture of Eve”? Well the painting of Lust is like, a dare. The sinners being tortured for it are all naked, as is standard for any soul being pictured after death, because souls don’t have clothes. What is not standard is that their ironic punishments for their sins could also be described as S&M. I am talking about spiked snakes coiling about thighs, or in one case a demon straddling a blond-haired beauty and choking her. This is interesting because it’s not a standard punishment of the lustful, who we often see just being boiled in cauldrons, though the also sometimes seem kinda into it. For example:

Guys? You might want to make this look … not fun? Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, SA 3390, fol. 36v

Now here you can say, “I mean sure Eleanor, but isn’t S&M a modern thing and aren’t you reading a lot into this?” To this I say, go read the blogs on medieval kink again if you are going to be contrary like that. And secondly, the thing about specifically the beautiful women who are being punished for lust is they are breaking the fourth wall, looking directly at the viewers, and smiling.

Obsessed doesn’t begin to cover it.

I absolutely love this because Giovanni da Modena is essentially engaged in a sort of dare with viewers. This was his chance to paint something sexy and … he has. And you as a viewer can’t admit that it is sexy because if you do then you yourself are falling prey to the sin of lust! It’s an elaborate bluff! If you think it’s sexy, then you have admitted to being a damnable pervert. So, you can’t. So, there it is, on the walls of the church.

Now of course plenty of people wouldn’t be aroused by this and can just relate to it as a beautiful piece of religious art and a stirring warning of those things that await the lustful. This is absolutely true. However, what is also true is that the church itself which has photographed every inch of this painting flat out refuses to allow you to take a picture of this section now. Because it’s hot. They don’t want people like me taking pictures and saying “AWOOOGA” online or something. So they have contrived to censor only the sexual bit of this painting.

The punishment of the gluttonous, who are being eaten by Cerberus in British Library MS Egerton 943, f. 12r.

This to me is very funny because there are plenty of bits that are incredibly violent and they are more than happy to provide you with detailed pictures of them. Personal favs of mine is the gluttonous guy who is impaling his head on a spike attempting to get to a roast chicken, as well as the greedy who are pushing each other out of the way to have molten gold poured down their throats. Violence? You can see that. Sex? Absolutely beyond the pale.

And here again we see the difference between medieval and modern attitudes to sex. Sure, yes, as I say, the reason that this image was allowed at all is that you would need to admit it was sexy to put a stop to it. However, there was also an understanding of it, as with the image of Eve, that sexiness was permissible to show as a part of spiritual exempla. You need to understand that Eve’s inherent sensuality and folly led to the downfall of all humans. You need to know if you go around thinking about sexual acts you will end up in Hell. Audiences were trusted to understand the message within the context.

Now, however, we can apparently not be trusted to see Eve or contemplate Lust because we must be protected from our unstoppable horniness. Someone – whether it’s the American federal government, or the officials in a church in Bologna has to save you from yourself and stop you from viewing what I cannot stress enough are religious images.

Anyway, guess what? I am very stubborn and I am afraid the nice people at San Petronio are gonna have to take an L this round. After having spent twenty-one Euro trying to photograph this thing so I could show you pictures I became incensed enough at the audacity of this censorship that I just went and bought a high-resolution image of it from Alamy, with the attendant rights to put it on the blog. So here it is in all its glory:

R641R8 Lucifer Eating Sinners, Heaven and Hell fresco, Cappella Bolognini, Chapel of the Magi, by Giovanni da Modena, 1410, inspired by Dante?s Divine Comedy, Basilica of San Petronio, Bologna, Italy, Italian,

And, more particularly, here are the Lustful who are absolutely hoping you will notice them from across the church and dig their vibes.

Ohhhhhhhh, matron!

And since I mentioned it? Here’s the gluttonous and their chickens and shish kababs.

Sorry but I love it!

The morals of this story are several. The most important is that paternalism like this can’t really succeed and is harmful in general. People don’t need to be protected from pictures of nudity and should instead be trusted to interact with art as they see fit because its none of your business how they feel about a particular piece of art.

A less important rule is that I am very strong willed, and if you tell me I can’t show people something medieval I will find a way to do so. …even to the detriment of my own bank account. So, uh, subscribe to the patreon I guess?


[1]  D Blunt and A Wolf, ‘Erased: The impact of FOSTA-SESTA and the removal of Backpage on sex workers’, Anti-Trafficking Review, issue 14, 2020, pp. 117-121.


For more on sexuality in the medieval period see, IDK the whole damn blog? Try these:
On medieval kink part 1 and part 2
On women, pleasure, and semen
On semen retention


Support the blog by subscribing to the Patreon, from as little as  £ 1 per month! It’s the cool thing to do!

My book, The Once And Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women’s Roles in Society, is out now.


© Eleanor Janega, 2024

Author: Dr Eleanor Janega

Medieval historian, lush, George Michael evangelist.

One thought on “On obscenity and modernity”

  1. That’s not ” Deulezian” but “Deleuzian,” right?

    As in Gilles?

    Or is, I won’t be surprised to find, someone I don’t know by name?

    Like

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