Nothing Natural Is Shameful: Sodomy and Science in Late Medieval Europe by Joan Cadden (review)

Joan Cadden has done an extraordinary thing. “This book,” she writes, “shows how European scholars deployed a standard set of philosophical tools and a variety of rhetorical strategies to produce scientific approaches to sodomy in the period from the late thirteenth through the fifteenth century” (2–3). Having examined over a hundred manuscript copies of Aristotle’s Problemata (Problems) and the commentaries written on it, she explores how differently medieval commentators treated a set of questions found in this text: “Why do some men enjoy the passive role in sex and some enjoy both the active and passive roles?” (3).

Chapter 1 reveals the medical explanations. Ancient medical notions perpetuated throughout the Middle Ages generally suggested that each of the openings in the human body permitted the release of superfluous fluids. In most men, semen flowed toward the penis; in others (eunuchs were given as an example, but also other effeminate men), these “pores” were blocked, and semen flowed toward the anus instead; in still others, the semen flowed in both directions. Some of the commentators used such notions to reflect on the differences between universal, general, or unqualified human nature, on the one hand, and particular, contingent, or qualified nature, on the other hand: perhaps men affected by such blockages were acting “naturally” by satisfying their anal desires.

In chapter 2 Cadden adds nurture to nature. The habit of anal sex might encourage the desire for it, a practice that rendered the individual more culpable for sinful behavior. Yet how would the habit be begun or the pleasures enjoyed if not for the preexisting inclination of the body? And how, in some men, was the habit of being penetrated transformed later in life into one of penetrating other men? Here and elsewhere Cadden links these theoretical discussions with what we know of the actual practice of male sodomy in late medieval Europe (which is to say that it was mostly age-defined pederasty), and in revealing the questions that theorists of sodomy posed, she makes it clear that they were not unaware of the social realities around them.

Chapter 3 explores allusions to women in these commentaries. Though ignored in most commentaries, women nonetheless haunt these texts in curious ways. A surgical solution to the medieval problem of anal desire was to be avoided, according to some, because it risked turning already effeminate men more into women than men. The implied anatomical defectiveness of men who wished to be penetrated served as a reminder of the assumed defectiveness of women; accordingly, some commentaries moved from discussions of desire for sexual passivity in men to questions of melancholia, menstruation, and sexual insatiability that linked them to medieval conceptions of women.

Cadden addresses the moral questions raised by some of the commentators in chapter 4. If some men acted in ways other than normal, should they be thought of as monstrous? Could the existence even of morally questionable desires be part of larger patterns of human nature—as variations rather than deformities? If some individuals engaged in anal sex because of the necessity to expel bodily fluids unable to be expressed in the usual ways, could they be considered as acting from free will or as choosing sin? (Cadden notes that some commentators asked similar questions about astrology, very much in vogue in late medieval Europe: If the conjunction of the stars and planets influenced human action, including sexual desire, could it be free and thus subject to moral praise or censure?)

Chapter 5, finally, examines the rhetoric within these commentaries. Some copyists omitted almost all mention of sex from their manuscripts of Aristotle’s Problemata (which ranged widely on a number of topics). Others, in contrast, variously elaborated on the moral or medical problems. A few expressed disgust or reticence at having to broach the topic, and others used humor. A few medieval readers of these texts added...