Reviewed by:

• Obscene Pedagogies: Transgressive Talk and Sexual Education in Late Medieval Britain by Carissa M. Harris
• Amanda Joan Wetmore

Harris analyzes a selection of Middle English and Scots texts in a compelling and relevant monograph. Sexual obscenity’s didactic power to agitate and provoke thought connects her readings of literary sexual encounters. Obscenity reinforces medieval patriarchy by deigning women corporeal, sexually gluttonous objects. Many of Harris’ female speakers, however, adopt the language of their debasers and turn it around on them in a feminine heteroglossia.

Harris’ first two chapters explore how men perpetuate rape culture and misogyny in same-sex environments, even as they petition for and against sex with women. In Chapter One, ‘Felawe Masculinity,’ manhood is established through narratives of sexual conquest among the ‘mercantile-artisan’ Canterbury pilgrims. Focusing primarily on the Reeve’s Tale, in which two clerks rape a mother and daughter based on the projected reaction of their peers, obscene talk among men mutually authorizes and encourages sexual aggression toward women. Harris brings in evidence from the North Wales Ched Evans rape trail (2016), showing similar discourses among modern same-sex peers in their justification of rape. Chapter Two, ‘With a Cunt,’ introduces poetry battles of the sixteenth-century Scottish court. In the context of Mary Stuart’s rumored adultery and young James V’s series of illegitimate children, these texts present a misogynist disgust with female bodies as inherently destabilizing for the male body politic. Instead, libidinal energies are turned inward as poetic prowess substitutes for the sexual act. Harris relates this rhetoric to modern freestyling, in which a rapper insults his opponent by degrading the women close to him.

The final three chapters focus on women’s fictive voices and examine their ability to teach men about their pain and pleasure, and other women about navigating the sexual world: negotiating desire, obtaining pleasure, and avoiding rape and its effects. Chapter Three’s ‘Pastourelle Encounters’ presents idyllic debate poems between men and women over a typically forced sex act. Although the narrator is usually male and first and last to speak, women voice their non-consent, fear, and pain. Some resist through verbal sparring, some eventually succumb but protest systemic inequality, others are brutally raped and decry their injuries.

Chapter Four, ‘Pedagogies of Pleasure,’ focuses on understudied English women’s songs from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, helpfully placed in the Appendix. After the Black Death, young single women’s rise to the urban working class left them [End Page 72] especially vulnerable. Women’s objectification in the workplace was often expressed in the language of capital, which women seized upon as a model for negotiation. Harris then compares the same-sex education these sexually explicit lyrics offered to modern abstinence-only education, which, by limiting knowledge, limits the possibility of female agency. Finally, Chapter Five, ‘Songs of Wantonness,’ offers a selection of lyrics from two early Tudor anthologies, MS Ashmole 176 and the Ritson Manuscript. Polite and obscene lyrics about consensual and forced sex acts register meaningfully together as they are juxtaposed, exposing courtly ideology’s violent distortions—especially in the fiction of women’s power and men’s pain. Fictive women’s voices offer narratives that evoke ‘educational empathy’ for sexual victims, portraying the emotional, physical, social, and psychological repercussions of rape.

Harris is a delicate close-reader, employing etymology and colloquial usage to bolster her vivid readings of obscene metaphors in mostly understudied texts. She also argues from codicological evidence to consider textual transmission and reader response. Harris ties all of her material to the present day, providing readings of contemporary texts in parallel with her analysis of a ‘usable’ medieval past. She concludes with a reading of Trump’s infamous ‘Grab ‘em by the pussy’ recording, revealing many of the same long-standing misogynist paradigms. Obscenity authorizes misogynist stereotypes, but it can also be used to challenge systemic violence and inequality.

审核人：

• 淫秽教学法：中世纪晚期英国的过激性谈话和性教育，作者：卡里萨斯·哈里斯（Carissa M. Harris）
• 阿曼达·琼·韦特莫尔（Amanda Joan Wetmore）

哈里斯在一本引人入胜且相关的专着中分析了一些中古英语和苏格兰文字。性淫秽的煽动和激发思想的说教力将她对文学性遭遇的解读与联系起来。淫秽行为通过亵渎女性有性的，性的物体来强化中世纪的父权制。许多哈里斯的女发言人，但是他们采取的debasers的语言和一个女性将其翻过来对他们众声喧哗。

哈里斯的前两章探讨了男性在同性环境中如何维持强奸文化和厌女症，即使他们向男女求婚也是如此。在第一章“费拉威男子气概”中，男子气概是通过对“工匠”坎特伯雷朝圣者中性征服的叙述而建立的。主要集中在里夫的故事两名店员根据同龄人的预期反应强奸了母女，男人之间的talk亵言语相互认可并鼓励对女人的性侵略。哈里斯（Harris）从北威尔士切德·埃文斯（Ched Evans）强奸踪迹（2016）提供了证据，显示了现代同性同龄人在强奸理由方面的类似论述。第二章“带With”介绍了16世纪苏格兰朝廷的诗歌之战。在玛丽·斯图亚特（Mary Stuart）的通奸传闻和年轻的詹姆斯五世（James V）的一系列私生子的背景下，这些文本提出了对女性尸体的厌恶女性厌恶情绪，这固有地破坏了男性尸体的政治稳定。取而代之的是，性欲的能量被内向地转化为诗性的力量代替了性行为。哈里斯（Harris）将此言论与现代自由风格联系起来，

最后三章重点讨论女性的虚构声音，并考察她们向男性传授其痛苦和愉悦感的能力，以及其他女性如何引导性世界：谈判欲望，获得愉悦感以及避免强奸及其后果的能力。第三章的“ Pastourelle Encounters”介绍了男女之间关于典型的强迫性行为的田园诗。尽管叙述者通常是男性，并且是第一位也是最后一位，但女性却表达了他们的不同意，恐惧和痛苦。一些人抵制口头上的争吵，一些人最终屈服，但抗议系统性的不平等，另一些人则被残酷地强奸并谴责其伤害。

第四章“快乐教学法”着重介绍了十五和十六世纪未被充分研究的英国女性歌曲，并在附录中有所帮助。黑死病爆发后，年轻的单身女性升入城市工人阶级，使她们离开了[结束第72页]尤其脆弱。妇女在工作场所的客观化常常以资本的语言表达，资本以此作为谈判的典范。然后，哈里斯比较了同性教育和现代禁欲教育所提供的这些露骨的性爱歌词，这通过限制知识限制了女性代理的可能性。最后，第五章“肆无忌S的歌曲”提供了两种都铎王朝早期选集的歌词，分别是MS Ashmole 176和Ritson手稿。关于自愿和强迫性行为的礼貌和ob亵歌词在并列放置时有意义地结合在一起，从而暴露了宫廷意识形态的暴力扭曲，尤其是在女性力量和男性痛苦的小说中。虚构女性的声音提供了叙事，唤起了性受害者的“教育同情”，描绘了情感上，身体上，

哈里斯（Harris）是一位精巧的近距离阅读者，她运用词源和口语用法来加强她对淫秽隐喻的生动读物，而这些隐喻在大多数未被研究的文本中都得到了体现。她还从医学证据的角度出发，考虑了文本传播和读者反应。哈里斯（Harris）将她所有的资料与今天联系在一起，提供当代文本的阅读内容，并结合她对“有用的”中世纪过去的分析。她以对特朗普臭名昭著的《猫咪抢劫他们》录音的阅读作为结尾，揭示了许多同样长期存在的厌女症范例。淫秽行为是女性厌恶症的成见，但也可以用来挑战系统性暴力和不平等现象。