It is in more recent times that the discussion of sexuality has become a more discussed topic. However, can there be discourse about sexuality during the middle ages? Ruth Mazo Karras’s book, Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others, serves to showcase that the topic of medieval sexuality is a discipline that is worthy of being studied. The book serves the purpose of being a broad look into the history of medieval sexuality that is intended for non-specialist and/or undergraduate students looking for a gateway into the discipline. What Karras stresses throughout the novel is that we must set aside our modern views of sexuality, and instead we must view sexuality from the lens of medieval people. She states that we must look to medieval sources rather than thinking that sexuality is universal or that it was invented in the nineteenth century. She has several arguments to be…show more content… Karras’s opening chapter serves as an introductory one to the topic of sexuality and an introduction to sexuality in the Middle Ages. Additionally, the chapter also assists in the development on one of Karras’s arguments: that you cannot apply modern views on sexuality to the Middle Ages, and that the sources available are limited in that they are mostly from theologians and canon lawyers, and that they are highly interpretive. Karras’s uses this to explain that due interpretive nature of this
