Becoming an Onion: The Extra-Human Nature of Genital Difference in the Old English Riddling and Medical Traditions

ABSTRACT

This essay addresses the means by which the male genital organs register—that is, effectively become present, meaningful, and functional (or dysfunctional)—in early medieval culture by examining sexual riddles from the Exeter Book and aphrodisiac remedies from the Medicina de Quadrupedibus. Both function within a very particular material-discursive network governing the understanding and experience of genitals during this period. Reading these texts together suggests that gender is at this time not understood as a system existing in relation to biological sex, in which genitals are understood as relatively inert signifiers of a physical difference that is coterminous with the human body itself. In fact, both the riddles and aphrodisiac remedies suggest that the penis becomes most completely itself—or becomes restored most completely to itself and capable of fremmanne or donne, performing or doing its sexual, reproductive function—only when in an assemblage with animal and sometimes plant matter. The male sexual organ is thus far from being a discretely bounded entity lending ontological weight to sexual difference, but is in fact an entity which comes into being only in a form distributed across the human and non-human spectrum.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Laqueur, 4.

2 The topic of gender in early medieval England has been addressed by scholars across numerous different genres and historical contexts, (the Old English Newsletter bibliography database lists 369 items under this search term), but very sparingly in connection with medical texts. Most of the valuable scholarship that has been produced in this area focuses on women, and specifically on reproductive health or “magical” remedies. See, Deegan; Cameron; Osborn; Weston; Meaney; Jolly; Hall.

3 Excellent transhistorical studies include Friedman, and McLaren.

4 See Wilson, for a critique of the ways that feminism, following the lead of Gayle Rubin's seminal essays “The Traffic in Women” in 1975 and “Thinking Sex” in 1984, has overtly rejected sex in order to define its theoretical praxis, while simultaneously keeping biology lingering on the sidelines as the simple other of culture, which becomes, by contrast, sophisticated, multi-layered, complex, and performative. For similar comments, see also Laqueur, 12.

5 An aphrodisiac is defined as a substance “that increases sexual desire (i.e., libido) and/or sexual pleasure,” and/or “substances which enhance sexual performance or aid in the proper functioning of the male and female sex organs” (Melnyk and Marcone, 841). Most aphrodisiacs affect men specifically, impacting testosterone or increasing potency by enhancing the acquisition and maintenance of an erection. Paola Sandroni divides aphrodisiacs into three sub-groups according to their mode of operation: substances that increase libido; substances that increase potency; and substances that enhance sensory experience during coitus. “Aphrodisiacs Past and Present.” For reviews of the current state of scientific testing of natural aphrodisiacs, see Tharakan and Manyam; Bella and Shamloul.

6 Riddles and remedies are less dissimilar than might at first appear, given that a number of Old English charms are written in poetic form. Also it seems highly likely, even though there is no definitive record of such, that some riddles circulated orally in early medieval England, since they are part of the oral tradition of almost every human society (see Murphy, 5–6). Medical knowledge, while preserved in textual form, seems likely to have had a strong oral component also, given that the written remedies themselves are so brief and lacking in vital information.

7 For a description of the process, see Tharakan and Manyam, 457–8.

8 Wilson, 35.

9 Laqueur, 59–60, and n. 102.

10 Zizek, 143.

11 For a comprehensive discussion of the structure of the collection, see “The Compilation of the Exeter Book Riddles”, in Salvador Bello, Isidorean Perceptions of Order, 284–437. She addresses the specific difficulties of calculating exactly how many riddles are present in the collection, as well as how many were originally present, on pages 435–6. For compelling recent readings of the riddles that emphasize the various ways in which they decenter the human, see: Dale; Estes, 145–75; Ferhatovic, 33–60; Paz, 59–97.

12 Salvador Bello, “The Sexual Riddle,” 357. On the sexual riddles, see also: Salvador Bello, “Unlocking Riddles,” 42–46; Murphy, Unriddling the Exeter Riddles, 175–219.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., 376.

15 Ibid., 359–60.

16 I have added 37, bellows, to Salvador Bello’s sub-category. Her classification of 21, plough, as part of this group is open to argument; if this riddle references anatomy, it seems distinctly animal rather than human.

17 Salvador Bello, “The Sexual Riddle,” 367.

18 Salvador Bello, “Compilation,” 288. While this duplication likely indicates multiple sources, it nonetheless also registers degree of interest in certain topics.

19 As John W. Tanke points out, the generally-accepted definition of a sexual riddle requires the use of double entendre, but half of the Exeter Book sexual riddles do not employ this technique. He lists only 25, 37, 44, 45, 54, 61, and 62 as “the definition of the ‘classic’ double-entendre riddle, in which there is an ambiguity, sustained throughout the text, between a sexual and a non-sexual content” (Tanke, 31).

20 Smith, 89.

21 Tanke, 29.

22 Melnyk and Marcone, 842; Sandroni, 306.

23 Melnyk and Marcone, 847; Bella and Shamloul, 832; Tharakan and Manyam, 460; Choffnes, 205. Ginseng contains gensenodides, the collective name for one hundred different triterpene saponins (chemical compounds of carbon and sugar molecules) that constitute its bioactive components. Research on the biochemical properties of gensenodides is ongoing.

24 The standard edition is de Vriend.

25 Ibid., xlii–xliii.

26 Ibid., xlii.

27 Both Viagra (sildenafil citrate) and Addyi (flibanserin), commonly known as the “female viagra”, are part of this contemporary medicalization of desire, being prescribed to address named conditions: ED, erectile disfunction, and HSDD, hypoactive sexual desire disorder. Viagra originated as a heart medication, because it works to maintain vessel dilation and thus blood flow around the body, including into the penis. It thus addresses a physical problem of vessel constriction that occurs with aging, obesity, or certain conditions like diabetes, but it does not create sexual desire; such desire must be present in order for it to work at all, because without the signal from the brain to release nitric oxide, the necessary enzymes and messengers for smooth muscle dilation will not be produced by the body (https://www.bpas.org/more-services-information/erectile-dysfunction/viagra/; Shah, 439). This brain signal is triggered by, or effectively is, sexual desire. Addyi, on the other hand, has been proven effective in clinical trials in addressing low sexual desire in women, perhaps by altering brain chemicals, although its manufacturer (Sprout Pharmaceuticals) cannot determine the reasons for its success exactly (Whiteman).

28 De Vriend, III.13. All quotations in Old English are from this edition and are cited by book and remedy number; all translations are my own.

29 Christiansen, 589.

30 Melnyk and Marcone, 848.

31 Shah, 437.

32 Testicles continue to be consumed in popular and traditional medicine for aphrodisiac purposes, and the particular mix of factors that motivate this consumption would need to be analyzed contextually within each tradition.

33 This mode of understanding and undertaking consumption would obviously have made sense in relation to the Eucharist, since it relies on a notion of word made flesh. Very useful for thinking about consumption and its resonances in early medieval England is Blurton.

34 IX. 8.

35 McLaren, 2.

36 Salvador Bello, Isidorean Perceptions of Order, 345. The Exeter Book collection is distinct from Latin compilations in that it does contain a subsection of sexual riddles (numbers 42–46). However, only two of these, 44 (key) and 45 (dough), are of the kind that draws a double entendre between an object and genitals.

37 Riddles 25 and 37 are within Salvador Bello’s Section 3, Tools I; 54, 61, 62, 63, and 65 are within Section 5, Tools II (ibid., 473–4).

38 Another vernacular term for genitals that does not emphasize this connection to utility is cennende lim, substantiated in reference to both male and female body parts.

39 Brooks, 209.

40 Salvador Bello, Isidorean Perceptions, 441–2.