Comments on: Medieval church carvings, masturbation included

Medieval church carvings, masturbation included

Kattullus — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:26:45 -0800

Tina Manthorpe's Flickr set of churces and church carvings has many lovely images of the kinds of things one isn't surprised to see in churches, trees of life, colorful roof bosses, misericords and many more such beauties. More shocking to modern sensibilities are the pictures in the set she calls exhibitionist church carvings, featuring such images as a protogoatse, Starbucksesque mermaids, autofellatio, free-hanging genitals and, uh... something involving thumb-sucking and snakes.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:32:26 -0800

I made the exhibitionist stuff the focus of the post, but the rest of her set has some really stunning images. For instance, I'm very fond of this green man.

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:40:12 -0800

This whole flickr set is really absorbing... but why were the erotic carvings made for the churches anyway?

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:44:09 -0800

I believe they weren't meant to be erotic per se. There's a run down of the main theories for why such images are there in the wikipedia article on Sheela na Gigs.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:01:11 -0800

Michael Camille wrote some interesting things about this.

By: CCBC

CCBC — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:18:02 -0800

This was great! I'd seen some of the obvious gargoyle-ish stuff on cathedrals -- gutters set into pissing women's buttocks, for instance -- and there are amazing carvings done on church pews (probably while a sermon is going on) that have many of these same themes (the sheela-na-gig, the self-fellating man, etc.) but this is a fine set of images.

By: low_horrible_immoral

low_horrible_immoral — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:45:04 -0800

Aces stuff! I suppose the thumbsuckers are Adam and Eve.

By: Abiezer

Abiezer — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:23:46 -0800

I can has my cock out. Not sure how that raised to peasant mind to higher things.

By: duvatney

duvatney — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:52:42 -0800

This is excellent. Thanks!

By: duvatney

duvatney — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:55:40 -0800

Just to add one thing: I have a feeling that Adam and Eve are eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, not sucking their thumbs. That would make for a very different version of Genesis.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:47:54 -0800

Thanks, duvatney, now that you've said it it seems obvious. Those snakes are still chomping on their genitals, though.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:06:35 -0800

Sheesh, Eve. Put on a bra or something. My goodness.

By: Corky

Corky — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:33:27 -0800

Did anybody besides me notice that there are 69 pictures in the Exhibitionist Church Carvings set?

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 08:52:20 -0800

I swear that when I made the post there were only 67 pictures. I'd hate to think that I missed such an obvious joke.

By: katillathehun

katillathehun — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:12:06 -0800

Maybe they should put money in their idle holes.

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:26:37 -0800

There's a chuch near me with these sorts of carvings. Apparently, there used to be LOADS of these things all over the place but Cromwell's boys smashed them all. Only the out-of-the-way churches survived.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:09:27 -0800

the wikipedia article on Sheela na Gigs. more.