ABSTRACT
Sexuality is the universe of meanings that people place on sex acts, rather than the acts themselves. As a field of study the history of sexuality is different from the history of sex, which has to do with who did what with whom. Medieval attitudes about sex have to be pieced together from a variety of sources. Medieval people often wrote with an emotionality that would seem out of place today except between lovers. Attitudes about sexuality varied and changed over the course of the Middle Ages, but there are certainly common themes that look familiar at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The greater importance of religious teaching in the Middle Ages than today is not just the result of secularization but also a function of modern concepts of individual freedom and of privacy. Another difference between sex in the Middle Ages and today is the extent to which it can be separated from reproduction.
