This dude is getting ratioed to hell & back for this nonsense, & there are MANY ways he's wrong about the history of sex.

BUT let's highlight something else: this is a racial narrative, & his concerns about "traditional sex" tie back to racial Anglo-Saxonism. #MedievalTwitter

So, the full thread he posted is here: note the use of "our" ancestors and the idea that he's sure sex work was normal in "certain pagan civilisations" but he's talking about "Christian Europe."

This is generic "our white Christian medieval past & its gender/sex values" stuff.

He's also currently Big Mad about the idea that the "Anglo-Saxons" weren't "indigenous" peoples.

These narratives--of "Anglo-Saxon heritage" and "indigeneity"--are wildly popular among the UK & US far-right, and they're tied to his concern about sexual values.

He's RTing shit about King Alfred "defeating barbarians", he's yelling about the "Norman Yoke" (with a touch of the antisemitic "lizard people" conspiracy theory), etc.

And, ofc, there is SO MUCH stuff about "Anglo-Saxons" as a transhistorical racial group whose power must be preserved.

Anyway, the point here is that these racial narratives about the European Middle Ages and "Anglo-Saxons" are everywhere, and they're tied to narratives about a premodern past of "traditional" gender and sexual values that these dudes want to bring about again.

He's also, to be clear, VERY wrong about "Christian Europe" and its ideas about marriage.

Medieval Christians loved extramarital sex. Cough cough, the whole courtly love tradition.

But whether marriage was preferable was debated.

Many theologians also argued that celibacy was best. Think St. Paul's "it is better to marry than burn"; hardly a ringing endorsement of marriage.

Tl;dr: right-wingers are clinging onto a false narrative of the medieval past--imagined to be white, "Anglo-Saxon," hetero, and full of "traditional gender values"--to argue for political action in the present. Medievalists must push back, not ignore it.