For Pride Month, I present a thread of homoerotic medieval depictions of the sign Gemini.

[TW: there will be medieval images of erections down thread; yes, really]

(Morgan Library, MS M101, f. 006r) #MedievalTwitter

The hawker did not know *what* he'd stumbled upon, but he did not want to get involved.

(Morgan Library, MS M264, f 005r)

"Dance naked with me, bro."

(BnF, MS Latin 238, f. 3)

"Hold me, bro."

(Bodleian Library, MS. Digby 83, f. 054r)

A *lot* of medieval Gemini images are just two naked dudes blatantly staring at each other's dicks.

(BnF, MS Latin 12834, f. 49; Morgan Lib, MS m92, f. 017r; Morgan Lib, MS g14, f. 007v)

Censored! Which the next image won't be!

(Morgan Library, MS m28, f. 005v)

This is the first medieval image of erections I've ever seen, and I think it's not insignificant that it's an image of two men together.

(Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. C. 117, f. 150r)

This thread is silly, but I think there's a serious point to be made about the representation of queer desire in Gemini images and other places where the convention of representations made it "ok" to depict homoeroticism.

(Morgan Lib., MS m1053, f. 005v)

How many of the artists working on these manuscripts had queer desires? History is filled with queer people who found "safe" ways to depict their desires, and queer readers who read queer desire into homoerotic imagery.

(Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 644, f. 008v)

Can we say that none of these artists did the same? Can we say that no medieval reader saw these images and burned them into their memory as perhaps the only reflection they ever came across of their own desires?

(Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, MS AN IV 18, f. 20r)

So much of queer history has been in representations that are not explicit but are meant to signal quietly to others who feel the same way.

When I post medieval art and say it's gay, I get pushback about anachronism and "reading into it."

(BNF Français 8648, fol. 112, France)

We don't really make those objections for eroticized art depicting men and women together, though.

(Morgan Library, MS m510, f. 004r)

I think queer art has often been MADE to be deniably queer, to be readable as both there and not, for the safety of artist and reader. I think that, as scholars and modern readers, we can recover queer possibilities if we read boldly.

(Morgan Library, MS M27, f. 007r)

Some images are just *obviously* gay, though.

(BL, MS Lansdowne 383, f. 5)