In Canto XV, Dante traverses the lowest part of the seventh circle of the Inferno, the subcircle of violence against nature. The term  of ‘voilence against nature’ is for the sin of sodomy, which is known as the, “unspeakable sin” by Carolyn Dinshaw throughout her book, Getting Medieval. This sin is coded as ‘unmentionable’ or the sin ‘against nature,’ as Dinshaw explains, is because agents of the church did not want to give people ideas as to what the sin is, but rather that any sin of the sexual nature falls under it (3-12). This codification of sodomy groups same sex interactions with those of premartial sex, beastiality, and any other form of sex without the intent of procreation. This grouping decenters the common notion of queer sex as being exclusively same sex in the Middle Ages, but also queers any form of sex outside of the sanctity of marriage, but even within this unoffical codification of sodomy there seems to be a heirarchy of sevarity, which is why same sex lovers are found in violence against nature rather than lust where adulterers can be found. Also note that men are the main inhabitants if not the only inhabtants of this subcircle. The reasoning for this is because it is an attack on God’s perfect image of what is ‘natural.’ For a man to give up his masculinity in the act of same sex interactions and is seen as a threat on the structures of the patriarchial societial structures sanctioned by those in power, may they be secular or clergy, who are given their authority by  God.

Works Cited:

Dinshaw, Carolyn. Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communites, Pre- and Postmodern. Duke University Press (1999). Print.