Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

strictly homosocial bonds” (Cohen 13), both of which were some ofthe direct fears present in medieval society of the things that mighthappen in the nighttime if people were allowed to go about as theypleased (Bildaur). By establishing borders and creating a fear in thepeople about what might happen to them if they venture beyond,lawmakers and leaders could feel they were protecting their city andits inhabitants from the deadly sins and harms of the dark and thenight. People genuinely believed, and may still in some ways today,that “to step outside this official geography is to risk attack by somemonstrous border patrol or (worse) to become monstrous oneself”(Cohen 12). It is exactly this that we fear: that whatever is lurking inthe darkness will either attack and physically harm us, or will take uswith it into sin and monstrosity.Darkness continues to be a monster in definition of Cohen’ssixth thesis, called “Fear of the Monster is Really a Kind of Desire”(Cohen 16). In this thesis Cohen suggests that while human beingsfear the monstrous, we are also greatly attracted to it. This can beseen frequently in modern society, with our love of horror filmsand haunted attractions, but it may very well have been equallydesirable for our ancient ancestors. While the night was indeedterrifying for the many reasons already mentioned, it was alsoattractive in the variety of options it provided for those who wishedto participate in illicit or ill-advised acts. Prostitution, for example,has been a well-known illegal (or at the very least frowned upon)trade for thousands of years. The feminine connotations of the word“night” have already been discussed, but the negative associationwith women went beyond the belief in their witchery and demonictransformations. “A strong association was made between the nightand nefarious sexual practices” (Bildaur 146), say Youngs and Harris,and prostitutes were (and still are) referred to as “women of thenight.” In fact, according to Youngs and Harris, in medieval citiesthe frequency of devious and unsanctioned sexual acts during dark60 afternoons of alterity