Albrecht Classen, author of The Medieval Chastity Belt, claims that “it is a joke, nothing else, as the context and the monstrosity of the metal cage indicate. This joke obviously appealed to a number of satirical writers and artists in the following centuries, who fully understood the great value of the chastity belt for their own purposes to entertain their audiences. Indeed, the literary examples that I could uncover consistently belong to the genre of satire, while the chastity belt never appears in serious texts or art works.” If it was nothing but a joke, it was a pretty sick joke. Just thinking about it makes me cringe!