Leave it to an English professor to use a high-minded subject like medieval literature as an excuse to flirt with students and fixate on sex, thus guaranteeing a captive audience.

"I’m a big geek," she said, going on to prove it by explaining that she watched the special features on her Lord of the Rings DVDs, which gave her insight into armor worn by medieval knights. Hell yeah that’s hot, and that’s not all.

Today’s topic was the lais (songs performed in 13th and 14th century Europe) written by Marie de France. What are lais usually about? Matlock explained by means of what she called a bad joke: "A lai is basically a brief romance." Actually that was an excellent joke.

One lai was about Lanval, a knight in King Arthur’s court. Depressed, Lanval went off into the forest and fell in love with a magic pixie dream girl. She loved him back and blessed him with wealth. Lanval grew generous at court, and people started to like him.

Once Lanval’s status rose among his peers, Queen Guinivere went after his nuts (and failed). Matlock made kissey noises to illustrate her point.

Later we discussed Tristan and Isolde, a timeless tale illustrating the pleasure of adulterous lovers being together. Matlock was satisfied that the movie "had pretty people." (We like when teachers take backhanded swipes at subject matter).

By the end of the class, there was more material to examine, but not enough time for it. "I skipped the part about celibacy," she said. "You can read that by yourself if you’re interested."

Did she just tell us to go masturbate? We were going to do that anyway.