WEBVTT - Short Stuff: Chastity Belts 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:06.920 Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:10.600 there's Chuck and Dave's here in spirit, and that means 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:13.160 this is short stuff, which already said, which is a 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.799 waste of time. Let's just start, which is funny because 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:21.079 Jerry is actually here. I think supposedly she is, but 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.200 I haven't heard from her in a while, so who 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.759 knows she's here. But then she's like, I can't be 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.160 bothered with those twelve minute episodes. Dave here take it? 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.400 Yeah I can't. There's only so much of these shmos 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:35.920 I can take. Jerry has a lot on her plate, 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.519 and we we're glad she's still around doing our full 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.800 length episodes, right, Yeah, we are. We're very hashtag blessed 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.080 to have Jerry still working. Left us in the dirt 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.080 a long time ago, totally, and she doesn't because I 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:53.720 secretly suspect that she likes us. So Chastity Belts, I 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:56.360 don't think I ever got the memo. And we'll go 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.400 ahead and spoil this right up front. Uh, that Acity 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:04.160 Belts were we're probably not even a real thing used 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.120 for that the purpose that we all think they were 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:08.720 used for. Yeah, I mean, I guess I never did 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:10.759 either I never really sat around and gave some thoughts, 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:14.440 so like reading this, I wasn't like blown away, but 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:17.319 it it does occur to me that, um, I guess 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.240 I had always thought that they were a real thing, 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.520 and they are technically a real thing, but they're just 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.560 not from the time we thought they were from. And 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:30.680 it all seems to just be uh misinterpretation of potentially 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:35.120 an old timey joke that we just lost the punchline 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.640 to over the years. Yeah, I think maybe that's kind 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.800 of sad that this could have been a very believable 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:45.680 thing that they did in medieval times, you know, because 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.400 it seems like something that could could have happened. Well. 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:51.360 Part of it, though, is is like this desire from 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:55.040 people looking backward and saying, like, look, how dumb and 0:01:55.120 --> 0:02:00.480 savage and brutal and just uncaring those people were back then, 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.080 And it gives us a sense of self satisfaction and 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:06.480 that that's why, like basically myths like this are allowed 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.560 to perpetuate and it's really just a a misunderstanding. But 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:12.640 it also prevents us from understanding those cultures a little 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.240 better than we do because we just think they're dumb 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.640 and backwards instead. So it's a it's a real issue. 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.239 It's probably the greatest issue humanity has ever faced. Chastity 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:26.320 belts in the myth behind them, So I guess we 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:28.920 should say what they are. I kind of figured everyone knows. 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.040 But if you have never heard of a chastity belt, 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.480 the legend was that if you could picture basically um 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:40.040 metal underwear that a man would put on his wife 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:44.320 that is locked onto their body um like with a padlock, 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:47.560 and it had a couple of openings for going pp 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.840 and poopoo, and sometimes they were gussied up with like 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:54.800 hearts and flowers and stuff. And the idea was like, well, 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:57.240 I'm going out of town on a on a rampage, 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.560 like I don't want you messing around on me. I'm gone, 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.480 so I'm gonna I'm gonna lock your private parts away 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.200 basically behind this iron underwear. And that's what a chastity 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:09.360 belt was. Yeah, And if you look at pictures of 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:13.359 some of these chastity belts, like they like the the 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:15.400 place where what did you say you go peepe and 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:20.000 poop poo like the the the holes are exit only 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:24.919 because they have like metal teeth like she carved into them. 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.440 So it's like, yeah, it's not meant to mess around. Um, 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:30.000 and when you look at these things, you're like, this 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:33.640 can't be right, Like is this for real? And it 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.080 certainly seems that way because you can see these things 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.840 with your own eyes. But the problem is is they 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:42.640 the things you're seeing with your own eyes come much 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:47.400 later than than the age that we attribute them to write. Yeah, 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:49.520 so a guy actually wrote a book on this. His 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:54.920 name was Albrecht Klassen, and he wrote The Medieval Chastity 0:03:54.960 --> 0:04:01.000 Belt Colon a myth making process. Boy, I'm gonna flip 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.680 my lid if we ever get a book that comes 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.800 through this podcast it doesn't have a colon. Uh oh yeah, 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.760 Like yeah, like just in our research, you mean, yeah, 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:15.080 that's not a novel. I dare somebody to write one. Well, 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.560 I mean we did well. Ours feels like as a colon, 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:20.880 but it doesn't test it definitely does. The colon is 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.640 implied for sure. Uh so that this is the book 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:28.200 that all Wrecked Chasin wrote and basically he's like listen 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.279 poets wrote about it. Uh, you know, there were artists 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:37.160 who made these things, but it's basically, um, it seems 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.960 to be just a big sort of practical joke or 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.880 or maybe he's the equivalent of like an editorial cartoon 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.719 or something in its origin because the first mention of 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:52.560 it comes from Conrad with a K. Kaiser von Eichstadt, 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:57.120 great name, and this was an engineer who designed all 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:01.599 this technology around sieges like weapons and and defenses and stuff. 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.680 And he wrote in the early fifteenth century about a 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:09.640 device in a manuscript called Bellafortis meaning strong in War, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.960 which was just a big catalog of like military gadgets, 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.720 and among them was a chastity belt. Yeah, because I 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.040 mean this was frequently supposedly used by men who were 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:25.280 leaving for war, um, while they were gone, like you're 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:27.920 saying they would they would use it while they were 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.800 out of town or whatever. So it would kind of 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:32.840 make sense that it would it would be in this 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:37.359 you know, um military gadget book um, and you would say, okay, 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.440 proof positive, this thing was written in the fourteen hundreds, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.279 early fourteen hundreds. This is a medieval device, and this 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:48.000 is possibly where it was invented, was in Belafortis. But 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.920 the problem is is if you go through Bellafortis with 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:55.080 a scrutinizing eye, you're going to see that there's other 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.920 stuff in there that don't quite add up, like um 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:02.440 a machine that makes you invisible um or a device 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:07.080 that propels you um through fart power. That's my favorite. 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.560 There's a chariot apparently that shaped like a cat. So 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.839 the while a lot of the stuff that von Eichs 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:17.560 thought was was designing and creating was real and legitimate, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:22.080 he also was apparently not shy about peppering his works 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.560 with joke stuff as well. Right, And there were other 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.080 instances where it was clearly used in a satirical way, 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.320 uh like a political cartoon basically of the time. There 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:37.320 was one in German from the sixteenth century that has 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.520 this sort of older gentleman saying goodbye to his young 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.200 wife and she is naked except for this chastity belt, 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.720 and then behind a curtain is her younger lover sort 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.599 of hiding with a chastity belt shaped key, and the 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.120 husband has these donkey ears growing out of his head. 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.200 So this all sort of leads us to believe that 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.520 this was kind of a joke, not something that was 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.440 really used. No, and maybe it was even originally used 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.920 and described metaphorically, and it just kind of took off 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.880 from there, almost like a medieval meme. But the fact 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:16.040 is there are chastity belts in existence, and I think 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:17.600 we should take a break and then we'll come back 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:19.600 and talk about where those came from. How about that? 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:50.800 What a perfect spot. Okay, Chuck. Where did the chastity 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.320 belts that you can actually go see in a museum 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.559 come from? They come from much later. They come from 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.600 probably the nineteenth century. There was a little Gothic revival 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:04.840 thing that happened then, and you know, iron and steel 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:09.400 were much more readily available as Europe became more industrialized, 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.000 and they started making things out of them, and they 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.080 you know, obviously they made things like bridges and things 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.960 like that, but they also made things for fun. And 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.880 it looks like there were these manufacturers in England who said, 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.160 you know what, there are these curiosity shows and museums 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.800 that would that would pay for chastity belts to display them, 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.000 and so we're gonna start making them as sort of 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.439 a joke. Yeah. So the idea was that the Victorians 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.920 were wound up so tight and we're so proper that 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:47.320 they would they would expel their prurient interest in uh 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.120 bound up sexuality and like side shows and stuff like that. 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.760 They would pay to see things like torture devices or 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:56.480 like a chassis or something. And for their part, part 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.720 of it also was being able to become self satisfied 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:01.560 with your your own culture, in your own place in 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:06.320 history by mocking or or judging earlier ones. But the 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.760 fact is these things were all they were recently made 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.240 and apparently passed off as much older than they actually were. 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.040 And so some museums said, well, we need to get 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.720 these out of our collection because we've been we've been 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:21.559 displaying them as medieval and they were really created twenty 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.240 years ago. Um. And the British Museum actually still has one, 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.400 but there, um they have a little placard next to 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.199 theirs that basically says, uh, there's no real evidence that 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.440 any of these were actually created or used during the 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.360 medieval era. Yeah. I love that last line. It says 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.800 that the evidence is largely anecdotal or in burlesque fiction. 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:49.280 Very tantalizing. So yeah, they kept one around because you know, 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:50.800 I guess they thought it was still funny to look 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.600 at in their proper context. Um, which it's really not, 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.360 you know when you think about it, right exactly, But yeah, 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.400 it looks like it was basically an urban legend from 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.480 back then that came about many years later as an 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.960 actual object. And like you were talking before, like you know, 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.560 I think people look at the that period as these 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:17.880 you know, backward people that would do something like this, 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.640 and I think scholars of the Middle Ages try to 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.000 be a little kinder, uh and point out that while 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.199 it was no picnic certainly to live back then because 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.760 of disease and uh no, no modern medicine and no 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.480 electricity and not very much plumbing. Um, it was no party, 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:40.000 but they weren't like completely backward and it wasn't you know, 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.200 just a culture full of maidens locked away in towers either, 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:47.520 right exactly. And um, there's a USC professor named Lisa Battell. 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:49.679 I think it's maybe how you say your last name. 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.960 She um. She points out that like, like, yeah, they 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.120 had a different way of looking at things in the 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:00.080 medieval era, and there were lots of different politics and 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:04.880 socio politics, but they weren't just stupid, you know, like 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.640 the the so the idea that that they that they 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.920 couldn't possibly have had jokes or you know, written things 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.040 in jest or whatever and basically pulled one over on 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:19.720 those of us alive today inadvertently is a falsehood. It's 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:22.480 actually seems to be the case for sure. Yeah, and 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.080 there were even some women who were writers who didn't 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:29.920 write under pseudonyms or pen names or anonymously. And I 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:31.560 don't think we're trying to make the case that it 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:35.360 was just like a really progressive society or anything like that, 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:37.679 but it may not be exactly as backward as as 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.160 we're led to believe. Yeah, it's like, take a look 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.800 at your own age for you know, for buddy, no kidding, 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.400 maybe maybe put your own house in order first before 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:51.520 you go judging out right. Um, what's funny is that, Um, 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:55.280 there really are chastity belts in existence today that are 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.360 of recent manufacturer, but they're mostly made of latex and 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:02.560 they're used almost exclusive le for B D s M. 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.800 And I think, Chuck, we should just leave the listener 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.320 here to explain to whoever else they're listening with what 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.679 B D s M is. That's right, And maybe we 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.120 should do a podcast on that one day. Sure we'll 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.520 explain it for you later on. All right, Well that means, 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:23.199 of course, then everybody short stuff is out. Stuff you 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.760 should know is a production of I Heart Radio. 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