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Speaker 1: Well, hello everybody, Hello, welcome back to the show. No,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about high society. I got to hang on,

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Speaker 1: let me change real quick. Hell ah, there he is.

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Speaker 1: We welcome back to the show. Kippers and blood pudding,

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Speaker 1: Kipples and blood pudding. A. I don't know. I gotta

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Speaker 1: say I've never had authentic British food really, to be honest.

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Speaker 1: I mean we have pub food here, but yeah, I've

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Speaker 1: never been to England. But you know, there was an

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Speaker 1: argument the other day about scones and biscuits and cookies

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Speaker 1: and stuff on Twitter or like a bunch of British

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Speaker 1: people were like looking at Southern American biscuits and saying

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Speaker 1: those look disgusting, and of course we're like you, that's

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Speaker 1: outrage fat and salt and flaky pastry. It's so good

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Speaker 1: in the worst way. Um. And someone was like, well

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Speaker 1: it doesn't. It will never beat a blood pudding and

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Speaker 1: clotted cream or something like that, whatever they said, And

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Speaker 1: I was just like, like, clotted cream is the most

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Speaker 1: unappetizing two words you could put together. Ever, you may

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Speaker 1: as well say curdled cream. It's just yeah, it's just

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Speaker 1: that mixture of letter cream, isn't it. I don't even

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Speaker 1: know what it is. Just the name has turned me

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Speaker 1: off so much that I can't I can't get involved.

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Speaker 1: Might be delicious. I'm not here to to smack talk.

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Speaker 1: It's just words have a lot of power, you know, right, Rue,

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Speaker 1: I'm stalling while Diana looks it up, and well, I'll

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Speaker 1: riff a few more minutes about the other thing about

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Speaker 1: clotted cream. I don't know you got it. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: don't think it's It does sound a lot like whipped cream,

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Speaker 1: and it's I think it's meant to be sweet. But um,

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Speaker 1: but it's made with unpasteurized milk, so it's actually illegal

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Speaker 1: in the US. You can't get clotted cream. Well, now intrigued,

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Speaker 1: Now I wanted we have to go to London and

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Speaker 1: have us some clotted cream and a kindre egg. Well,

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Speaker 1: I guess I will go to London then, damn any

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Speaker 1: of our listeners out there in in foggy London town,

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Speaker 1: hit us up. If you got a spare room, crash

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Speaker 1: on your spare room in a private jet, let us know.

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Speaker 1: We'll hop right over the pond. Yes, we don't like

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Speaker 1: to fly scheduled. Well, hey, everybody, we're glad to have

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Speaker 1: you back of course we're spending a lot of time

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Speaker 1: in England today. Yeah, you might have guests. Yeah, very

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Speaker 1: exciting for us for everyone. Hopefully are UK listeners are

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Speaker 1: super indoit um, Hopefully all our former colonies out there

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Speaker 1: in the world are okay with it, and yeah, how's

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Speaker 1: everybody doing. We saw Incanto, we did watch in Kanto,

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Speaker 1: spend in my head for days, we don't talk about Bruno.

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Speaker 1: I had stuck in my head all day. Yesterday I

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Speaker 1: finally was singing something else. I had a different any

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Speaker 1: or weren't going on completely tame and Paula, I was

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Speaker 1: like totally different. And then you came in singing we

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Speaker 1: don't talk about Bruno, and it ruined the rest of

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Speaker 1: my night because you brought it right back around. Of course,

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Speaker 1: look there's were songs stuff stuck in here. It's a banger.

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Speaker 1: That's why somebody was definitely like dancing. I just did

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Speaker 1: the thing where I was like, it's in my head,

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Speaker 1: so let me listen to it twelve times in a row.

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Speaker 1: And then that's never the answer. Never. I always think

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Speaker 1: it will work, and it never. It just makes it worse. Well,

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Speaker 1: it really made me want to find a Columbian love story.

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Speaker 1: That wasn't about a drug cartel, so if anyone has one.

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Speaker 1: But today we're not in Columbia, as you said, we

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Speaker 1: are in foggy London town. Sorry, where is that again?

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Speaker 1: You know foggy London Know we're in London? Is where?

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Speaker 1: Because today we're talking about Oscar wild the one and only,

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Speaker 1: one and only famous author, playwright, witty wit wittier wit

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Speaker 1: right right, yeah, wit right who I'm a wit right.

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Speaker 1: It's very hard to say, but as you said, a

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Speaker 1: very famous wit, very famous author, very famous playwright, and

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Speaker 1: also famously gay. His passionate and tumultuous relationship with Lord

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Speaker 1: Alfred Douglas led to a very public trial, a brutal sentence,

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Speaker 1: and eventually his death, all because of Alfred's dad, the

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Speaker 1: Marquis of Queensbury. So let's hear all about the world

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Speaker 1: of the gay Victorian underground, the trial of Oscar Wilde,

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Speaker 1: and all the bad things that can happen when you

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Speaker 1: have a crap boyfriend. Oh it sounds like a lot,

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Speaker 1: let's do it. Yeah, Hey, they're French, Come listen. Well,

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Speaker 1: Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no

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Speaker 1: matchmaking a romantic tips. It's just about pridiculous relationships. A

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Speaker 1: lover might be any type of person at all, and

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Speaker 1: abstract concept a concrete wall. But if there's a story

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Speaker 1: with the second class ridiculous roles A production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty four, and he was a brilliant scholar all

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Speaker 1: throughout his school years. He ended up getting a half

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Speaker 1: scholarship to Magdalene College at Oxford by easily winning an

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Speaker 1: essay contest. He studied Greek literature, excelled academically, wrote some

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Speaker 1: okay poems and essays, but he hadn't quite found his

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Speaker 1: signature style and voices. However, he was becoming more and

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Speaker 1: more well known in London society for his style, wit

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Speaker 1: and charm, because he was really big in the esthetic movement,

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Speaker 1: which was all about making art simply to make art,

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Speaker 1: instead of making art to serve some kind of religious

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Speaker 1: or moral or educational purpose. You know, it's been called

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Speaker 1: art for art's sake. Yeah, Like I can paint a cat,

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Speaker 1: so I'm going to paint a really good cat, and

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Speaker 1: I'm not. It's not a lesson. That cat isn't society.

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Speaker 1: The cat is the King of England. The cat's not

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Speaker 1: looking at the queen. It's just a damn good cat.

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Speaker 1: Don't you want to look at this cat painting? It's

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Speaker 1: a bit of cat. Yeah, okay, yeah exactly, And it

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Speaker 1: led to a prolific amount of art from like all

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Speaker 1: artistic mediums, fashion, literature, you know, painting, music, everything, because

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Speaker 1: it opened the world up so much. If you don't

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Speaker 1: have a purpose to make something, just to make it,

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Speaker 1: you're going to make more of it because you got

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Speaker 1: no purpose. And because of that, it has been criticized

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Speaker 1: that a lot of the art made from this esthetic movement,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of self indulgent and empty. So

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Speaker 1: it's like George W. Painting cats. Yeah, it's like George W.

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Speaker 1: Painting rights. He's like, you know what, I did one thing,

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Speaker 1: now I'm doing another thing. It means nothing I did before.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. Look at the look at the cat,

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Speaker 1: at the cats, and yeah. I think it's funny that

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Speaker 1: they would criticize it as being self indulgent and empty,

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Speaker 1: when the sees would be like, yeah, yeah, exactly, that's

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Speaker 1: the point. The criticism is the point. Yeah, it would

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Speaker 1: be like some guy walks new museum. Oh, well was

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Speaker 1: the oldest aesthetic art doesn't seem to have a lot

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Speaker 1: of meaning or purpose to it. Yes, exactly saucy, he

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Speaker 1: gets it. But Oscar Wilde was super into it. He

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Speaker 1: was all about the aesthetic movement and he lived that ship.

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Speaker 1: He didn't just talk the talk, he walked the walk.

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Speaker 1: He wore his hair long and flowing. He decorated his

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Speaker 1: rooms with peacock feathers and lilies and sunflowers and blue

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Speaker 1: china and other object dart. He entertained lavishly, even though

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Speaker 1: he wasn't like a rich guy, but he would just

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Speaker 1: be like whatever moneys for spending. He even gave the

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Speaker 1: movement it's slogan when he told a friend quote, I

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Speaker 1: find it harder and harder every day to live up

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Speaker 1: to my blue China, And that quickly became a famous

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Speaker 1: line as seats loved it. They totally adapted it as

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Speaker 1: a tagline, but it was also used against them by

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Speaker 1: critics who thought esthetes him was stupid and pointless, and

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Speaker 1: they were like, see they're trying to live up two dishes,

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Speaker 1: like what is going on over here? And Oscar wild

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Speaker 1: was also openly scornful of quote unquote manly sports, but

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Speaker 1: he did occasionally box, and once in college he was

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Speaker 1: physically attacked by four other students and he dealt with

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Speaker 1: them single handedly. So you might look at Oscar wild

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Speaker 1: and be like that dandy, I could knock him down

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Speaker 1: with one punch, but nope, he accounted for himself very well.

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Speaker 1: He seems like a big guy in his pictures. He

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Speaker 1: was actually six three three. Yeah, he looks like kind

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Speaker 1: of a strapping lad. Oh look at that. Artists, let's

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Speaker 1: go and beat him up, fellas they stands up. Look

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Speaker 1: a lovely piece of blue china. You got that. So

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Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde already something of celebrity in certain circles. But

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Speaker 1: when he graduated, he was kind of like, okay, know

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Speaker 1: now what as many of us do once we graduate.

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Speaker 1: So he went back to Ireland for a little while,

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Speaker 1: only to find that his first love, Florence Belcombe, had

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Speaker 1: married a guy named Bram Stoker. He's like that bloody bloodsucker,

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Speaker 1: that hack. He'll never write a single book anyone remembers.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, a collection of letters and journal entrees. How exciting. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I did not like Dracula. That didn't just didn't do

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Speaker 1: it for me. It's a good movie though, dear mena

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Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah love Lucy. Oh it was

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Speaker 1: cloudy today. What do I do? Yes, very creepy aesthetically, Well,

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Speaker 1: there you go esthetically. Yeah. So he's a little bummed

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Speaker 1: about her marrying this this other author, but he gave

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Speaker 1: her his best wishes for happy marriage, and he decided

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Speaker 1: to go live in England full time. He set himself

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Speaker 1: up in London and started looking around for work, but

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Speaker 1: there wasn't really a lot. I guess not too many

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Speaker 1: industries were looking for a Greek scholar. You know, there's

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Speaker 1: no sign at McDonald's like now hiring Greek scholars to

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Speaker 1: twelve dollars an hour. So he started writing poems and

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Speaker 1: stories for magazines, and eventually he published a book of

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Speaker 1: his own poems, which sold out it's seven and fifty copies,

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Speaker 1: but critically it was totally panned. Punch magazine said, quote,

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Speaker 1: the poet is wild, but his poetry is tame. How

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Speaker 1: druel h ha, ha's mine. That's a good burn, though,

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Speaker 1: I have to say, that's a pretty good burn. Well,

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Speaker 1: when your name's wild, you're just inviting. I just feel

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Speaker 1: like Oscar Wild is the type to have read that

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Speaker 1: and been like, oh, I should have thought of that.

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Speaker 1: Pretty good. Fortunately, Gilbert and Sullivan were about to premier

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Speaker 1: their satirical musical about aestheticism called Patients. So the producer

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Speaker 1: this show was like, hey, Oscar Wild, why don't you

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Speaker 1: go to a lecture tour on the aesthetic movement in

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Speaker 1: the United States and get all those Yanks hungry for

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Speaker 1: this musical. And he went over there and did that

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Speaker 1: for nearly a year. He was well received, although he

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Speaker 1: was also subject to a lot of anti Irish characaturization

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Speaker 1: in the press. Yes, unfortunately, Irish people not not well

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Speaker 1: loved in America at this time, and so yeah, some

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Speaker 1: of the some of the stuff is so gross too.

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Speaker 1: They called him a black face performer, and they portrayed

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Speaker 1: him as a monkey monkey that that's now you're being

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Speaker 1: racist to someone who's not even in the conversation, right,

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Speaker 1: Why don't Dragon Boss with the drive? Nobody asked, but

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Speaker 1: they're all like, what for once we weren't talking about us,

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Speaker 1: Please leave me alone. In eighteen eighty one, before he

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Speaker 1: left for this Gilbert and Sullivan tour, he had met

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Speaker 1: a woman named Constance Lloyd, and when he was back

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Speaker 1: in England. In eighteen eighty four he proposed to her

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Speaker 1: and they got married and they had two boys together,

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Speaker 1: Cyril in eighteen eighty five and Vivian in eighteen eighty six.

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Speaker 1: They lived mostly on Constance's yearly allowance of two hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty pounds. Let's see how much that is. It

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Speaker 1: can pull up the machine. That's about thirty three thou

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Speaker 1: one hundred pounds today or thousand, eight hundred and sixteen dollars.

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Speaker 1: So that's that's kind of a normal in an average

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Speaker 1: yearly income, I guess. But Oscar also continued to tour

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Speaker 1: and lecture about aestheticism, interior design and art, and in

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty six, during one of these lecture tours, he

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Speaker 1: met Robert Ross. Now Robbie Ross was a precocious seventeen

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Speaker 1: year old. He had already read Oscar's poems, and he

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Speaker 1: was determined to meet Oscar Wilde. According to Richard Elman,

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Speaker 1: who won Upulitzer Prize for his Oscar wild biography from

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, it's basically considered the definitive work on

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Speaker 1: Oscar Wild's life. Robbie Ross was intent on seducing Oscar

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Speaker 1: wild So even though he was so much younger and

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Speaker 1: a teenager. Um, he was kind of like, oh, this

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Speaker 1: guy's funny. We're doing it. We are doing it, And

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Speaker 1: apparently he initiated him into the wonderful world of gay sex.

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Speaker 1: Robby's a pretty cool historical figure here, um. Sort of

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Speaker 1: in the background of Oscar Wild's life, but totally worth

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Speaker 1: leaking into because he was super open about his sexuality

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Speaker 1: in a time when it was totally illegal to be

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Speaker 1: to engage in homosexual activity. He made no secret of it.

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Speaker 1: He was really open about it in college, so he

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Speaker 1: was mercilessly bullied at Cambridge. Um. He eventually came out

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Speaker 1: to his parents and was honest with them about his lifestyle. Um.

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Speaker 1: But fortunately for him, he was kind of rich enough

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Speaker 1: to like live off his inheritance. He didn't really have

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Speaker 1: to conform in order to survive anything. Could just kind

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Speaker 1: of do whatever he wanted. UM, So he lived out loud.

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Speaker 1: You know, He's like, I got enough money, I'll do

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Speaker 1: what I want. You're telling me there was privilege for

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Speaker 1: this wealthy kid. The rich kid with an inheritance didn't

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Speaker 1: have to follow the same rules as everyone else. Take

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Speaker 1: your mind back in time and try to understand it

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Speaker 1: used to be. It doesn't make a lot of sense

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Speaker 1: to me. And yeah, he would be a lifelong friend

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Speaker 1: of Oscar Wild's. Ye, so Oscar's private life is getting

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Speaker 1: more interesting here, but his day job is not. He

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Speaker 1: edited a women's magazine for two years. Boring. He edited

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Speaker 1: a women's magazine for two years, but he did hate

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Speaker 1: the daily office and the and the commute and on

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Speaker 1: the grind and all that. Once he left the magazine,

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Speaker 1: he published more long pros and essays about a stheticism,

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Speaker 1: and he started to find his voice. He published The

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Speaker 1: Picture of Dorian Gray in first it was a short

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Speaker 1: story in a magazine, and it was immediately attacked by

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Speaker 1: critics as having homosexual undertones. So he struck back in

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Speaker 1: a letter basically saying that if you look for gold,

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Speaker 1: you find gold, and if you look for shite, you

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Speaker 1: find shite. Lucky is that you. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: he had an Irish or a British accent. I do

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Speaker 1: know that that wasn't an Irish accent. Whatever's which I

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Speaker 1: do kind of love that, because he was sort of

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Speaker 1: trying to turn it on the critics and be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: if you find something homosexual in that that's your own,

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Speaker 1: that's you, you know, like you're you're fine in that

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Speaker 1: just to try to, you know, mess with them a

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Speaker 1: little bit. So I think that's kind of smart. But regardless,

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Speaker 1: he did still massively rework the story, and he added

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Speaker 1: six chapters, and he cut a lot of what it

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Speaker 1: might have been considered homo eroticism, and because I mean,

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Speaker 1: even the esthete's got to eat not paying my power bill.

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Speaker 1: But in the preface he included epigrams like quote, there

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Speaker 1: is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.

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Speaker 1: Books are well written or badly written. That is all.

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Speaker 1: He also said this, which I think sums up aestheticism

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Speaker 1: really well. Quote All art is at once surface and symbol.

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Speaker 1: Those who go beneath the service do so at their peril.

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Speaker 1: Those who read the symbol do so at their paris.

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Speaker 1: It is the spectator and not life that arn't really mirrors.

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Speaker 1: Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that

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Speaker 1: the work is new, complex and vital. When critics disagree,

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Speaker 1: the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive

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Speaker 1: a man for making a useful thing as long as

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Speaker 1: he does not admire it. The only excuse for making

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Speaker 1: a useless thing, is that one admires it intensely. All

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Speaker 1: art is quite useless. That's so interesting, really like this

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Speaker 1: outlook on art. I think, I think, I think I

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Speaker 1: might be an estate who do UM. But I think

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Speaker 1: that's so cool to say, you know, it's the spectator

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Speaker 1: and not life. That arn't mirrors, because he was kind

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Speaker 1: of saying that to the critic, like, if you're looking

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Speaker 1: for something in something, you'll find it. But it's mostly

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Speaker 1: it's more about you and what you're looking for than

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Speaker 1: what the artists put out, because when you analyze art,

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Speaker 1: you're using your own experiences to do it, your own knowledge,

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Speaker 1: things you've picked up along the way. So whatever you're

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Speaker 1: seeing is what you're seeing, and that says more about

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Speaker 1: you than the work. Yeah, I think that's great. I

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Speaker 1: think that's really interesting. And I love too that he's like,

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Speaker 1: you can make a useful thing, but you can't admire it.

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Speaker 1: And if you make something that's not useful, it must

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Speaker 1: be just because you love it so much you just

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Speaker 1: think it's so beautiful, Which the second half of that

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Speaker 1: I agree with the first one. I don't know as

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Speaker 1: much UM, And that's kind of one of the thing

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Speaker 1: about the aesthetic movement and a lot of art movements

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Speaker 1: that end up being so definitive. It really just kind

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Speaker 1: of shows that line where what you think art is

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Speaker 1: because there's a lot of people that think there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of art in math and science, and there's an

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Speaker 1: art to that, and you're creating, you know, necessary things

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Speaker 1: with a creative mind. So I don't know, it's just

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Speaker 1: it's that about what's what's art? Who knows? It's everything,

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Speaker 1: it's nothing, it's in the eye of the behold, right.

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Speaker 1: But I will say what I like about this too,

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Speaker 1: is that the time period. Of course, you know, they're

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Speaker 1: coming out of a time period when everything was made

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Speaker 1: very much for like oh this is to glory glorify God,

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Speaker 1: or this is you know, to show you something educational,

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Speaker 1: or women do watercolors because what else are they doing?

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Speaker 1: Like you know, like there's no uh, you know what

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Speaker 1: I mean. And so it's pretty cool that they were

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Speaker 1: all like, you know, actually, I don't I don't think

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Speaker 1: you should have to have a reason. I think the

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Speaker 1: reason enough to want to do it. And that, as

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Speaker 1: we said, that did open up to a lot of

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Speaker 1: a lot more art, and maybe some of it was

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Speaker 1: not anything you care about. But at least it got

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Speaker 1: more people interested in art and interested in creating and

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Speaker 1: the process of creating, and anyway, I think that's cool, definitely.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety one, Oscar was introduced to Lord Alfred Douglas.

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Speaker 1: Alfred was handsome and young, but he was also selfish, spoiled,

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Speaker 1: insolent and reckless, and through him, Oscar was introduced to

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Speaker 1: the underground gay scene in Victorian England. So let's have

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Speaker 1: a quick fling with history. So, yeah, you know, ridiculous

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Speaker 1: romance listeners know that being gay in any time period

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Speaker 1: is nothing new, so we don't have to be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: they're definitely gay people throughout time, you know that. And

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Speaker 1: in England, if you were gay in the eighteenth and

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Speaker 1: nineteen centuries, you would go out looking for something called

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Speaker 1: a molly house. I know, right, I've heard of molly

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Speaker 1: houses today and they're very different, very different. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: molly was kind of a term for a gay person

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Speaker 1: and it could be used either as a slur or

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Speaker 1: they would also adopt it themselves. Um, and so anyway,

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Speaker 1: these places were called molly houses, and they were places

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Speaker 1: for gay men to meet up and drink and party.

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Speaker 1: And flirt and have sex in relative safety and privacy.

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Speaker 1: And they were sometimes coffee shops or pubs, and sometimes

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Speaker 1: they were private residences. And of course there's no advertisement.

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Speaker 1: You know, this is very word of mouth. Somebody had

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Speaker 1: to kind of pick up that you were maybe similar

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Speaker 1: to them, and then they would lisp, you can come

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Speaker 1: here on Thursday night whatever. But it was very dangerous

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Speaker 1: because entrapment was common. Police officers very often pose as

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Speaker 1: gay men, go in and get all kinds of info

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Speaker 1: on everybody there. And thanks to King Henry the Eighth

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Speaker 1: Buggery Act of fifty three, having sex with another man

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Speaker 1: or an animal was punishable by death, because you know,

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Speaker 1: those two things are the exact same thing. I mean,

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Speaker 1: come on, people, come on, King Henry. King Henry a

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Speaker 1: man with with no issues in his sexual history. We

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Speaker 1: have not even on King Henry the eighth. He's like,

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Speaker 1: only I can buggery anyone the king. But however, it

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Speaker 1: was actually pretty rare to be charged under the Buggery Act.

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Speaker 1: It was pretty rare that you were convicted. Pretty uncommon

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Speaker 1: for somebody to be like, let me say something owell

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Speaker 1: you know, considered to be foul. It looks like I'm

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Speaker 1: thinking some really gross thing to say it, And unless

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Speaker 1: you caught someone actively buggering, you would not probably not

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Speaker 1: accuse anyone of it, because because you could be like,

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Speaker 1: you accuse me of buggery, Well, that's that says an

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Speaker 1: awful lot about you thinking about what I got up

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Speaker 1: to in bed every night. Maybe I'll accuse you of buggery.

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Speaker 1: And then he takes his glove and slaps him in

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Speaker 1: the face. Buggery, duel, bugger off. That's where bugger off

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Speaker 1: came from. That's probably there's a false history lesson for you.

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Speaker 1: That was incorrect. I just to point out that the

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Speaker 1: Buggery Act of fifteen thirty three, and now we're talking

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Speaker 1: about the eighteen nineties, so this is three years later.

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Speaker 1: This law endured very long time, and I think partly

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Speaker 1: that's because it was so rare that it was used,

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like people weren't really applying

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Speaker 1: it very much. It was just kind of there on

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Speaker 1: the books. But then a series of pretty public scandals

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Speaker 1: changed everything. Because in seventeen twenty six, so hundred and

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Speaker 1: seventy years before Oscar Wild's time, a woman named Mother

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Speaker 1: Clap ran one of these molly houses, and this place

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Speaker 1: was bumping. It was just dozens of men there any

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Speaker 1: given night, especially Sundays. I guess it was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I went to church this morning, got a clean slate

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Speaker 1: with God. Time to go have some fun. Night off

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Speaker 1: on a high note. So the lurid details of what

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Speaker 1: went on in this molly House included fiddling and body songs.

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Speaker 1: Fiddling that like with a fiddle. Not get your mind

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Speaker 1: out of the gutter. We're talking about fiddling here or

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Speaker 1: not not diddling um. But men also quote used their

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Speaker 1: hands indecently, so a little diddling diddling um. Men would

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Speaker 1: kiss with each other and and act like women whatever

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Speaker 1: that meant at the time. The cop was like they

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Speaker 1: would stand up, oh fi, so like they would say

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Speaker 1: things that only only women say. Oh tell you like giggling,

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Speaker 1: just you know, drag behavior and you know. Of course

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Speaker 1: there was lots of drinking, obviously. There was also a

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Speaker 1: room with a big double bed in it where men

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Speaker 1: could go get quote married as they called it, and

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Speaker 1: the door was left wide open sometimes so everyone could

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Speaker 1: watch these men go in and get married. Wink wink.

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Speaker 1: One day mother claps molly House got raided and forty

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Speaker 1: men were arrested. Apparently Mother Clap owned this Molly House

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Speaker 1: with her husband John, and at her trial the constable

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Speaker 1: set of her quote she was present all the time

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Speaker 1: except when she went out to fetch liquus. The company

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Speaker 1: talked all manner of gross and vile obscenity in her hearing,

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Speaker 1: and she appeared to be wonderfully pleased with all of it.

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Speaker 1: Mother Clap sounds like a great time, although I have

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Speaker 1: to say they must not have had the word clap

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Speaker 1: for an std at that point, because that would be

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Speaker 1: a terrible Molly House like go to mother, Syphilis is

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Speaker 1: Molly House. The trials of these men went on for months,

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Speaker 1: with three of them eventually hanged, and Mother Clap was

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Speaker 1: put in the stocks. She was treated so roughly by

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Speaker 1: the crowd that she fainted several times and had to

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Speaker 1: be carried back to the jail in convulsive fits. After this,

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Speaker 1: nothing more is known of her. That's which is doesn't

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Speaker 1: bode well for Molly Mother Claps fate. No, but it's

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Speaker 1: cool that you know, we had a cool heterosexual lady

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Speaker 1: hanging out with all the gay guys. Back at the

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Speaker 1: seventeen andreus So raids and entrapment continued for years. Many

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Speaker 1: men were killed either through legal means or not until

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Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty one the death penalty for buggery was

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Speaker 1: abolished and the punishment was changed life imprisonment. And then

423
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy, Thomas Bolton and Frederick Park, who were

424
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: in a relationship with each other and they often went

425
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,439
Speaker 1: out and about in women's clothing as Stella and Fanny,

426
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: were arrested after being under surveillance for a year and

427
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:21,160
Speaker 1: they were actually examined by the police surgeon to see

428
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: if they had had anal sex like the police surgeon

429
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 1: made them undress and like poked around in their butt holes,

430
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 1: like that's so gross and weird, why would you do that?

431
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: Also not indicative, not indicative, like all this writing of

432
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:36,719
Speaker 1: them being like it was open the rector was a

433
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: certain biometer, like what are you doing? So fortunately that

434
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: was found to be not reliable evidence of sexual crimes

435
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 1: and also very inappropriate that the police surgeon to have done.

436
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:51,880
Speaker 1: So that was a win for British justice on that one.

437
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: I feel like and at the time, cross dressing was

438
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:57,960
Speaker 1: not illegal. It was mostly associated with the stage. Both

439
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 1: of these men were actors, so it was not that

440
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,120
Speaker 1: unusual for them to be wearing women's clothing, and they

441
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: both were like, we just did it to be funny,

442
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 1: you know, go out and see if people would believe

443
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 1: us or whatever. Ha ha, so funny. So they just

444
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:13,200
Speaker 1: had to pay a fine basically for disturbing the piece.

445
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:16,600
Speaker 1: And then eighty police were tipped off about this huge

446
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: drag ball in Manchester. It had a bouncer dressed as

447
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: a nun, the windows were covered, and they had a

448
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:28,640
Speaker 1: blind accordion player. It sounds like one of Stefan's. We've

449
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:31,680
Speaker 1: got a bouncer dressed as a nun, the windows are covered,

450
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:35,400
Speaker 1: there's a blind accordion player. This is totally a Stefan bit.

451
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for these gay guys who are just like

452
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: hanging out in somewhere in London one day and they

453
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 1: turn and see an accordion player and go, that chap

454
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: is blind. We've got to get him for our next party.

455
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: He won't be able to see a thing. The police

456
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: observed nearly fifty men in that place having a gay

457
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:56,920
Speaker 1: old time, eight of them in women's clothing. The ball

458
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:00,359
Speaker 1: was shut down and everyone there had their names printed

459
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 1: in the paper. But they were granted bail and ended

460
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: up just paying a fine. But then, of course, these

461
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:08,680
Speaker 1: were all huge scandals that kicked up a lot of

462
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: hullabaloo in the press. Eventually, it led to the introduction

463
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: of the labou Share Amendment. In this broadened the Buggery

464
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: Act to make any instance of quote, gross indecency punishable

465
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 1: with hard labor. Basically because charges of sodomy were hard

466
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,919
Speaker 1: to prove unless the men were actively having sex when

467
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 1: they were discovered. By expanding the definition to gross indecency,

468
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 1: you could arrest and charge a lot more men for less.

469
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 1: So it really gave you that blanket power of just

470
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,360
Speaker 1: being like, well, I didn't like that made me uncomfortable,

471
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: So you're under arrest. It's like gay panic stuff, yeah,

472
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: sort of. Yeah. And it made it so like, oh,

473
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: these guys walking around a women's clothing, I can charge

474
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:56,160
Speaker 1: them for that in a way that they weren't I

475
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:58,439
Speaker 1: wasn't able to before, you know what I mean. So

476
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:01,240
Speaker 1: that's just a very brief sketch on the underground gave

477
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: Victorian scene and how the law stood and everything. Um,

478
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: And speaking of the underground gay scene, here are some commercials. Yeah,

479
00:28:13,119 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 1: sure we can do it with that. If our commercials

480
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 1: about a underground gay scene, that's pretty awesome. That's pretty cool. Well, anyway,

481
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 1: whatever they're about, here are some commercials. Will be right

482
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 1: back again and welcome back to the show. So Oscar

483
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: Wilde is being introduced to the world of molly houses

484
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: and male prostitutes and rent boys from eighteen nine two

485
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,959
Speaker 1: onwards by his new boyfriend Alfred Douglas, as well as

486
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: a guy named Alfred Taylor, who introduced Oscar to several

487
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: young working class male prostitutes over the next couple of years.

488
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: These were kind of infrequent dalliances, I guess you could say, um,

489
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,440
Speaker 1: but they happened often enough. He would meet these boys,

490
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: offer them gifts, dine with them ivt lee, and then

491
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:05,520
Speaker 1: take them to a hotel room. Meanwhile, he's also still

492
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: with Alfred Douglas. They're arguing passionately, they're breaking up, they're

493
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: getting back together several times. We all know this couple,

494
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: and you know, by all accounts, Lord Alfred Douglas sucked.

495
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: I mean he sucked. He demanded Oscar spend a bunch

496
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: of money on him to indulge his every whim. Oscar

497
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: once nursed him back to health when he was sick

498
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 1: with the flu. But when Oscar caught the flu from Alfred.

499
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: Alfred took himself to a luxurious hotel while Oscar suffered alone,

500
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: and then, on Oscar's fortieth birthday, Alfred informed him that

501
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: he had charged the hotel to Oscar. Happy birthday, Happy birthday,

502
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: pay my hotel bill. Unbelievable, little ship. And he would

503
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: also give away his old clothes to male prostitutes and

504
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: carelessly leave incriminating letters between him and Oscar in the

505
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: pop so, of course these male prostitutes would find them

506
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: and use them as blackmail. Unbelievable. So he's just vain.

507
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: He's self center, doesn't give a shit about anybody but himself.

508
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 1: But Oscar was smitten with Alfred. He even brought him

509
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 1: to his house to meet his sons, which apparently Constance

510
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: did not like. Yeah, remember Constance, Oscar's wife that he's

511
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: married to. Remember the wife well back in six after

512
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: she had their second son, Apparently they just became sexually estranged.

513
00:30:32,360 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 1: One source says that she lost interest in sex. Another

514
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 1: said Oscar was physically repulsed by her after she gave

515
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: birth twice. Who knows, I mean, I kind of hope

516
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 1: it's not the second one. That whatever it was, it's

517
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: given as the reason that Oscar was willing to experiment

518
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 1: sexually with Robbie Ross, although even that feels like a stretch. Yeah,

519
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 1: I'll throw in that. That that comes from Richard Elman again,

520
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 1: that biography was it in so you know, you might

521
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: be in the eighties looking for a reason why someone

522
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: who seemed straight would experiment with a man. But today

523
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 1: we're kind of like he just wanted to try it,

524
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: wanted to try it. It's fine. Well I wouldn't, but

525
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: I haven't had sex with my wife lately, so I

526
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: guess I'll give it a shot. Oh what do you know?

527
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: I liked it, like, come on, God. But by Oscar

528
00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 1: was living mostly in hotels rather than at home. Richard

529
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: Elman's biography says that once he warned his sons about

530
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: what happened to naughty boys who made their mother cry,

531
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 1: and his sons asked, him, well, Daddy, what happens to

532
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: absent papa's who make mothers cry? M hmm, explain riddle

533
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 1: me that, daddy. That is so brutal. I wonder if

534
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: Oscar wall. I was like, oh god, God again, it's

535
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: definitely my kid, though, you little smart ass. I'd slap

536
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,720
Speaker 1: you if I wasn't so proud, But apparently Oscar and

537
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: Constance stayed on good terms and the boys did have

538
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: a happy childhood. Constance was also a writer and she

539
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:18,760
Speaker 1: published some children's stories on her own, So, you know,

540
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 1: speculation station. I wonder if, like she didn't like the

541
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: intrusion of Lord Alfred coming into the house because she

542
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 1: didn't like the fact that he had a boyfriend, or

543
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 1: maybe he just sucked and she didn't like him. That's

544
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 1: what I'm wondering. Yes, that's like Constance, like, okay, you

545
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: brought your boyfriend. Whatever. God, this kid sucks, get him

546
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:43,280
Speaker 1: out of my house. Brought the most obnoxious child in

547
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 1: England into my home, spoiled Brett. But Alfred Douglas was

548
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: not only super bratty and annoying. He also had a

549
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: super annoying father. Many of us don't like our in laws.

550
00:32:57,760 --> 00:32:59,480
Speaker 1: This is the worst in law you can think of.

551
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: His father was John Douglas, the ninth Earl of Queensbury,

552
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 1: and this guy was a man's man, a Queensbury nothing

553
00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: quite as manly as a Queensboro. Yeah, he was real

554
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 1: big into boxing. He invented the Queensbury Rules of boxing actually,

555
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: which still serve as the foundation for modern day boxing rules,

556
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 1: and it also opened up the sport to competitors who

557
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 1: were not born in the upper classes. Um so that's

558
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 1: kind of cool from our perspective, I guess. But from

559
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: the perspective of his peers of the day, they did

560
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 1: not like that ship. They're like, we're high society. We

561
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: don't want to rub shoulders with these pedestrians, you know. Also,

562
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 1: he had been divorced his first wife, and Alfred's mother,

563
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: Sybil Montgomery, had four kids with John and then she

564
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, I've had enough, and she

565
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 1: she divorced him for adultery, and then he married another

566
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: woman named ethel Weims, but that marriage was annulled before

567
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 1: their first anniversary. I think this guy is hard to

568
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:20,879
Speaker 1: live with, is what I'm picking up. And that's very

569
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: scandalous in this day and age to be divorced and

570
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: have all these you know, x is running around and stuff.

571
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: So people were like, not fan, not a fan of him.

572
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 1: And on top of that, he was also brutish and rude.

573
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 1: He just seemed like a real pill to have around

574
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 1: in the drawing room. He was also the jealous type.

575
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: His title was Scottish, which meant that he didn't get

576
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: an automatic seat in the House of Lords like the

577
00:34:42,719 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 1: British titles did. However, in eighteen seventy two he was

578
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: elected to the House of Lords as a representative pier.

579
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: But when it came time to renew his oath of

580
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 1: office in eighteen eighty he refused. He was an outspoken

581
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: atheist and he thought that swearing on the Bible was

582
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 1: quote Christian tomb jewelry, and he said that his word

583
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 1: as a gentleman should suffice. So they expelled him from

584
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 1: the House of Lords and he was never elected again.

585
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: But in eighteen ninety two his son and heir, Francis Douglas,

586
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: became the private secretary for the new Foreign Secretary, Archibald Primrose,

587
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:23,719
Speaker 1: fifth Earl of Roseberry. Archibald Primrose is such a good

588
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 1: English name, Archibald Primrose, fifth Earl of Roseberry. It's so British.

589
00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 1: Ask for more British name. I love it beautiful. A

590
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 1: few months later, Archibald arranged to have Francis created a baron,

591
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: which gave him a seat in the House of Lords,

592
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 1: the one thing his father couldn't have. So that made

593
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 1: John Douglas Earl of Queensbury very mad with jealousy, and

594
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: they fought bitterly about it, so his son got what

595
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 1: he couldn't have. He's all pussy about him. Yeah, he's

596
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: been a jerk, instead of being happy for him, being

597
00:35:58,040 --> 00:35:59,800
Speaker 1: glad that from now on they had a seat in

598
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:03,560
Speaker 1: the how of Lords. Whatever. And then he started hearing

599
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 1: rumors that Francis and Archibald were having a sexual relationship whatever. Disgusting.

600
00:36:11,880 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: He was not into that ship at all. He hated

601
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 1: a feminine behavior, hated dandies, hated anything soft, you know.

602
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 1: He started harassing them both about it. He even threatened

603
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:27,879
Speaker 1: to horsewhip Roseberry in and had to be dissuaded by

604
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:31,720
Speaker 1: the Prince of Wales. And there is some evidence that Roseberry,

605
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:34,640
Speaker 1: although he was happily married to Hannah de rothschild and

606
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: father to several children, was possibly homosexual or bisexual. There

607
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,840
Speaker 1: were links to several men, including Francis, in his lifetime,

608
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 1: so it's possible that they actually were having a physical relationship.

609
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 1: And then in October of eight, Francis died from a

610
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: gunshot wound and it was put out as an accidental

611
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: death during a shooting trip, but the rumors were going

612
00:36:57,040 --> 00:37:00,839
Speaker 1: around that it was actually a suicide, that Francis had

613
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: been distraught after his affair with Roseberry ended, and Queensberry

614
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 1: seems to have believed this. He wrote in a letter

615
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 1: that quote snob queers like Roseberry had corrupted Francis and

616
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 1: led indirectly to his death. Wow. That's uh, that's dark,

617
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:21,919
Speaker 1: and that's not a very distant story. No. I feel

618
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,879
Speaker 1: like you hear these stories today here in America too,

619
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 1: just really disapproving fathers being really judgmental their children and

620
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:33,720
Speaker 1: then blaming who their children just are on them being miserable,

621
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: instead of being like, hey, dad, maybe you're the reason

622
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 1: they're miserable. Maybe you're the reason they don't feel like

623
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:41,319
Speaker 1: they belong in this world series. Hey, maybe you should

624
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: stop doing that. Well, he don't have He did not

625
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: have the capacity to examine his actions in any way

626
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: except for how they affected him directly. I challenged that

627
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:55,799
Speaker 1: he did and chose not to. I think we all

628
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 1: have the capacity to stop it, to quit be an asshole.

629
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: Why don't you just stop it? So maybe it's no

630
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 1: surprise that when Queensbury heard the rumors that his third son, Alfred,

631
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:12,439
Speaker 1: was having a sexual relationship with Oscar Wilde. He immediately

632
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 1: made it his life's work to shut that down post taste.

633
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 1: This is a noted dandy, Oscar Wilde, with a biting wit,

634
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 1: who was rumored to have once paraded down Piccadilly holding

635
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:28,520
Speaker 1: a single white lily. I love it. That's like a

636
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 1: paradise worthy story. They're like a man walked down a

637
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: street with a flower. Oh my God, call the king,

638
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 1: calling the gods, what's happening. He was everything Queensbury most

639
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,360
Speaker 1: detested in the world. He wrote several times to Alfred,

640
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: demanding to know if the rumors were true, and threatened

641
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: to cut off his allowance if he didn't stop hanging

642
00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 1: out with Oscar Wilde. Alfred simply replied, quote what a

643
00:38:55,719 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: funny little man you are to his father, which of

644
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:04,959
Speaker 1: course was like perfectly calculated just to enrage his dad

645
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: even more, and he replied, calling Alfred quote a miserable

646
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: creature and saying that when he was born quote I

647
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 1: cried over you the bitterest tears a man ever shed

648
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:21,280
Speaker 1: that I had brought such a creature into the world

649
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 1: and unwittingly committed such a crime. Yeah. Yeah. He also

650
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:30,319
Speaker 1: said that he had divorced Alfred's mother, Sybil, so as

651
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 1: not to quote run the risk of bringing more creatures

652
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 1: into the world like yourself. Unbelievable. And it's your this

653
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: comes from your mother's side. It's your mother's doing that.

654
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: You're like this, never mind that it was actually Sibyl

655
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 1: who was the one who positioned for divorce. Okay, I

656
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: guess you're leaving out some real important details, dad, And yeah,

657
00:39:53,320 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: just gross to blame someone's sexuality. First of all, it's

658
00:39:56,440 --> 00:40:00,400
Speaker 1: gross to blame anyone's sexuality on anything. But then to

659
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 1: also say it's it's your mother's fault. That's what I mean.

660
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:06,240
Speaker 1: We have more kids together, she'll she'll do the same. Yeah.

661
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: I just don't think he has an ability to see

662
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 1: anything outside of his own context, you know. So he

663
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 1: went on to threaten his son with a scandal of

664
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: epic proportions by exposing Oscar Wilde to the public. And

665
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 1: this was a real threat because while all this is

666
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:29,000
Speaker 1: going on, Oscar Wilde's fame was growing and growing. Um.

667
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:33,399
Speaker 1: He debuted his Victorian drawing room comedy Lady Windermere's Fan

668
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:37,800
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety two. It was instantly an insanely popular

669
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 1: He followed that up in eighteen ninety three with another hit,

670
00:40:41,239 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: A Woman of No Importance, and he was commissioned to

671
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 1: write two more plays. He wrote An Ideal Husband in

672
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: E and it debut January. So the guy is trending, okay,

673
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 1: he's the darling of the theater world. Hilarious, brilliant, subversive,

674
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:01,960
Speaker 1: and he was going out publicly with Lord Alfred Douglas.

675
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,919
Speaker 1: You know, they're being pretty flamboyant about their relationship. If

676
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 1: not out and proud, at least they were not properly

677
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 1: ashamed of themselves, you know what I mean. Like people

678
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: are like, you can be gay in private, but as

679
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:17,239
Speaker 1: soon as you start putting it in my face, now

680
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 1: I've got to feel some type of way about it. Again,

681
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:24,439
Speaker 1: not totally unrelatable to today's world, exactly exactly. People still

682
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: feel that way. It seems very familiar. Honestly, a lot

683
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: of this um so they're they're going out to parties together,

684
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 1: they're just together a lot, and people note it, you

685
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:38,759
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Queensbury hated it so much, and

686
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: in June four he showed up at Oscar Wilde's house

687
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 1: and said, quote, I do not say that you are it,

688
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: but you look it and pose at it, which is

689
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:50,719
Speaker 1: just as bad. And if I catch you and my

690
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: son again in any public restaurant, I will thrash you,

691
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 1: to which Oscar replied quote, I don't know what the

692
00:41:57,200 --> 00:42:00,320
Speaker 1: Queensbury rules are, but the Oscar wild rule is to

693
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 1: shoot on site. Boom, come at me, Come at come

694
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 1: at me. It's the quickest wit in London. On Valentine's Day,

695
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:16,520
Speaker 1: of the Importance of Being Earnest debuted. This play, still

696
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:19,839
Speaker 1: today the most popular of all Oscar Wilde's works, and

697
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: it's considered his masterpiece. Obviously, it's most well known as

698
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,480
Speaker 1: the play MJ was starring in that Peter Parker just

699
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: what didn't make time to go see in Spider Man two? True, Peter,

700
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,840
Speaker 1: you had plenty of time. You had every opportunity, Sir.

701
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: M J has almost no character in these movies. The

702
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: least you could do is appreciate that we made her

703
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: an actress the other character she played. And I was also,

704
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 1: go see your friends plays. It really feelings, and they

705
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 1: don't go They might be good, you know, you never know.

706
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 1: So the night that Importance of Being Earnest premiered, the

707
00:42:58,040 --> 00:43:02,680
Speaker 1: cream of society was present clotted cream of Society came out.

708
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:06,920
Speaker 1: They were ready to be pleased with another hilarious comedy

709
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:11,279
Speaker 1: and drama. Queen Queensbury showed up. He decided this was

710
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:16,359
Speaker 1: time to humiliate Oscar on his own triumphant night. So

711
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 1: he's thinking, when Oscar comes out to take a bow,

712
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:26,400
Speaker 1: I'll throw rotten vegetables at him, which is like, in

713
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:29,839
Speaker 1: a way, is kind of a compliment because playwrights don't

714
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 1: come out to take a bow unless the play is

715
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 1: successful and the audience would start chanting author author. So

716
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 1: he was like, obviously, this is going to be a

717
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 1: good play and everyone's gonna love it, and he'll come

718
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:42,239
Speaker 1: out and take a bow, and that's what I'll throw

719
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: all these tomatoes at him. So you know, it's kind

720
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 1: of you're kind of giving him some credit there for

721
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 1: admitting that the guy was a really good writer. But

722
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:55,799
Speaker 1: his scheme was totally thrown when Oscar was forewarned and

723
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 1: Queensbury was barred from entering the theater, which just makes

724
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 1: me wonder who who did he tell that they that

725
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 1: they told on him for, Like, how did the word

726
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 1: get out unless he just like showed up carrying a

727
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: crate of vegetables, and the strangest thing, dear boy, I

728
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:14,960
Speaker 1: saw Queens Bruce smuggling a crate of rotten tomatoes and

729
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: Paul Mall today and I don't know why. Well, I've

730
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:21,360
Speaker 1: just I've just been choosing, just choosing a lot. Can't

731
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 1: make it through a play without much tomato juice. So

732
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,239
Speaker 1: since he wasn't able to pelt him with some nasty tomatoes,

733
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:32,919
Speaker 1: four days later, Queensberry then took his calling card over

734
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 1: to Oscar's club and left him a little note for

735
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:41,720
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde posing as sodomite. Now the handwriting is really unclear.

736
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,920
Speaker 1: This exact wording is in dispute. It could say posing sodomite,

737
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: it could say posing as sodomite, could just say posing

738
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 1: as a sodomite. Whatever. The main thing is that he

739
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:57,160
Speaker 1: was publicly accusing Oscar Wilde of sodomy, of being gay,

740
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 1: which is of course a crime, and Alf for Douglas

741
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:03,840
Speaker 1: was immediately like, oh how dare he? You know what

742
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 1: you should do? Get him arrested for libel. Let's take

743
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 1: him to court, Let's get this all the way to

744
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: the top. I want to see him in Newgate, you know,

745
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: and all Oscar Wild's friends, including Robbie Rosson and George

746
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:16,919
Speaker 1: Bernard Shaw. Even we're all like, oh no, no, no, no,

747
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 1: no no no no, no no no no, let's not

748
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:22,399
Speaker 1: let's not that you're gonna cause more trouble and you'll

749
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 1: fix yeah, because it's not like there wasn't proof that

750
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: Oscar Wild was gay floating around in London. But Oscar

751
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: would not listen. And again he's pretty smitten with Alfred,

752
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:38,400
Speaker 1: so I think his word weighed more with him than

753
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 1: anyone else's. And he decided to press charges and that

754
00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 1: would be his undoing. So let's find out more about that.

755
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 1: After this commercial break and welcome back to the show.

756
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:59,600
Speaker 1: Oscar initiated a private prosecution of Queensbury and Queensbury was

757
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 1: a died for criminal libel boom, gotcha done and done,

758
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 1: and that could have led to him spending up to

759
00:46:06,760 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 1: two years in prison. He could only avoid conviction if

760
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: he could prove his claim so they could say, well,

761
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 1: this isn't libel, he actually is sodomite. Then you know

762
00:46:18,160 --> 00:46:20,400
Speaker 1: he was free to go. Kind of why. George Bernard

763
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:24,719
Speaker 1: Shaw was like, yeah, let's let's not do that. So

764
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 1: Queensbury's lawyers acted quickly, and they hired a bunch of

765
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: private detectives to dig into Oscar's private life, and boy,

766
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 1: oh boy, was the dirt out there. They were like

767
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: when no one's vacuumed in here in a long time

768
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:42,880
Speaker 1: bachelor's lodgings. Indeed, they found out about the blackmailing with

769
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:46,359
Speaker 1: the male prostitutes, all those letters left in pockets, all

770
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 1: those many times. They found out about the cross dressers

771
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:52,880
Speaker 1: and the brothels. They coerced several people into agreeing to

772
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:56,719
Speaker 1: appear as witnesses, mostly because they were accomplices and they

773
00:46:56,800 --> 00:47:00,240
Speaker 1: could have faced conviction themselves. There's like a little plea bargain.

774
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 1: So every salacious detail was savored by the press, just

775
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: as Queensbury had threatened. By the time the trial opened

776
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:12,040
Speaker 1: at Old Bailey in April, the press and the public

777
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: was in near hysteria over this case, and there was

778
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: so much evidence against Oscar that he felt moved to

779
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:23,760
Speaker 1: remind them, uh, I am the prosecutor in this case.

780
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 1: Like I know, he's probably like, why, oh my gosh,

781
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:31,760
Speaker 1: am I on trial? And he acquitted himself well during questioning.

782
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: He got a lot of laughs in the courtroom. Of course,

783
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:38,239
Speaker 1: obviously very witty, but Queensberry's lawyers were really good at

784
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,840
Speaker 1: trapping him with his own flippancy and wit. For example,

785
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:45,360
Speaker 1: Oscar was asked if he had kissed a servant boy

786
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 1: and he responded, Oh, no, he's much too ugly. I

787
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 1: pitied him for it in fact, you know, and everybody's ha, ha, hilarious.

788
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 1: Let's make fun of a man for something it can't help.

789
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 1: But the lawyer was like, oh, well, wires looks relevant.

790
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 1: Are you saying you would have kissed him if he

791
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:03,359
Speaker 1: had been handsome? What's what are you trying to say?

792
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:07,400
Speaker 1: You know, and like totally blustered Oscar on the stands

793
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 1: that didn't really help him out. And then in their

794
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:14,360
Speaker 1: opening argument for Queensbury's defense, they announced that they had

795
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 1: several male prostitutes standing by to testify that they'd had

796
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: sex with Oscar Wilde, and on the advice of his lawyers,

797
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 1: Oscar dropped his libel charges. The court found that the

798
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 1: accusation of Oscar wild being a sodomite was true and justified,

799
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:34,600
Speaker 1: and Queensberry was not guilty. Oscar was also held liable

800
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: for all the costs Queensbury had accrued in his defense,

801
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:42,840
Speaker 1: so all of Oscar Wilde's assets were seized and sold

802
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 1: at auction and he was left bankrupt. Damn, but Queensbury

803
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:50,720
Speaker 1: wasn't done. You know, Bell Rang, He's like round two,

804
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:54,719
Speaker 1: that bitch. He immediately sent all of his evidence to

805
00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:58,120
Speaker 1: Scotland Yard and the next day a warrant was put

806
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:01,160
Speaker 1: out for Oscar Wilde and he was rested for sodomy

807
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 1: and gross indecency. Robbie Ross, along with Oscar's butler, forced

808
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:08,480
Speaker 1: their way into his house to get all his personal

809
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:11,759
Speaker 1: effects and his manuscripts and his letters. So good on

810
00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: them for the thanks looking out for your friend. Oscar

811
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,439
Speaker 1: was imprisoned on remand until his trial, and it must

812
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:20,840
Speaker 1: be said that Alfred visited him every day. Yeah. I

813
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 1: I would have expected him to be like wait bye,

814
00:49:23,280 --> 00:49:24,880
Speaker 1: he's just a little piece of ship, but he did.

815
00:49:25,040 --> 00:49:28,280
Speaker 1: He stuck by him. Yeah, I mean, you know, horrible

816
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:32,399
Speaker 1: boyfriends can care about you two in the way. I'm

817
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:35,160
Speaker 1: sure he went in and was like, well, yes, it's

818
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:37,719
Speaker 1: so nice to see you. Oh this is this is

819
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 1: the bench you sit on. Huh okay, well lovely seeing you.

820
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:44,879
Speaker 1: I'll be back tomorrow. Do you have any money? I like, yeah, right,

821
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:49,520
Speaker 1: so only a couple of weeks later, Oscar's trial began,

822
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: and again give a little Alfred a little credit here.

823
00:49:54,239 --> 00:49:57,760
Speaker 1: He wanted to testify on Oscar's behalf, but Oscar begged

824
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 1: him and basically all of his gay friends to get

825
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 1: the hell out of England. Just go until this blows over.

826
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 1: Let's not get you implicated. Uh you know, I'll take

827
00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 1: this one for the team, but you guys need to go.

828
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 1: So Alfred, Robbie Ross, and several others went to Paris

829
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:18,319
Speaker 1: while Oscar stood trial, and his first trial was for

830
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:22,279
Speaker 1: the charge of sodomy. The prosecution questioned him about a

831
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: lot of his writing. They brought up picture of Dorian Gray,

832
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:27,840
Speaker 1: they brought up a bunch of lines from his plays,

833
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 1: and they even asked him to define what has become

834
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 1: a very famous line quote, the love that dare not

835
00:50:35,800 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 1: speak its name. And this line is frequently misattributed as

836
00:50:39,960 --> 00:50:43,400
Speaker 1: being written by Oscar Wilde, but in fact Lord Alfred

837
00:50:43,440 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 1: Douglas wrote that one in a poem that he published

838
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 1: in his short lived magazine The Chameleon, which I think

839
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:52,719
Speaker 1: only had one issue, actually very short lived, and the

840
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 1: poems a little bit long, but we think some of

841
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:57,760
Speaker 1: it would be nice to hear. So let's go down

842
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 1: to the poetry corner, and here and exert from two

843
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 1: loves by Lord Alfred Douglas. And lo within the garden

844
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:09,280
Speaker 1: of my dream, I saw too, walking on a shining

845
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: plane of golden light. The one did joyous scene and

846
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:17,000
Speaker 1: fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain came from his lips.

847
00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: He sang of pretty maids and joyous love of comely

848
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 1: girl and boy. His eyes were bright and mid the

849
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:27,880
Speaker 1: dancing blades of golden grass. His feet did trip for joy,

850
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:30,640
Speaker 1: and in his hand he held an ivory lute with

851
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: strings of gold that were as maiden's hair, and sang

852
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 1: with voice as tuneful as a flute. And round his

853
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: neck three chains of roses were But he that was

854
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:44,320
Speaker 1: his comrade, walked aside. He was full, sad and sweet,

855
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:48,480
Speaker 1: and his large eyes were strange with wondrous brightness, staring

856
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:51,799
Speaker 1: wide with gazing, and he sighed with many sighs that

857
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:54,880
Speaker 1: moved me. And his cheeks were wan and white like

858
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:58,480
Speaker 1: pallid lilies, and his lips were red like poppies, and

859
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:02,680
Speaker 1: his hands he clenched tight and yet again unclenched, and

860
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 1: his head was wreathed with moonflowers pale as lips of death.

861
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 1: A purple robe he wore, or wrought in gold, with

862
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:13,240
Speaker 1: the device of a great snake whose breath was fiery flame,

863
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: which when I did behold, I fell a weeping, and

864
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 1: I cried, sweet youth, tell me why sad? And sighing,

865
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,840
Speaker 1: thou dost rove these pleasant realms? I pray thee speak

866
00:52:24,920 --> 00:52:29,239
Speaker 1: me soothe. What is thy name? He said, My name

867
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: is Love. Then straight the first did turn himself to

868
00:52:33,200 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 1: me and cried, he lieth, for his name is shame.

869
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:39,480
Speaker 1: But I am Love, And I was wont to be

870
00:52:39,560 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 1: alone in this fair garden till he came unasked by night.

871
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 1: I am true love. I filled the hearts of boy

872
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:50,439
Speaker 1: and girl with mutual flame. Then, sighing, said the other

873
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:53,960
Speaker 1: have thy will. I am the love that dare not

874
00:52:54,040 --> 00:53:01,359
Speaker 1: speak its name. Woof M. Yeah, I think it's kind

875
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 1: of odd that they asked him to define a line

876
00:53:03,719 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: that he didn't write, and that wasn't written to him

877
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:08,719
Speaker 1: in a letter or something like that, But they did.

878
00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 1: They asked him what is the love that dare not

879
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:14,960
Speaker 1: speak its name? And Oscar spoke very eloquently about the

880
00:53:15,239 --> 00:53:17,480
Speaker 1: love between you know, an older man and a younger man,

881
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:19,879
Speaker 1: like a mentor men teeth thing. You know, one's got

882
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 1: experience and wisdom, the other is full of energy and

883
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 1: ideas and glamor in life. You know, there's there's lots

884
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 1: of different kind of love in the world, the love

885
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:31,200
Speaker 1: between a man and a woman, or or a man

886
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:34,160
Speaker 1: and his teacher, or like the love of a man

887
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 1: and his sandwich. They're all loved by any other name

888
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:42,400
Speaker 1: all love, yeah, exactly. But of course people would probably

889
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:43,960
Speaker 1: kind of like, well then, but why would you dare

890
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:48,040
Speaker 1: to not speak its name? You know, it's some sandwiches

891
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: that I'm embarrassed to talk about. So well, if only

892
00:53:53,640 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 1: you were Oscar Wild lawyer, I'd like to introduce you

893
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:02,360
Speaker 1: to the peanut, butter and man in a sandwich. Gross

894
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:04,919
Speaker 1: l I would never say it out loud, but yeah,

895
00:54:04,920 --> 00:54:07,920
Speaker 1: this answer mostly just made people in the courtroom go,

896
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I think this guy might be gay.

897
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:13,399
Speaker 1: Like it really it did not work very well. Wow,

898
00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:16,520
Speaker 1: did you hear he understands poetry so well? I think

899
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:18,800
Speaker 1: you might be gay? So yeah, kind of that answer

900
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:21,360
Speaker 1: kind of worked against him a little bit in this trial.

901
00:54:21,800 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: But even so, the trial ended with the jury unable

902
00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:28,560
Speaker 1: to reach a verdict, probably because the charge again was sodomy,

903
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:30,319
Speaker 1: and that's one you kind of have to find him

904
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:33,920
Speaker 1: actively engaged, and they didn't have anything like that, so

905
00:54:34,280 --> 00:54:39,080
Speaker 1: you know, that was probably why. And Alfred again must

906
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:41,880
Speaker 1: be said give him some credit. He arranged for his cousin,

907
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:45,319
Speaker 1: who was a sympathetic reverend, to pay Oscar's bail, and

908
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:49,200
Speaker 1: then Oscar went into hiding at Ernest and Ava Leverson's house.

909
00:54:49,239 --> 00:54:52,200
Speaker 1: They were firm friends of his that stayed friends till

910
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:54,200
Speaker 1: the end, so he was able to go kind of

911
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:57,440
Speaker 1: hide away from society in their home. And then at

912
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 1: that point the Solicitor General, Frank Lockwood was approached by

913
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 1: none other than the lawyer who had defended Queensberry in

914
00:55:04,239 --> 00:55:08,319
Speaker 1: the libel case, who asked him, quote, can we not

915
00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:11,759
Speaker 1: let up on the fellow now? But Lockwood said the

916
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 1: case was too politicized to be dropped. So I think

917
00:55:15,719 --> 00:55:18,480
Speaker 1: that really says something about society at this time, Like,

918
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:20,800
Speaker 1: even though it was illegal, I feel like most people

919
00:55:20,920 --> 00:55:24,000
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, but it's kind of their own business.

920
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 1: And I don't know why we're airing all this dirty laundry.

921
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:29,319
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing to everyone, Like we don't want to go

922
00:55:29,440 --> 00:55:34,400
Speaker 1: our limit, you know. So. Oscar's final trial began in

923
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:38,000
Speaker 1: May for the charge of gross indecency. Both he and

924
00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:40,680
Speaker 1: his friend Alfred Taylor, who had refused to turn witness

925
00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 1: against Oscar and was subsequently charged with gross indecency himself.

926
00:55:45,160 --> 00:55:48,640
Speaker 1: They were found guilty and sentenced to two years hard labor,

927
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:52,200
Speaker 1: which was the maximum sentence allowed. Really throwing the book

928
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:56,160
Speaker 1: at him here, Oscar's life and his reputation were both destroyed.

929
00:55:57,040 --> 00:56:00,840
Speaker 1: The judge said that the sentence was quote early adequate,

930
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,319
Speaker 1: and that this was quote the worst case I have

931
00:56:04,560 --> 00:56:08,720
Speaker 1: ever tried. And you know, bear in mind here Oscar

932
00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:14,799
Speaker 1: Wilde certainly was frequenting male prostitutes who were underage teenage boys. Right,

933
00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:18,040
Speaker 1: even today, that's not cool, right, So we don't want

934
00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:20,840
Speaker 1: to skate over that. Right. It's not like he was

935
00:56:20,960 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: totally just an innocent person doing wonderful things in his

936
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 1: own volition. He's still some shady behavior. Yeah, And there's

937
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,839
Speaker 1: some argument that these teenage boys were consensually willing, they

938
00:56:31,840 --> 00:56:34,760
Speaker 1: were fully you know, knew what was going on whatever.

939
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:37,799
Speaker 1: On the other hand, some of them, most of them,

940
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 1: I would say, we're uneducated, really poor, easy to exploit

941
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:45,160
Speaker 1: in any way you might want so anyway, just saying

942
00:56:45,160 --> 00:56:50,480
Speaker 1: in modern times we might still be really censuring Oscar Wilde, right, right,

943
00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:53,360
Speaker 1: even though we feel differently about being gay. Yes, yeah,

944
00:56:53,520 --> 00:56:57,239
Speaker 1: not for his gayness, but rather for taking advantage of

945
00:56:57,360 --> 00:57:01,160
Speaker 1: young people exactly. But there might have been even more

946
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:04,880
Speaker 1: a foot here. It's been suggested that Queensbury went to

947
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:09,240
Speaker 1: his old foe Roseberry, remember him Archibald who was Prime

948
00:57:09,280 --> 00:57:11,440
Speaker 1: Minister at this point and all this is going on,

949
00:57:12,040 --> 00:57:15,080
Speaker 1: and he may have told Roseberry that he had some

950
00:57:15,160 --> 00:57:20,360
Speaker 1: kind of evidence about Rosebery's affair with Francis, and that

951
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:23,320
Speaker 1: if he didn't make sure Oscar Wilde was prosecuted to

952
00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:27,560
Speaker 1: the full extent of the law, Queensbury would expose Roseberry

953
00:57:27,600 --> 00:57:30,360
Speaker 1: to the world. Really the battle of the berries here, yeah,

954
00:57:30,560 --> 00:57:35,320
Speaker 1: totally berry Berry versus Berry, some real berry on berry action,

955
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 1: which is exactly what England was trying to get away from,

956
00:57:38,880 --> 00:57:43,920
Speaker 1: like berry should never touch other berries. And it is

957
00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 1: true that roseberries Liberal Party sustained a minor defeat in

958
00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:53,200
Speaker 1: a bare month after Oscar Wilde was convicted, And even

959
00:57:53,240 --> 00:57:56,760
Speaker 1: though this defeat didn't really warrant the action, Roseberry used

960
00:57:56,760 --> 00:58:01,160
Speaker 1: it as an excuse to resign from the premiership. It's

961
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:05,120
Speaker 1: a little bit shady considering the suggestion that Queensbury was like,

962
00:58:05,200 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 1: I can expose you to the world, just like I'm

963
00:58:07,120 --> 00:58:09,919
Speaker 1: doing to Oscar Wild. Of course, everything bad that could

964
00:58:09,920 --> 00:58:12,920
Speaker 1: happen to Oscar Wild was happening in front of Roseberry's eyes,

965
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:15,360
Speaker 1: so he was like probably seeing his whole life crumbled

966
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 1: to nothing. Roseberry himself wrote quote, I cannot forget to

967
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 1: lie awake night after night, wide awake, hopeless of sleep,

968
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:28,160
Speaker 1: tormented of nerves, and to realize all that was going

969
00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:30,600
Speaker 1: on at which I was present, so to speak, like

970
00:58:30,640 --> 00:58:34,120
Speaker 1: a disembodied spirit. To watch one's own corpse as it were,

971
00:58:34,200 --> 00:58:37,520
Speaker 1: day after day is an experience which no sane man

972
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 1: would repeat. I mean, what a dick Queensberry was. He's

973
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:46,040
Speaker 1: literally tormenting these guys like this is torture. It must

974
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:49,360
Speaker 1: be said. Queensberry never produced any evidence of an affair,

975
00:58:50,040 --> 00:58:53,560
Speaker 1: but it was enough to be worried that there was some.

976
00:58:54,440 --> 00:58:57,160
Speaker 1: And you know, this is all speculation. Station It's not

977
00:58:57,240 --> 00:59:00,840
Speaker 1: been proven that he put pressure on the Prime Minister

978
00:59:00,920 --> 00:59:02,360
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but it is a little bit

979
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:07,480
Speaker 1: of suspicious timing. So Oscar Wilde was imprisoned and the

980
00:59:07,560 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 1: hard labor was walking on a penal treadmill, which was

981
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:14,240
Speaker 1: this treadmill that was used to milk corn or pump water.

982
00:59:15,200 --> 00:59:18,320
Speaker 1: And he had to break oakum which was separating the

983
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:22,800
Speaker 1: fibers of old navy ropes. So that sounds awful, I mean,

984
00:59:22,880 --> 00:59:28,320
Speaker 1: just tedious, hard, yeah, difficult, nothing esthetic about it. He

985
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 1: was transferred to different jails several times, and at first

986
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:33,720
Speaker 1: he was not allowed anything but a bible to read

987
00:59:34,240 --> 00:59:37,560
Speaker 1: and no pen or paper, but eventually he was allowed

988
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:40,680
Speaker 1: to write, and he wrote a fifty thousand word letter

989
00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:46,880
Speaker 1: to Alfred Douglas called Day Profundus. This was a cold,

990
00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:49,600
Speaker 1: hard look on his whole career and his life to date,

991
00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:54,160
Speaker 1: and he finally repudiates Alfred for his vanity and arrogance,

992
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 1: but he forgives him and he takes responsibility for his

993
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:03,600
Speaker 1: own actions. It's not clear if Alfred ever read this letter.

994
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:06,800
Speaker 1: Robbie Ross was instructed to give a copy to him,

995
01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:11,400
Speaker 1: but Alfred claimed he only got choice quotations and not

996
01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:15,560
Speaker 1: the whole letter. So you know, speculation station. Maybe Robbie

997
01:00:15,640 --> 01:00:18,280
Speaker 1: only gave him the mean stuff and was like, I'm

998
01:00:18,320 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 1: taken out anything nice he said about you, let me

999
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:22,720
Speaker 1: give you the dirt. I feel like if I were Robbie,

1000
01:00:22,720 --> 01:00:24,160
Speaker 1: that's probably what I would have done. Like he would

1001
01:00:24,160 --> 01:00:25,920
Speaker 1: have read it and been like, oh, he's finally saying

1002
01:00:25,920 --> 01:00:28,880
Speaker 1: you're arrogant, you're vain, you're selfish. Oh, I forgive you.

1003
01:00:28,960 --> 01:00:30,840
Speaker 1: Let's just leave that part out. He needs to read

1004
01:00:30,880 --> 01:00:36,040
Speaker 1: this first part. But life in prison was super hard,

1005
01:00:36,160 --> 01:00:39,480
Speaker 1: obviously sort of the point, and Oscar Wilde had a really,

1006
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:42,400
Speaker 1: really difficult time of it. At one point he collapsed

1007
01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:46,200
Speaker 1: from illness and hunger and that fall ruptured his right

1008
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:50,080
Speaker 1: ear drum. But he was finally released in May seven

1009
01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:52,920
Speaker 1: and he sailed immediately to France and never returned to

1010
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:56,240
Speaker 1: the UK again. Can't bling, I can't blame one. I

1011
01:00:56,240 --> 01:01:01,040
Speaker 1: would also go to France. And during his imprisonment, Constance

1012
01:01:01,160 --> 01:01:04,880
Speaker 1: had changed her and the boy's last names to Holland

1013
01:01:05,640 --> 01:01:07,800
Speaker 1: Um just because you know, it's a big scandal going

1014
01:01:07,800 --> 01:01:09,600
Speaker 1: on with Oscar wild She didn't want to be asked

1015
01:01:09,600 --> 01:01:11,840
Speaker 1: all the time about her husband's and stuff, so she

1016
01:01:12,040 --> 01:01:13,920
Speaker 1: just changed their names. She sent the boys off to

1017
01:01:13,960 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 1: a boarding school in Switzerland, and she never divorced Oscar,

1018
01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:20,480
Speaker 1: but she did force him to give up his parental rights.

1019
01:01:20,520 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 1: He never saw his sons again. However, he was broke

1020
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:27,280
Speaker 1: as hell and super unhealthy from his prison term. So

1021
01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 1: she did send him three pounds a week, and that

1022
01:01:29,760 --> 01:01:32,920
Speaker 1: sounds stingy, but that's something like four hundred and fifteen

1023
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:35,720
Speaker 1: pounds a week today, So it wasn't nothing, you know,

1024
01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:38,680
Speaker 1: it's enough to keep himself you know, fed and shod,

1025
01:01:39,200 --> 01:01:41,640
Speaker 1: I guess you could say. And Oscar himself selected a

1026
01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:46,080
Speaker 1: pen name Sebastian Melmouth, and he wrote long essays advocating

1027
01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:49,520
Speaker 1: for prison reform, and while he was staying with Robbie Ross,

1028
01:01:49,600 --> 01:01:53,560
Speaker 1: he wrote the Ballad of Reading Jail. It described the

1029
01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:57,800
Speaker 1: brutal prison conditions that all convicts share, regardless of their charge.

1030
01:01:57,840 --> 01:01:59,560
Speaker 1: So he didn't spend a lot of time being like

1031
01:01:59,560 --> 01:02:01,080
Speaker 1: should we be in jail or not? And he was

1032
01:02:01,120 --> 01:02:03,240
Speaker 1: just like, the main thing is that when you're in jail,

1033
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:05,960
Speaker 1: it's sucked up and it doesn't matter what you did.

1034
01:02:06,600 --> 01:02:09,520
Speaker 1: It's all the same punishment, and everybody suffers, whether you

1035
01:02:09,560 --> 01:02:12,520
Speaker 1: can die, whether you murdered a man or you just

1036
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:16,080
Speaker 1: loved a man, you know, same punishment. On the treadmille,

1037
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:19,920
Speaker 1: the Ballad of Reading Jail was a commercial success. It

1038
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,600
Speaker 1: brought him a little bit of money, and most people

1039
01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:24,720
Speaker 1: knew that it was him who had written it, even

1040
01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:27,520
Speaker 1: though he had you know, published it under his pen

1041
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:30,640
Speaker 1: name Sebastian Melmouth. It didn't have his true name on

1042
01:02:30,680 --> 01:02:33,120
Speaker 1: it until a couple of years later. But I think

1043
01:02:33,120 --> 01:02:35,520
Speaker 1: it's cool that he managed to make prison reform cool.

1044
01:02:36,160 --> 01:02:40,160
Speaker 1: Inc it's pretty dope. But then he reunited with Alfred

1045
01:02:40,200 --> 01:02:45,080
Speaker 1: Douglas in ruin In and they moved in together outside

1046
01:02:45,080 --> 01:02:48,160
Speaker 1: of Naples, even though neither of their friends or families

1047
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:52,400
Speaker 1: approved obviously not but it didn't last long. Their personal

1048
01:02:52,400 --> 01:02:55,000
Speaker 1: differences were a part of it. Oscar said that Alfred

1049
01:02:55,040 --> 01:02:57,800
Speaker 1: had no money or ideas and still wanted him to

1050
01:02:57,840 --> 01:03:02,560
Speaker 1: take care of everything. Meanwhile, Constance, as well as Alfred's family,

1051
01:03:03,160 --> 01:03:06,760
Speaker 1: we're threatening to cut them off financially if they didn't separate,

1052
01:03:07,280 --> 01:03:13,320
Speaker 1: so they did. Unfortunately, Constance died in and Oscar ended

1053
01:03:13,400 --> 01:03:16,760
Speaker 1: up pour his ship in Paris and he was drinking.

1054
01:03:16,960 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 1: He got really depressed. He spent so much of his

1055
01:03:19,560 --> 01:03:22,240
Speaker 1: time in his hotel room that he joked once quote

1056
01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:25,840
Speaker 1: my wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death.

1057
01:03:26,040 --> 01:03:31,000
Speaker 1: One of us has got to go, probably The only

1058
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:33,600
Speaker 1: bright spot in his life was in January of d

1059
01:03:33,760 --> 01:03:39,000
Speaker 1: when Queensbury died. But you know, speculation station as to

1060
01:03:39,040 --> 01:03:43,120
Speaker 1: whether or not that cheered him up at all. Yeah,

1061
01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 1: he might have thought of this line from his play

1062
01:03:45,680 --> 01:03:49,880
Speaker 1: The Duchess of Padua. Some cause happiness wherever they go,

1063
01:03:50,640 --> 01:03:56,240
Speaker 1: some whenever they go. He had embarrassing encounters with people

1064
01:03:56,240 --> 01:03:58,840
Speaker 1: he knew from before the conviction or who recognized him,

1065
01:03:59,040 --> 01:04:02,720
Speaker 1: and that further depress him. His health, so badly affected

1066
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:05,400
Speaker 1: by his prison term, just kept getting worse and worse.

1067
01:04:06,200 --> 01:04:11,000
Speaker 1: But he wasn't alone. In October of nineteen hundred, he

1068
01:04:11,280 --> 01:04:13,720
Speaker 1: sent for Robbie Ross to come visit him because he

1069
01:04:13,800 --> 01:04:16,320
Speaker 1: knew the end was near. He wanted his dear friends

1070
01:04:16,400 --> 01:04:19,120
Speaker 1: with him, and he also had another firm friend with

1071
01:04:19,200 --> 01:04:22,560
Speaker 1: him named Reginald Turner. And Reginald was also a writer.

1072
01:04:22,680 --> 01:04:25,840
Speaker 1: He published twelve novels in his lifetime, but none of

1073
01:04:25,880 --> 01:04:28,640
Speaker 1: them really made much of an impression. Um He joked

1074
01:04:28,680 --> 01:04:31,280
Speaker 1: that it wasn't his first editions that were hard to find,

1075
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:36,480
Speaker 1: but his second. And Oscar, who was really depressed one day,

1076
01:04:36,760 --> 01:04:40,920
Speaker 1: told Reginald that he'd had a nightmare quote, I dreamt

1077
01:04:41,000 --> 01:04:43,760
Speaker 1: that I died and was supping with the dead, and

1078
01:04:43,800 --> 01:04:47,000
Speaker 1: Reginald replied, quote, I am sure that you must have

1079
01:04:47,040 --> 01:04:50,040
Speaker 1: been the life and soul of the party. And Robbie

1080
01:04:50,200 --> 01:04:53,880
Speaker 1: arranged for a bedside conversion to Catholicism for Oscar, which

1081
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:56,720
Speaker 1: he had wanted for a really long time, and both

1082
01:04:56,760 --> 01:04:59,840
Speaker 1: Reginald and Robbie were by his bedside when Oscar died

1083
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:09,280
Speaker 1: on November Hey, that's my birthday by man, and he

1084
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:12,000
Speaker 1: was born in eighteen fifty four, so what forty six

1085
01:05:12,080 --> 01:05:16,160
Speaker 1: years old. Robbie and Alfred apparently had a physical altercation

1086
01:05:16,240 --> 01:05:18,600
Speaker 1: at Oscar's graveside, and from then on they were in

1087
01:05:18,600 --> 01:05:23,360
Speaker 1: a feud that lasted for years. Robbie was Oscar's literary executor,

1088
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:25,840
Speaker 1: which meant he had to track down and purchase the

1089
01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:28,440
Speaker 1: rights to all of Oscar's writings, which were sold off

1090
01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:31,800
Speaker 1: when he was bankrupted. He gave Oscar's sons the rights

1091
01:05:31,840 --> 01:05:34,400
Speaker 1: to everything, basically making sure that there was an estate

1092
01:05:34,440 --> 01:05:38,520
Speaker 1: and an inheritance for them. He also published the Definitive

1093
01:05:38,560 --> 01:05:41,560
Speaker 1: Collection of Oscar Wild's works in nineteen o eight in

1094
01:05:41,720 --> 01:05:47,160
Speaker 1: fourteen volumes. He even commissioned an artist to make the

1095
01:05:47,200 --> 01:05:51,720
Speaker 1: sculpture that stands on Oscar's tombstone and designed a compartment

1096
01:05:51,960 --> 01:05:55,400
Speaker 1: for Robbie's own ashes within it. They are both together

1097
01:05:55,680 --> 01:06:00,560
Speaker 1: in Parlasches Cemetery in Paris. I think we visited. I

1098
01:06:00,600 --> 01:06:02,960
Speaker 1: remember seeing Oscar Wild. Yeah, I'm kind of sorry. We

1099
01:06:02,960 --> 01:06:05,320
Speaker 1: didn't know about Robbie Ross when we were yea, Robbie

1100
01:06:05,400 --> 01:06:08,800
Speaker 1: was super cool compartment. Guess we'll have to go back

1101
01:06:08,840 --> 01:06:15,200
Speaker 1: to Paris. So, yeah, Robbie spending all this time preserving

1102
01:06:15,200 --> 01:06:19,600
Speaker 1: Oscar wild legacy, taking care of his family, trying to

1103
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:22,800
Speaker 1: ensure that maybe his name would be cleared at some

1104
01:06:22,880 --> 01:06:25,120
Speaker 1: point and he would get his reputation back because he

1105
01:06:25,160 --> 01:06:26,640
Speaker 1: was such a good writer and he was such a

1106
01:06:26,640 --> 01:06:31,280
Speaker 1: good friend. Alfred, on the other hand, married a bisexual

1107
01:06:31,320 --> 01:06:37,040
Speaker 1: poet named Olive Customs and completely renounced Oscar Wild. He

1108
01:06:37,160 --> 01:06:40,600
Speaker 1: even called him quote the greatest force for evil that

1109
01:06:40,680 --> 01:06:43,200
Speaker 1: has appeared in Europe during the last three hundred and

1110
01:06:43,240 --> 01:06:46,440
Speaker 1: fifty years God, which kind of begs the question, what

1111
01:06:46,480 --> 01:06:50,720
Speaker 1: happened three d fifty years before there was specific number?

1112
01:06:52,880 --> 01:06:55,040
Speaker 1: Lord Alfred was like, three hundred and fifty years ago,

1113
01:06:55,400 --> 01:07:01,920
Speaker 1: Paisley was invented, and then Oscar Wild. What an asshole?

1114
01:07:02,520 --> 01:07:05,720
Speaker 1: This guy paid all your bills for a long ass time. Okay,

1115
01:07:05,840 --> 01:07:10,560
Speaker 1: and then you're dealt with your dad. You ashore the

1116
01:07:10,600 --> 01:07:13,960
Speaker 1: whole reason his entire life got torqued out. Your advice,

1117
01:07:14,080 --> 01:07:18,760
Speaker 1: your dad here. But he did bring himself somehow to

1118
01:07:18,880 --> 01:07:23,000
Speaker 1: write several books about his life with Oscar Wildly, not

1119
01:07:23,160 --> 01:07:28,120
Speaker 1: for just money and fame, obviously. Um. He also converted

1120
01:07:28,160 --> 01:07:32,440
Speaker 1: to Catholicism and totally renounced homosexuality and started calling it

1121
01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:35,600
Speaker 1: a gross sin and disgusting and said that Oscar Wilde

1122
01:07:35,600 --> 01:07:40,200
Speaker 1: had like let him astray. In true Queensberry fashion, he

1123
01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:43,160
Speaker 1: ruthlessly went after Robbie Ross and tried to have him

1124
01:07:43,240 --> 01:07:48,520
Speaker 1: charged and convicted for homosexual acts several times. He also

1125
01:07:48,600 --> 01:07:52,439
Speaker 1: launched a very anti Semitic paper called Planing. Oh my god, well,

1126
01:07:52,600 --> 01:07:55,959
Speaker 1: you know, outfit just sucks. Hang on, let me fine,

1127
01:07:56,200 --> 01:07:58,640
Speaker 1: let's see. I've got this chot here. It's all the

1128
01:07:58,680 --> 01:08:01,640
Speaker 1: worst characteristics that he being could have. Let's see check

1129
01:08:02,160 --> 01:08:05,280
Speaker 1: check check. Oh, I don't have this one yet. Better

1130
01:08:05,320 --> 01:08:12,400
Speaker 1: become an anti sebi bingo, bingo, I've done them all,

1131
01:08:13,560 --> 01:08:16,800
Speaker 1: oh man. Um. But fortunately he was such a dick

1132
01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:20,240
Speaker 1: that whatever he wrote in plain English often resulted in

1133
01:08:20,400 --> 01:08:24,960
Speaker 1: libel suits against him. One was from our friend Winston Churchill.

1134
01:08:26,080 --> 01:08:28,479
Speaker 1: Go get him bulldog, Get him bulldog. I know, I

1135
01:08:28,560 --> 01:08:30,400
Speaker 1: was like, why would you go for a Winston Churchill?

1136
01:08:30,439 --> 01:08:34,479
Speaker 1: Come on? Um? He accused Winston Churchill in print of

1137
01:08:34,600 --> 01:08:38,320
Speaker 1: falsifying a battle report from nineteen sixteen in order to

1138
01:08:38,400 --> 01:08:42,320
Speaker 1: manipulate the stock market somehow. Well, he lost that one

1139
01:08:42,360 --> 01:08:45,280
Speaker 1: because there was zero evidence of that, and he spent

1140
01:08:45,360 --> 01:08:48,559
Speaker 1: six months in jail. And you know, again, we gotta

1141
01:08:48,600 --> 01:08:52,280
Speaker 1: give Alfred his credit where credit is due. It must

1142
01:08:52,320 --> 01:08:56,320
Speaker 1: be said he did reject the brutal policies of Nazi

1143
01:08:56,400 --> 01:08:58,840
Speaker 1: Germany in the nineteen thirties, So even though he was

1144
01:08:58,920 --> 01:09:00,880
Speaker 1: very anti Semitic, he was like, you know, it's not

1145
01:09:01,000 --> 01:09:03,960
Speaker 1: very christ like to be going around genociding people. So

1146
01:09:04,080 --> 01:09:07,360
Speaker 1: maybe this is too far. Okay, credit where it's due,

1147
01:09:07,400 --> 01:09:10,240
Speaker 1: but that bar is low, very low, I guess not

1148
01:09:10,320 --> 01:09:12,720
Speaker 1: as low as it used to be. But it's still

1149
01:09:12,840 --> 01:09:16,240
Speaker 1: like down with Nazis. Oh good, Well you've got that

1150
01:09:16,280 --> 01:09:20,280
Speaker 1: going for you, right, slumping but not very much. Should

1151
01:09:20,400 --> 01:09:22,960
Speaker 1: kind of go without saying um, but it kind of

1152
01:09:23,000 --> 01:09:25,120
Speaker 1: gave me the impression that he was a little bit like,

1153
01:09:25,200 --> 01:09:28,320
Speaker 1: oh ship, like he had spent a decade talking about

1154
01:09:28,360 --> 01:09:32,640
Speaker 1: Jewish people and then realized how that those sentiments were

1155
01:09:32,680 --> 01:09:35,360
Speaker 1: being applied and him and probably a lot of other

1156
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:38,120
Speaker 1: anti Semites that were like, oh, that's too far for me. Well,

1157
01:09:38,160 --> 01:09:39,720
Speaker 1: he didn't like to pay the bill when it came

1158
01:09:39,760 --> 01:09:42,679
Speaker 1: to Salford's thing. He'll just he'll talk a lot of ship,

1159
01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:46,200
Speaker 1: but when there's consequences he runs away. So true, he

1160
01:09:46,280 --> 01:09:48,000
Speaker 1: was like, I'd love to send this to Oscar, but

1161
01:09:48,400 --> 01:09:51,240
Speaker 1: he's dead. He also softened up on Oscar after his

1162
01:09:51,280 --> 01:09:55,599
Speaker 1: own prison term, saying quote, sometimes the sin is also

1163
01:09:55,680 --> 01:10:00,280
Speaker 1: a crime, but such is not the case with homosexuality.

1164
01:10:00,520 --> 01:10:02,640
Speaker 1: I still thought it was a sin, but decided you

1165
01:10:02,640 --> 01:10:05,280
Speaker 1: shouldn't get go to jail for it. I guess again

1166
01:10:05,400 --> 01:10:09,040
Speaker 1: the bar is low for Ali. And sadly he only

1167
01:10:09,080 --> 01:10:12,599
Speaker 1: had one son with olive, and this son suffered from

1168
01:10:12,600 --> 01:10:15,240
Speaker 1: a Schizzo effective disorder, and he spent most of his

1169
01:10:15,280 --> 01:10:18,200
Speaker 1: time in an asylum. So that is sad for Alfred.

1170
01:10:18,240 --> 01:10:19,960
Speaker 1: I feel bad for him on that one. But it's

1171
01:10:19,960 --> 01:10:24,320
Speaker 1: important to remember that Oscar Wilde seemed to have no regrets.

1172
01:10:24,320 --> 01:10:29,920
Speaker 1: No regrets he wrote in Da Profundus quote when first

1173
01:10:30,000 --> 01:10:32,559
Speaker 1: I was put into prison, some people advised me to

1174
01:10:32,640 --> 01:10:36,280
Speaker 1: try and forget who I was. It was ruinous advice.

1175
01:10:36,840 --> 01:10:39,760
Speaker 1: It is only by realizing what I am that I

1176
01:10:39,800 --> 01:10:43,320
Speaker 1: have found comfort of any kind. Now I am advised

1177
01:10:43,360 --> 01:10:46,160
Speaker 1: by others to try, on my release to forget that

1178
01:10:46,240 --> 01:10:48,640
Speaker 1: I have ever been in a prison at all. I

1179
01:10:48,840 --> 01:10:51,640
Speaker 1: know that would be equally fatal. It would mean that

1180
01:10:51,720 --> 01:10:55,280
Speaker 1: I would always be haunted by an intolerable sense of disgrace,

1181
01:10:56,200 --> 01:10:58,360
Speaker 1: and that those things that are meant for me as

1182
01:10:58,400 --> 01:11:01,160
Speaker 1: much as for anybody else, the beauty of the sun

1183
01:11:01,160 --> 01:11:04,559
Speaker 1: and moon, the pageant of the seasons, the music of

1184
01:11:04,640 --> 01:11:08,200
Speaker 1: daybreak and the silence of great nights, the rain falling

1185
01:11:08,200 --> 01:11:11,080
Speaker 1: through the leaves, or the dew creeping over the grass

1186
01:11:11,120 --> 01:11:13,840
Speaker 1: and making it silver, would all be tainted for me

1187
01:11:14,320 --> 01:11:18,560
Speaker 1: and lose their healing power and their power of communicating joy.

1188
01:11:18,600 --> 01:11:23,120
Speaker 1: To regret one's own experiences is to arrest one's own development.

1189
01:11:23,439 --> 01:11:26,479
Speaker 1: To deny one's own experiences is to put a lie

1190
01:11:26,640 --> 01:11:29,320
Speaker 1: into the lips of one's own life. It is no

1191
01:11:29,479 --> 01:11:36,640
Speaker 1: less than a denial of the soul. Profound profoundest. Yes, indeed,

1192
01:11:36,880 --> 01:11:39,760
Speaker 1: I really love that so much. Um. And you know,

1193
01:11:39,840 --> 01:11:42,320
Speaker 1: we were talking in our last episode about what we

1194
01:11:42,360 --> 01:11:44,160
Speaker 1: want to bring what energy we want to bring into

1195
01:11:44,880 --> 01:11:46,720
Speaker 1: two And I would like to bring some of this

1196
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:50,280
Speaker 1: energy as well to say, you know, what's the point

1197
01:11:50,360 --> 01:11:54,080
Speaker 1: of looking back with regret. Everything that's happened to you,

1198
01:11:54,360 --> 01:11:57,800
Speaker 1: everything you've done, has made you who you are. And

1199
01:11:58,000 --> 01:12:00,600
Speaker 1: maybe you want to change some of those care duristics,

1200
01:12:00,680 --> 01:12:03,240
Speaker 1: maybe you want to work on yourself, but you wouldn't

1201
01:12:03,240 --> 01:12:06,120
Speaker 1: be who you are, you know, without your choices and

1202
01:12:06,160 --> 01:12:09,679
Speaker 1: without your just life. That happened, you know, So what's

1203
01:12:09,680 --> 01:12:11,640
Speaker 1: the point of looking back and saying let's forget all

1204
01:12:11,640 --> 01:12:14,320
Speaker 1: about that or I regret that or anything. Yeah, we

1205
01:12:14,360 --> 01:12:17,840
Speaker 1: are the summary of our experiences, you know, there's no

1206
01:12:17,880 --> 01:12:21,360
Speaker 1: way around that. Yeah. And I kind of like just

1207
01:12:21,720 --> 01:12:24,240
Speaker 1: to put it in the context of like dealing with trauma,

1208
01:12:24,720 --> 01:12:27,080
Speaker 1: because like you know, his family's like, that's traumatic for

1209
01:12:27,080 --> 01:12:29,240
Speaker 1: you to live in a prison. Let's just forget it,

1210
01:12:29,320 --> 01:12:32,920
Speaker 1: pretend it never happened. And he's pointing out that's that's

1211
01:12:32,960 --> 01:12:35,120
Speaker 1: not going to help me. In fact, to shut off

1212
01:12:35,160 --> 01:12:38,240
Speaker 1: part of my brain or to block out something horrible

1213
01:12:39,040 --> 01:12:42,160
Speaker 1: also taints all the beautiful things that you can be

1214
01:12:42,240 --> 01:12:45,360
Speaker 1: thinking and feeling and seeing and sensing. So I think

1215
01:12:45,400 --> 01:12:48,000
Speaker 1: that's really cool. I don't know, you might appreciate something

1216
01:12:48,000 --> 01:12:51,880
Speaker 1: more because of the negative experience you previously had. So

1217
01:12:51,920 --> 01:12:55,000
Speaker 1: if you ignore that previous experience, now you've got nothing

1218
01:12:55,040 --> 01:12:58,120
Speaker 1: to compare the positive too. Yeah, you know, it's sort

1219
01:12:58,120 --> 01:13:04,600
Speaker 1: of like Inside Out The Picks, a movie was incredibly profound, um,

1220
01:13:04,640 --> 01:13:06,760
Speaker 1: but you know, the whole thing was core memories or

1221
01:13:06,840 --> 01:13:10,600
Speaker 1: joyful or disgust or fear whatever. And then as she

1222
01:13:10,920 --> 01:13:14,840
Speaker 1: got older, they started to kind of melt. When an

1223
01:13:14,880 --> 01:13:19,560
Speaker 1: experience was both joyful and sad, and without the sadness,

1224
01:13:19,640 --> 01:13:22,400
Speaker 1: the joy wasn't the same, and without the joy, the

1225
01:13:22,439 --> 01:13:24,719
Speaker 1: sadness wasn't the same. You couldn't really have one without

1226
01:13:24,720 --> 01:13:26,759
Speaker 1: the other. And I thought that was such a powerful

1227
01:13:26,800 --> 01:13:29,519
Speaker 1: message of that movie, to be like, don't shut out

1228
01:13:29,560 --> 01:13:32,760
Speaker 1: any one emotion you have. You need them all. I

1229
01:13:32,760 --> 01:13:35,080
Speaker 1: always think of it like, and this isn't profound, but

1230
01:13:35,120 --> 01:13:37,840
Speaker 1: I always think of like, you know, a blank white canvas,

1231
01:13:38,040 --> 01:13:41,160
Speaker 1: You're like, if it's all white, then there's no picture there.

1232
01:13:41,680 --> 01:13:44,679
Speaker 1: But if you put some black in there, you've got

1233
01:13:45,400 --> 01:13:48,960
Speaker 1: shading and shadows and definition. Now now you're painting a picture.

1234
01:13:49,040 --> 01:13:51,479
Speaker 1: You've got to have that contrast. You know, Not that

1235
01:13:51,520 --> 01:13:54,679
Speaker 1: we shall go seeking out negative experiences and I wish

1236
01:13:54,760 --> 01:13:58,400
Speaker 1: everyone's were all positive all the time. Um, but they do,

1237
01:13:58,640 --> 01:14:00,880
Speaker 1: they do, they do give us something in life as

1238
01:14:00,880 --> 01:14:02,960
Speaker 1: we move forward. Well, I think that's what he was

1239
01:14:02,960 --> 01:14:04,960
Speaker 1: saying too, is He's like, you know, I didn't go

1240
01:14:05,080 --> 01:14:09,880
Speaker 1: seeking negative experiences. I went and sought joyful experiences. The

1241
01:14:09,960 --> 01:14:14,200
Speaker 1: consequences were negative and not joyful. But would I have

1242
01:14:14,320 --> 01:14:17,599
Speaker 1: given up the joyful part? Give now, give up this part?

1243
01:14:17,720 --> 01:14:20,800
Speaker 1: I don't think I would. Honestly, looking back, I'm I'm

1244
01:14:20,800 --> 01:14:23,080
Speaker 1: happy with what I did, and it sucks that it

1245
01:14:23,200 --> 01:14:25,519
Speaker 1: ended up this way, but that's how it is. So

1246
01:14:25,520 --> 01:14:27,240
Speaker 1: so what can we do moving forward? We can look

1247
01:14:27,280 --> 01:14:33,320
Speaker 1: at are we giving people negative consequences for their joyful experiences?

1248
01:14:33,880 --> 01:14:37,880
Speaker 1: And that's definitely something we can change. That's definitely something

1249
01:14:37,920 --> 01:14:41,200
Speaker 1: that we can shift to a better place. Or we

1250
01:14:41,240 --> 01:14:44,720
Speaker 1: realized that yes there's consequences for doing bad things, but

1251
01:14:44,880 --> 01:14:46,920
Speaker 1: how are we defining bad things? I mean back then

1252
01:14:46,960 --> 01:14:49,599
Speaker 1: they were literally like like like we said, you killed

1253
01:14:49,640 --> 01:14:55,240
Speaker 1: a man or you loved a man, same horrible consequences. Outrageous,

1254
01:14:55,520 --> 01:14:58,360
Speaker 1: that's outrageous, insane. You always need to keep history in

1255
01:14:58,400 --> 01:15:01,559
Speaker 1: mind when you're evaluating your present. Cir stances and saying, well,

1256
01:15:01,600 --> 01:15:04,880
Speaker 1: this seems like a really bad thing to me, and

1257
01:15:05,160 --> 01:15:07,040
Speaker 1: you go back in time and you're like, well, that

1258
01:15:07,240 --> 01:15:10,160
Speaker 1: seemed objectively like the worst thing in the world to

1259
01:15:10,200 --> 01:15:13,200
Speaker 1: them at the time. They believe that. And that's where

1260
01:15:13,200 --> 01:15:16,240
Speaker 1: I think we can kind of analyze history and say, well,

1261
01:15:16,640 --> 01:15:19,640
Speaker 1: maybe we look at ourselves and say this seemed like

1262
01:15:19,720 --> 01:15:22,840
Speaker 1: a bad thing, but maybe years from now, I'm going

1263
01:15:22,880 --> 01:15:25,439
Speaker 1: to look like an idiot. Can we get ahead of

1264
01:15:25,439 --> 01:15:28,200
Speaker 1: it and just say, wait, I look like an idiot today,

1265
01:15:28,439 --> 01:15:30,000
Speaker 1: so we don't have to People don't have to wait

1266
01:15:30,040 --> 01:15:33,120
Speaker 1: a hundred years for us to come around. True, although

1267
01:15:33,120 --> 01:15:35,280
Speaker 1: I will I will say, you know, because he was

1268
01:15:35,360 --> 01:15:39,400
Speaker 1: put on trial and it was this horrible fallout from that,

1269
01:15:40,200 --> 01:15:43,120
Speaker 1: it changed a lot of people's opinions. And I think

1270
01:15:43,120 --> 01:15:46,160
Speaker 1: while it was even happening, I mean, I'm speculation station.

1271
01:15:46,240 --> 01:15:48,800
Speaker 1: I'm imagining a lot of people in society were like, Man,

1272
01:15:48,840 --> 01:15:51,360
Speaker 1: it's really too bad that Oscar Wilds in trouble, because

1273
01:15:51,360 --> 01:15:56,360
Speaker 1: I fucking hate Queen's much rather hang out with Oscar Wild,

1274
01:15:56,800 --> 01:16:01,439
Speaker 1: this asshole. If the law is favoring Queen's over Wild,

1275
01:16:01,640 --> 01:16:04,240
Speaker 1: maybe there's something wrong with the law. I know. And

1276
01:16:04,600 --> 01:16:07,280
Speaker 1: you know, probably while it was all in the papers too,

1277
01:16:07,320 --> 01:16:08,920
Speaker 1: there was plenty of people being like, but he's like

1278
01:16:08,920 --> 01:16:11,360
Speaker 1: a really good playwright and you don't hurt nobody, and

1279
01:16:11,439 --> 01:16:14,080
Speaker 1: he's so funny and I like having him around. On

1280
01:16:14,120 --> 01:16:16,400
Speaker 1: the other hand, you got this fucking dude nobody likes,

1281
01:16:16,760 --> 01:16:20,360
Speaker 1: who's jerk, who's divorced and running around with all these

1282
01:16:20,439 --> 01:16:23,720
Speaker 1: ladies and just being scandalous on his own, trying to

1283
01:16:24,040 --> 01:16:27,720
Speaker 1: force a quarrel on this guy like he's really he's

1284
01:16:27,760 --> 01:16:30,240
Speaker 1: That's the whole his whole actions was just to make

1285
01:16:30,360 --> 01:16:33,599
Speaker 1: Oscar Wild mad enough to do what he did, which

1286
01:16:33,680 --> 01:16:36,120
Speaker 1: was taken to court, and make it a whole public thing,

1287
01:16:36,720 --> 01:16:39,679
Speaker 1: because as long as it wasn't public, nobody really cared,

1288
01:16:39,800 --> 01:16:43,000
Speaker 1: you know. But anyway, so I think people, plenty of

1289
01:16:43,040 --> 01:16:46,000
Speaker 1: people probably were looking at Queensberry like, you're in the

1290
01:16:46,040 --> 01:16:49,160
Speaker 1: wrong here. You're you're the one who was poking this bear,

1291
01:16:49,479 --> 01:16:51,880
Speaker 1: and nobody asked for that and nobody wanted it. But

1292
01:16:51,960 --> 01:16:55,439
Speaker 1: now we all have to deal with this bear, you know. Yeah, yeah,

1293
01:16:55,479 --> 01:16:59,800
Speaker 1: that's good, that's true. So yeah, I like that taking

1294
01:16:59,800 --> 01:17:02,479
Speaker 1: that forward into the new year, kind of looking back

1295
01:17:02,520 --> 01:17:05,600
Speaker 1: at our own experiences and trying to appreciate where we

1296
01:17:05,640 --> 01:17:10,000
Speaker 1: are and why we're here, and then also examining what

1297
01:17:10,000 --> 01:17:14,519
Speaker 1: we're judging other people for. Right, maybe is that really matter?

1298
01:17:15,200 --> 01:17:18,599
Speaker 1: Or is it is that fine? This is not affecting

1299
01:17:18,640 --> 01:17:21,400
Speaker 1: me or anyone else. This isn't the downfall of society

1300
01:17:21,960 --> 01:17:25,240
Speaker 1: because I mean, look back then, they thought if men

1301
01:17:25,280 --> 01:17:29,040
Speaker 1: were sleeping together, humanity will be doomed in a matter

1302
01:17:29,080 --> 01:17:32,719
Speaker 1: of decades. And guess what as a few hundred years ago, folks,

1303
01:17:33,720 --> 01:17:36,160
Speaker 1: it's kind of okay. It turns out we're all right,

1304
01:17:36,200 --> 01:17:38,800
Speaker 1: and a lot of people are a lot happier because

1305
01:17:38,800 --> 01:17:41,400
Speaker 1: of the progress we've made. Maybe if they'd realized that

1306
01:17:41,439 --> 01:17:44,320
Speaker 1: back then, would be in an even better but now, yes,

1307
01:17:44,760 --> 01:17:47,200
Speaker 1: and think about it, fucking put a bug react together

1308
01:17:47,200 --> 01:17:50,920
Speaker 1: in fifteen thirty three. Then you get to the eighteen

1309
01:17:50,960 --> 01:17:55,519
Speaker 1: hundreds and there's a thriving underground of gay bars and

1310
01:17:55,960 --> 01:17:59,960
Speaker 1: you know, gay meeting places and stuff. It's it don't

1311
01:18:00,040 --> 01:18:02,320
Speaker 1: matter if you make it illegal. People will do what

1312
01:18:02,400 --> 01:18:05,519
Speaker 1: they want to do. It's you know, to a purpose,

1313
01:18:05,560 --> 01:18:06,920
Speaker 1: you know, to a point. I don't want to be like,

1314
01:18:06,960 --> 01:18:11,120
Speaker 1: we'll go out and murder somebody if you want to. Yeah,

1315
01:18:11,800 --> 01:18:15,160
Speaker 1: just right. But um, but I think for some of

1316
01:18:15,200 --> 01:18:18,280
Speaker 1: these things that are so personal who you're having sex with,

1317
01:18:18,880 --> 01:18:21,559
Speaker 1: you know, that type of thing. Why is it anyone

1318
01:18:21,600 --> 01:18:24,280
Speaker 1: else's business? Well, and I think the issue is that

1319
01:18:24,320 --> 01:18:26,959
Speaker 1: in making it illegal and you force these like underground

1320
01:18:27,000 --> 01:18:31,120
Speaker 1: networks to form for people to just experience the best

1321
01:18:31,200 --> 01:18:34,240
Speaker 1: life they can now have to do it very dangerously

1322
01:18:34,800 --> 01:18:39,040
Speaker 1: instead of just normally and safely like anyone else could.

1323
01:18:39,040 --> 01:18:40,640
Speaker 1: And I think that's the big thing too, is like

1324
01:18:40,680 --> 01:18:44,599
Speaker 1: when you when you make something that is so necessary

1325
01:18:44,720 --> 01:18:49,120
Speaker 1: to living a healthy, productive life illegal, then people are

1326
01:18:49,120 --> 01:18:51,599
Speaker 1: going to find a way to live and they may

1327
01:18:51,640 --> 01:18:53,479
Speaker 1: have to do that in a very dangerous way, and

1328
01:18:53,560 --> 01:18:56,680
Speaker 1: that's not right. Yeah, to make it illegal really influences

1329
01:18:57,080 --> 01:18:59,639
Speaker 1: everyone else because you know, if you talk about these

1330
01:18:59,680 --> 01:19:02,479
Speaker 1: guys that got arrested in the Manchester right for this

1331
01:19:02,560 --> 01:19:09,920
Speaker 1: drag ball, that smacks of underground, elicit, shady doings, you

1332
01:19:09,920 --> 01:19:11,519
Speaker 1: know what I mean, When actually it was just a

1333
01:19:11,520 --> 01:19:14,880
Speaker 1: party and there are parties like that all over the city.

1334
01:19:14,920 --> 01:19:16,559
Speaker 1: And if it had been any other party, it would

1335
01:19:16,560 --> 01:19:18,240
Speaker 1: have been like nothing to talk about. And if you

1336
01:19:18,320 --> 01:19:20,799
Speaker 1: never heard about it, you wouldn't know about it, would anybody.

1337
01:19:20,920 --> 01:19:22,599
Speaker 1: And if it had been talked about, it would have been, Oh,

1338
01:19:22,640 --> 01:19:24,479
Speaker 1: it was a party, they had an accordion, they had

1339
01:19:24,760 --> 01:19:27,760
Speaker 1: not a bounce. Are just like, oh, all these people

1340
01:19:27,800 --> 01:19:30,639
Speaker 1: were there, it's great. But like, because it was illegal,

1341
01:19:31,000 --> 01:19:35,880
Speaker 1: they made it seem like this horrible ring of criminals,

1342
01:19:35,960 --> 01:19:38,120
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, And that that does as

1343
01:19:38,160 --> 01:19:40,559
Speaker 1: a reader, you're going to be reading that going ooh,

1344
01:19:40,640 --> 01:19:43,280
Speaker 1: I guess they're a bunch of criminals. But actually it's

1345
01:19:43,320 --> 01:19:45,160
Speaker 1: just a bunch of men hanging out just having a

1346
01:19:45,160 --> 01:19:48,160
Speaker 1: good time. So that's our stance here in ridiculous romance,

1347
01:19:48,240 --> 01:19:53,880
Speaker 1: legalized gayness of it. No, I'm so glad that so

1348
01:19:53,960 --> 01:19:56,360
Speaker 1: much progress has been made, so much more to make

1349
01:19:57,360 --> 01:20:01,960
Speaker 1: across the LGBT spectrum, um for sure, because it's still

1350
01:20:02,000 --> 01:20:04,280
Speaker 1: a big problem um for a lot of people. But

1351
01:20:04,439 --> 01:20:09,560
Speaker 1: just open your damn hearts, people to be a wild

1352
01:20:09,560 --> 01:20:13,600
Speaker 1: not a queen's bear. Yes, please, we got enough queensberries.

1353
01:20:14,280 --> 01:20:16,160
Speaker 1: And please let us know what you thought of the

1354
01:20:16,160 --> 01:20:19,160
Speaker 1: episode the Oscar wild Story. There's so much more to

1355
01:20:19,200 --> 01:20:21,920
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde's life that we just couldn't even touch on

1356
01:20:22,560 --> 01:20:28,519
Speaker 1: the densely right densely. And he's so funny. I mean,

1357
01:20:28,560 --> 01:20:30,400
Speaker 1: I know we said he was funny a lot, and

1358
01:20:30,439 --> 01:20:33,800
Speaker 1: hopefully got to share some of his his witticisms for you,

1359
01:20:33,920 --> 01:20:37,400
Speaker 1: but definitely check out his plays. They're delightful. His Picture

1360
01:20:37,400 --> 01:20:41,160
Speaker 1: of Dorian Gray is a very very good novel. Um. Yeah,

1361
01:20:41,280 --> 01:20:43,360
Speaker 1: he's just he was just a really cool dude. I

1362
01:20:43,360 --> 01:20:46,120
Speaker 1: wish he'd live longer to write even more. Oh well,

1363
01:20:46,280 --> 01:20:49,639
Speaker 1: at least he did make his impact and he changed

1364
01:20:49,760 --> 01:20:52,880
Speaker 1: a lot about the trajectory of the country that he

1365
01:20:53,760 --> 01:20:56,679
Speaker 1: lived in. So that's very cool. Good for you, Oscar Wild.

1366
01:20:56,840 --> 01:20:58,360
Speaker 1: So let us know what you thought. You can reach

1367
01:20:58,439 --> 01:21:00,880
Speaker 1: us Romance that I heart media, dut um yep or

1368
01:21:00,920 --> 01:21:03,680
Speaker 1: we're on Twitter and Instagram, I'm at Dianamite boom and

1369
01:21:03,680 --> 01:21:05,920
Speaker 1: I'm at Oh great, it's Eli and the show is

1370
01:21:05,960 --> 01:21:08,240
Speaker 1: at medic Romance. Don't forget to drop a review on

1371
01:21:08,280 --> 01:21:11,200
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. You can now rate in the app on

1372
01:21:11,320 --> 01:21:13,720
Speaker 1: Spotify as well. If you're on Spotify, just throw us

1373
01:21:13,720 --> 01:21:16,240
Speaker 1: a five star. We'd love that. Interesting to you added

1374
01:21:16,720 --> 01:21:18,519
Speaker 1: and uh and yeah, we can't wait to hear from you.

1375
01:21:18,520 --> 01:21:20,040
Speaker 1: We can't wait to see you next week with another

1376
01:21:20,080 --> 01:21:28,160
Speaker 1: exciting episode. Yeah, so long friends, it's time to go. Thanks.

1377
01:21:28,200 --> 01:21:31,800
Speaker 1: So listening to our show, tell your friend's name is

1378
01:21:31,880 --> 01:21:34,920
Speaker 1: uncles in dance to listen to our show Ridiculous Well

1379
01:21:35,040 --> 01:21:35,320
Speaker 1: Dance