Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy centralow.
Speaker 2: March, as you know, is Women's History Month, and to
Speaker 2: celebrate return to Daisi Lidik, where she doesn't explore history
Speaker 2: but his hurry.
Speaker 1: It's no secret that women's on screen portrayals have evolved
Speaker 1: throughout history. We've gone from playing secretaries being saved by
Speaker 1: James Bond all the way to nuclear scientists being saved
Speaker 1: by James Bond. But I want to focus on one
Speaker 1: specific aspect of female depictions, the orgasm. It's when a
Speaker 1: woman is stimulated to the point of climax, causing a
Speaker 1: physical and neurological response that scientists refer to as fantastic.
Speaker 1: And over the years, depicting female pleasure on screen is
Speaker 1: something that's changed more than the batteries in your vibrator.
Speaker 1: First known female orgasm on the silver screen was in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirty three German film Ecstasy, when Hetty Lamar
Speaker 1: took the brought Worst Express all the way to pleasure Burg.
Speaker 1: Turns out the world wasn't ready for this. Everyone denounced it,
Speaker 1: from Hitler to the Pope, and if you ask me,
Speaker 1: the Pope has no place weighing in on sex scenes.
Speaker 1: He's celibate. I mean, when we need your opinion on
Speaker 1: the best stay removers for white fabrics, then we'll call you. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: being the first actress to climax on screen, followed Hetty Lamar.
Speaker 1: For the rest of her career, she was typecast as
Speaker 1: the seductress, even though she.
Speaker 3: Was literally the smartest person in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as her side hustle, she was a brilliant scientist
Speaker 1: who invented the basis.
Speaker 3: For all modern wireless technology.
Speaker 1: Without her, no one would be orgasming because we wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to watch porn on our cell phones.
Speaker 3: In the bathroom.
Speaker 1: And that was the last big on screen female orgasm
Speaker 1: for a while because around the same time, the Hayes
Speaker 1: Code was enforced in Hollywood. This was a set of
Speaker 1: censorship guidelines that banned movies from explicitly showing or discussing sex.
Speaker 1: Even married couples had to be shown in separate beds,
Speaker 1: or as it's now called the reverse chocolate factory with a.
Speaker 3: Four you bedridden for the past twenty years. It takes
Speaker 3: a lot of work to keep this family going.
Speaker 1: No one was getting off. The Hayes Code finally ended
Speaker 1: in the late sixties, which as timing goes is like
Speaker 1: having your dry January end at an open bar in
Speaker 1: Cabo America was embarking on a sexual revolution, so female
Speaker 1: pleasure came back on screen. Unfortunately, it was often treated
Speaker 1: as a novelty that existed for men's amusements. So you've
Speaker 1: got scenes like the one in nineteen sixty eight's Barbarella.
Speaker 1: We're Evil. Doctor Eyebrows over here traps Jane Fonda and
Speaker 1: a machine that's supposed to give her orgasms until she dies,
Speaker 1: except that she climaxes so hard she breaks the machine. Goodness.
Speaker 1: At the time, it was considered a campy, sexy thing,
Speaker 1: but looking at it now, it's a violation. Remember everyone,
Speaker 1: if you're going to put a woman in a machine that.
Speaker 3: Orgasms her to death, you need consent first.
Speaker 1: Another major moment came a few years later with the
Speaker 1: movie Deep Throat. It tells the story of a woman
Speaker 1: who keeps giving men oral sex because her pleasure zone
Speaker 1: is in her throat.
Speaker 3: That is not how it works.
Speaker 1: But Deep Throat became the first porno film to go
Speaker 1: mainstream and inspired both my uncles to become Dennis the
Speaker 1: Female Orgasms and Barberrella and Deep Throat were basically male
Speaker 1: fantasies about how women experienced pleasure, so it was appropriate
Speaker 1: that the next on screen orgasm to make a splash
Speaker 1: totally debunked those fantasies. Nineteen eighty nine's When Harry Met
Speaker 1: Sally famously includes an extended scene of Meg Ryan faking
Speaker 1: an orgasm in a deli to prove to Billy Crystal
Speaker 1: that maybe he wasn't the cunnelingest king that he thought
Speaker 1: he was. Oh oh, yes, yes, yes, oh God. This
Speaker 1: scene was groundbreaking for a few reasons. It told all
Speaker 1: the women watching who had faked orgasms that they weren't alone.
Speaker 1: It taught men to try to be attentive to their
Speaker 1: partner's needs, and it catapulted draw Me to become the
Speaker 1: top aphrodisiac of nineteen eighty nine. It also started a
Speaker 1: conversation about the performative nature of the female orgasm. Women
Speaker 1: face far too much pressure to satisfy their partner's ego
Speaker 1: instead of themselves. I mean, no one ever has to
Speaker 1: fake it for their vibrator. If they don't get the
Speaker 1: job done, they just go back into the drawer and
Speaker 1: they think about what they did. In the years that followed,
Speaker 1: female pleasure became more and more common on screen, but
Speaker 1: they were still often treated as punchlines, like Jennifer Aniston
Speaker 1: getting unexpected magic Himaxes and Bruce Almighty, or Catherine Heigel
Speaker 1: accidentally orgasming at dinner when a little boy grabbed her
Speaker 1: remote controlled vibrating underwear. Okay, there is so much wrong
Speaker 1: with this. It's non consensual, it's a kid doing it,
Speaker 1: and it perpetuates the dangerous myth that vibrating underwear gives
Speaker 1: you anything but a five alarm electrical burn.
Speaker 3: And even when orgasms weren't.
Speaker 1: Meant to be funny, it could be hard to take
Speaker 1: them seriously, like in Forty Days and Forty Nights when
Speaker 1: Josh Harten it makes it partner orgasm by caressing her
Speaker 1: with flowers, which, believe me, is not that easy. Not
Speaker 1: to be a size queen, but you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: use at least a sunflower. The aughts weren't a step
Speaker 1: forward for orgasms, but they weren't a step back either.
Speaker 1: They still needed to step a little to the side,
Speaker 1: now the other side, then back and forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right there.
Speaker 1: Thankfully, in the present day, we're starting to see much
Speaker 1: more realistic and positive depictions of women pop in their
Speaker 1: Turkey timers. These days, you can hardly turn your TV
Speaker 1: on without seeing a woman getting off. And finally, movies
Speaker 1: and shows are doing this through the female gaze. And
Speaker 1: if you don't know what that would look like, then
Speaker 1: you haven't seen Bridgerton. It's a show about nineteenth century
Speaker 1: British society taking care of their little women.
Speaker 3: She's a Beth in the streets, but a Joe in
Speaker 3: the sheets.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Bridgerton, there haven't been this many female orgasms
Speaker 1: since well since when started watching Bridgerton. So that's the
Speaker 1: history on the female orgasm on screen, and who knows
Speaker 1: what the future holds, but it is important because the
Speaker 1: way women are portrayed on screen holds a mirror up
Speaker 1: to how they're treated in real life.
Speaker 3: And as all women know, sometimes.
Speaker 1: Holding up a mirror to something is the only way
Speaker 1: to get a good look and figure out how it works.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think America's first female soldier was
Speaker 1: Demi Moore and Gi Jane, which is not true. Although
Speaker 1: she was the first marine to strip her way through
Speaker 1: West Point, the truth is there have been women fighting
Speaker 1: wars since the beginning of America.
Speaker 3: During the Revolutionary War.
Speaker 1: Deborah Sampson was the first known woman to enlist, and
Speaker 1: to do so, she had to pose as a man,
Speaker 1: which had its ups and downs. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: she had to put herself in grave danger. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, she didn't have to wear a corset anymore, which,
Speaker 1: if you ask me, is worth risking your life for.
Speaker 1: And Samson didn't just fight in the war, She kicked ass.
Speaker 1: She led a raid that captured fifteen men. That's right,
Speaker 1: a woman took down fifteen men without the help of
Speaker 1: Ronan Ferro.
Speaker 3: In the Civil War, another woman named.
Speaker 1: Melinda Blaylock also poses a man to enlist. It's weird
Speaker 1: that America doesn't know her story because she fought for
Speaker 1: the Confederacy. You think there'd be statues of her all over.
Speaker 1: But Blaylock was secretly a Union sympathizer trying to desert
Speaker 1: the Confederates and escape up north.
Speaker 3: But before she could, she was.
Speaker 1: Shot in the shoulder and discovered as a woman by
Speaker 1: an army doctor. That's a huge sacrifice because as soon
Speaker 1: as your doctor realizes you're a woman, all your premiums
Speaker 1: go up. After Blaylock was discharged for the crime of
Speaker 1: having a Vagina. She escaped to Tennessee and joined up
Speaker 1: with the Union Army, helping it to win the Civil War,
Speaker 1: end slavery, and defeat racism in America once and for all.
Speaker 1: At least that's what my nephew's textbook says he goes
Speaker 1: to school in Texas. World War One women didn't have
Speaker 1: to drag race their way into service. They were actually
Speaker 1: allowed to enlist. In nineteen eighteen, Opa Mae Johnson was
Speaker 1: the first woman to join the United States Marine Corps,
Speaker 1: along with three hundred other women, and they came to
Speaker 1: be known as the Marinets, although to their credit, marine
Speaker 1: officials distanced themselves from that nickname, probably because marinette sounds
Speaker 1: less like soldiers and more like a dance troop that
Speaker 1: does high kicks on the battlefield, which is really just
Speaker 1: giving the enemy unrealistic expectations of what their legs should
Speaker 1: look like. By World War Two, women weren't just fighting
Speaker 1: on the ground. They were taking to the skies. America
Speaker 1: had a shortage of pilots, so women were trained to
Speaker 1: fly military aircraft. These women were known as wasps, which
Speaker 1: stood for Women Air Force Service Pilots, and not as
Speaker 1: many believe wet ass service pilots. This was just another
Speaker 1: example of women getting to step up during the war
Speaker 1: to do jobs previously reserved for men, flying planes, playing baseball.
Speaker 1: Women even had to fill in for man splainers. See
Speaker 1: the reason they haull at World War two is because
Speaker 1: it's a second one. It's a math thing. You wouldn't understand.
Speaker 1: You go hammer some shit. World War two saw another
Speaker 1: first for women when Charity Adams Early became the first
Speaker 1: African American female Army officer and led the first battalion
Speaker 1: of black women to be stationed overseas, which means without
Speaker 1: her inspiration, we never would have had Beyonce's Super Bowl
Speaker 1: halftime show. Early was given the daunting task of delivering
Speaker 1: airplane hangers full of undelivered mail to the soldiers fighting
Speaker 1: in Europe, and she did such an amazing job that
Speaker 1: she was eventually promoted to lieutenant colonel, which back then
Speaker 1: was the highest rank a woman was allowed to have,
Speaker 1: just above.
Speaker 3: HBIC and girl boss.
Speaker 1: But not every woman fighting in World War Two was
Speaker 1: as visible as army officers and Air Force pilots, and
Speaker 1: in one case that was on purpose. Virginia Hall was
Speaker 1: one of the alli's most important spies. She recruited resistance fighters,
Speaker 1: directed them to the Allied invasion, rescued twelve fellow agents
Speaker 1: out of an internment camp. And she did it at
Speaker 1: all with a peg leg. You're kidding me. I take
Speaker 1: a sick day when I stub my toe. The Nazis
Speaker 1: called Hall the Enemy's most dangerous spot, but she was
Speaker 1: more affectionately known as the limping Lady of Leon, and
Speaker 1: she gathered intelligence from everywhere, from nuns to brothel owners,
Speaker 1: basically anyone who spanks men with a ruler. Hall was
Speaker 1: truly a master of espionage, like James Bond, without all
Speaker 1: the pouting and STDs. But it wasn't all sunshine and
Speaker 1: jet fuel for women veterans. The families of the women
Speaker 1: who died while serving didn't get any survivor benefits or
Speaker 1: burial expenses, and the women who made it through the
Speaker 1: war didn't even get veteran status until the late seventies.
Speaker 3: Which is so messed up. Also, if you're not an official.
Speaker 1: Veteran, your dog doesn't get excited when you surprise him
Speaker 1: by coming home. Barely even looks up. So this Veteran's Day,
Speaker 1: we salute the women who have kept America safe. They
Speaker 1: paved the way for all the brave women fighting today
Speaker 1: and the ones who will fight in the future once
Speaker 1: the robot apocalypse kicks off. They also inspired me to
Speaker 1: avoid the line for the women's bathroom bras, also known
Speaker 1: as braziers or more formally, over the shoulder boulder holders.
Speaker 1: The histories of women and their bras have been pushed
Speaker 1: together and held there for as long as we can remember,
Speaker 1: and you can always tell a lot about what's going
Speaker 1: on with women in society by how their breasts are
Speaker 1: being stored, from the ancient Romans wearing band doux style
Speaker 1: sports bras for athletic competitions, to the women of the
Speaker 1: early Offs who shot whipped cream out of their bras
Speaker 1: as a way to destigmatize public breastfeeding. I was nursing,
Speaker 1: I could never quite get my milk to come out
Speaker 1: that frothy. One of the earliest versions of the bra
Speaker 1: was in the Middle Ages, when women could wear two
Speaker 1: fabric bags over their breasts inside their These ladies didn't
Speaker 1: have time for cute underwear. It was the thirteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: They were more concerned with finding new recipes for gruel
Speaker 1: and not dying from a paper cut for a while
Speaker 1: during the French Revolution and Victorian eras bras took a
Speaker 1: backseat to corsets, which ever so gently molded a woman's
Speaker 1: body into that super desirable hourglass figure, because nothing is
Speaker 1: sexier than a woman who might be filled with sand. Luckily,
Speaker 1: by the end of the nineteenth century, a frenchwoman named
Speaker 1: Ermini Cadal had designed the first modern bra by cutting
Speaker 1: a corset in two and sewing it into something that
Speaker 1: was then considered lingerie and would now be considered school
Speaker 1: clothes on euphoria. It gave women more freedom than the
Speaker 1: traditional corset, but was still impossible to take your bra
Speaker 1: through your shirt in the locker room at Planet Fitness.
Speaker 1: Be right there, don't start zooma without me, thankfully. In
Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen, a nineteen year old named Caress Crosby invented
Speaker 1: a bra that ditched the corset all together.
Speaker 3: Crosbie wanted a broad aware.
Speaker 1: To Debutante ball that was actually comfortable, so she made
Speaker 1: one herself out of two handkerchiefs tied together with a ribbon.
Speaker 1: It turned out to be a huge hit at the ball,
Speaker 1: probably because in a corset bra, the only dance women
Speaker 1: could do was the robot, and no one likes the
Speaker 1: person at the party doing the robot, especially before robots
Speaker 1: were invented. She's possessed Fetch Father Mkay.
Speaker 3: With her new bra.
Speaker 1: Carress Crosbie and women everywhere were liberated, except for the
Speaker 1: fact that they were still women in nineteen fourteen. But
Speaker 1: aside from that liberated Crosbie's bra was a hit, but
Speaker 1: it continued to evolve, and by the nineteen fifties, new
Speaker 1: styles led to an all out bob party. Bros became
Speaker 1: an intrinsic part of fashion, with underwires and padding allowing
Speaker 1: women to emulate the stars of the era like Marilyn
Speaker 1: Monroe and Jane Mansfield. An ample bosom was as synonymous
Speaker 1: with nineteen fifties womanhood as not having a bank account
Speaker 1: or getting excited when you get a vacuum for your anniversary.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just about the curves thanks to torpedo bras,
Speaker 1: it was also about the quaintiness, which may look a
Speaker 1: little odd now, but at the time it was.
Speaker 3: The Cold War, so it made sense to.
Speaker 1: Have extra missiles on hand in case Russia invaded. But
Speaker 1: while bras were supporting women, not all women were supporting bras.
Speaker 1: In fact, by the late nineteen sixties, going bralis became
Speaker 1: a fashion statement. Boobs were free to hang and move
Speaker 1: around and swing as much as all.
Speaker 3: The couples at the party.
Speaker 1: It was a great time for boobs, except for all
Speaker 1: the polyester they were rubbing against for the first time.
Speaker 1: But contrary to popular belief, burning bras was never actually
Speaker 1: a thing. What did happen is that in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: demonstrators were protesting the Miss America pageant for being sexist, racist,
Speaker 1: and forcing women to solve world peace.
Speaker 3: In ten seconds. I need at least five minutes to
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: So protesters toss symbols of their oppression into what they
Speaker 1: referred to as the freedom trash can, which also happens
Speaker 1: to be what I call the dumpster outside Whole Foods.
Speaker 1: And those symbols of oppression included bras, but they never
Speaker 1: actually set them on fire. That's just a myth, like
Speaker 1: mild menstrual cramps or the male orgasm.
Speaker 3: I'll believe it when I see it.
Speaker 1: But by that point bras were so ingrained in society
Speaker 1: that many people struggled with the idea that they can
Speaker 1: be optional. The idea took hold that not wearing a
Speaker 1: bra was somehow inappropriate or unprofessional, like in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: when a woman in Arkansas was found in contempt at
Speaker 1: court when the judge said her breasts were obviously showing
Speaker 1: through her shirt. Objection, your honor, my right to a
Speaker 1: fair trial is up here. And only a few years ago,
Speaker 1: a Florida high school student was forced.
Speaker 3: To put band aids over her nipples at school.
Speaker 1: That's a trip to the school nurse that will also
Speaker 1: send you to the school psychiatrist.
Speaker 3: I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: American schools can't afford those, but for those who want
Speaker 1: to wear them, it's a great time for bras. Right now,
Speaker 1: bra designers are no longer telling women what they should
Speaker 1: be wearing. Instead, they're listening to what women want to wear.
Speaker 1: There are so many comfortable options now, from ath leisure
Speaker 1: to sports bras.
Speaker 3: Women can live a life where they aren't.
Speaker 1: Being squeezed like an empty tube of toothpaste. And there's
Speaker 1: no telling what the future of bras will be like.
Speaker 1: Maybe twenty years from now, all bras will be NFTs.
Speaker 1: Who knows, not me, I literally don't know what that means.
Speaker 1: But whatever form bras take, there's one thing that you
Speaker 1: can always count on. They will lose their shape in
Speaker 1: the dryer, but only if you wash them in the
Speaker 1: first place. Oh, childbirth, it's like three D printing a person.
Speaker 1: Bringing a baby into this world isn't easy. But for
Speaker 1: most of recorded history, other people, usually men, have been
Speaker 1: dictating to women the terms of their own childbirth, even
Speaker 1: when they don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Speaker 3: Time to take a.
Speaker 1: Couple of deep breaths and push out another history. Let's
Speaker 1: start all the way back in ancient Greece. Plato may
Speaker 1: have been one of the greatest philosophers of all time,
Speaker 1: and you could definitely rock that casual tunic look like
Speaker 1: nobody's business. But when it comes to babymaking, he was clueless.
Speaker 1: He thought the womb could literally wander around the body
Speaker 1: like one of those DVD screensavers.
Speaker 3: WHOA is that an eyeball? I am definitely on the
Speaker 3: wrong floor.
Speaker 1: As dumb as Plato's dumb ideas about women's anatomy were,
Speaker 1: they were accepted by male doctors for centuries, and doctors
Speaker 1: couldn't do their own research because for most of human history,
Speaker 1: male doctors refused to even watch a.
Speaker 3: Woman give birth.
Speaker 1: They avoided the delivery room like it was an idea,
Speaker 1: a woman said in a meeting.
Speaker 3: In fact, in fifteen.
Speaker 1: Twenty two, a cure as German doctor decided to sneak
Speaker 1: into the delivery room dressed as a midwife and guess.
Speaker 3: What he was burned alive for it. It's like the
Speaker 3: most extreme drag race challenge ever.
Speaker 1: So, because men didn't have the balls to see a vagina,
Speaker 1: it was up to the midwives to deliver the babies.
Speaker 1: That is until the mid sixteenth century, when men realized
Speaker 1: how much money they could make by doing it themselves.
Speaker 1: But even in the delivery room, men were still so
Speaker 1: squeamish about seeing lady parts that they made women lie
Speaker 1: on their backs and cover their.
Speaker 3: Legs to deliver.
Speaker 1: That's why lying on your back is still the standard
Speaker 1: delivery procedure today, even though there are so many more
Speaker 1: comfortable and efficient positions.
Speaker 3: A woman can give burthen on her.
Speaker 1: Side, squatting on all fours, or how I did it
Speaker 1: standing in line to get into the Gucci sample sale.
Speaker 1: Fun fact, if you find a placenta stain on the scarf,
Speaker 1: we'll give you an extra five percent off. Aside from
Speaker 1: awkward positions, men started doing all kinds of things to women.
Speaker 3: We never would have chosen ourselves. We all know what
Speaker 3: this is, right now, Why do you think this.
Speaker 1: Was invented to chop down trees, hunt down unsuspecting hotties.
Speaker 3: Wrong?
Speaker 1: Originally, the chainsaw was invented to assist in childbirth. How
Speaker 1: horrifying is that at that point I'd rather just let
Speaker 1: the baby.
Speaker 3: Grow up inside me.
Speaker 1: It's no surprise male doctors would come up with the
Speaker 1: idea of chainsawing a baby out of a woman because
Speaker 1: a woman's pain was never really taken into consideration, which
Speaker 1: is crazy because pain is the most traumatic thing about childbirth. Well,
Speaker 1: that and going on Maury afterwards to find out who
Speaker 1: the child's father is. But for a long time, men
Speaker 1: believe that women should feel pain during childbirth, that it
Speaker 1: was part of her destiny, so painkillers weren't even an option.
Speaker 3: In fifteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: A woman from Edinburgh had the gall to ask for
Speaker 1: pain relief during the birth of her twins, and no joke,
Speaker 1: she was burned at this steak for it. Yeah, another
Speaker 1: one apparently just telling someone no wasn't invented for another
Speaker 1: couple's sets. Painkillers were largely off limits until the mid
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, when Queen Victoria used chloroform for the birth
Speaker 1: of her eighth child. She raved about it, which made
Speaker 1: it even more popular.
Speaker 3: She truly was the original mommy influencer.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Queen Victoria, drugging women during childbirth became much
Speaker 1: more acceptable, But after one hundred years or so, the
Speaker 1: no drugs philosophy came back in style again thanks to
Speaker 1: men like doctor Grantly dick Read, the first modern physician
Speaker 1: to suggest women shouldn't get drugs at all, because he
Speaker 1: claimed that women's pain was all in their heads. In
Speaker 1: his defense, he was probably just trying to get revenge
Speaker 1: on his mom for giving him that name. Look, if
Speaker 1: women want drugs during childbirth, that's their choice. If they
Speaker 1: want to push a watermelon through a bagel hole without drugs,
Speaker 1: that's also their choice. The problem is when decisions are
Speaker 1: being made by other people without putting the woman first.
Speaker 3: And that's not just in the past. It continues today.
Speaker 1: There's obgyns who refused to work with the doula episiotomy
Speaker 1: is being performed without consent, and unnecessary sea sections being
Speaker 1: pushed on women just to work around a doctor's lunch break.
Speaker 1: Which is honestly kind of weird, because if you still
Speaker 1: have an appetite after cutting a person open, then I
Speaker 1: need a new doctor and you need a shrink. So
Speaker 1: to all the doctors and medical professionals out there, please
Speaker 1: listen to the women who are actually pushing another human
Speaker 1: being out of their bodies. Take their concerns seriously, put
Speaker 1: their interests first, and for God's sake.
Speaker 3: Please no more burning people at the stake.
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