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Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about sex. In the history of sex,

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Speaker 1: no blushing? Did you know cornflakes were invented to discourage

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Speaker 1: lustful thoughts? I'm Patty Steele. Good old fashioned sex. Next

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Speaker 1: on the backstory. We're back with a backstory. Ah, sex,

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Speaker 1: Why have we always been so freaked out about it?

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Speaker 1: Have you always thought that sex in the past was

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Speaker 1: like totally taboo. You didn't talk about it and you

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Speaker 1: didn't do it much. Well, guess what. That wasn't always

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Speaker 1: the case. Some cultures celebrated it like crazy, but for

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Speaker 1: others it was a big problem and they dealt with

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Speaker 1: it in crazy ways. In eighteen hundreds, for instance, there

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Speaker 1: was an intense suspicion that sex, self pleasure, and even

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Speaker 1: sexual thoughts would not only pollute your mind and your morals,

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Speaker 1: but also make you physically sick, maybe even kill it.

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Speaker 1: You didn't think about it, and you didn't do it

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Speaker 1: except to procreate, at least if you were a decent.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just religious types who discouraged physical enjoyment. A

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Speaker 1: lot of doctors spoke publicly about all the evils caused

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Speaker 1: by indulging in carnal delights. That included John Harvey Kellogg

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Speaker 1: recognized that name. He with his brother Will invented corn flakes.

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Speaker 1: He was so against masturbation and sex that he always

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Speaker 1: slept in a separate room from his wife, despite having

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Speaker 1: eight children with her. The introduction of corn flakes was

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Speaker 1: based on his belief that really plain tasting foods cut

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Speaker 1: down on sexual desire. He gave talks and wrote books

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Speaker 1: and articles about all the problems caused by sex, and

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Speaker 1: even opened a spa focused on pure living for health.

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Speaker 1: Kind Of hard to argue with him since he lived

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Speaker 1: to be ninety one years old, although he probably finally

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Speaker 1: died a boredom. But folks developed implements a lot more

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Speaker 1: disturbing than corn flakes to put a stop to the friskiness.

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Speaker 1: They'd go to some pretty cringy lengths to stop those

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Speaker 1: naughty thoughts. In the eighteen hundreds, doctors matter of factly

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Speaker 1: believed that women had almost no interest in sex, but

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Speaker 1: that those women who did enjoy it needed to be

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Speaker 1: protected from themselves. Sometimes they were even fitted with chastity

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Speaker 1: corsets that prevented them from enjoying themselves on their own

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Speaker 1: or even with a partner. Now, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: they felt most young guys were absolutely incapable of thinking

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Speaker 1: of anything else right and needed to be saved from

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Speaker 1: their own lust for them. Starting at an early age,

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Speaker 1: there were all kinds of gadgets, including the infamous penile

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Speaker 1: pricking ring. When worn, it was meant to inflict a

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Speaker 1: bit of pain should the poor guy dwell on impure

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Speaker 1: thoughts for too long. There were a number of companies

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Speaker 1: that made these and other devices right up until the

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. Other items in this included implements that would

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Speaker 1: shock a guy when he got excited, and even one

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Speaker 1: that sounded a really disturbing alarm. Wow. Talk about awkward.

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Speaker 1: But let's go back even thousands of years to a

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Speaker 1: time when nudity and sex were celebrated. It was considered

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Speaker 1: a gift from the gods. Ancient pagan cultures saw sex

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Speaker 1: as something sacred. That's why you can see drawings and

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Speaker 1: sculpture that looks insanely graphic from Greece, Rome, Egypt, China, Japan,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of other places. Now think about it.

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Speaker 1: Until central heating in the form of fireplaces came along,

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Speaker 1: most people lived ate and slept in a communal space,

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Speaker 1: so at bedtime with a big fire in the middle

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Speaker 1: of the main room that sort of vented through openings

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Speaker 1: in the ceiling. The whole family and even guests and

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Speaker 1: servants if you had them all staked out a spot

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Speaker 1: around the edges of that big main room and then

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Speaker 1: had at it. I mean, sex was a normal part

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Speaker 1: of life that everybody saw and took for granted from

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Speaker 1: a young age. Now one sidebar here. In almost all

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Speaker 1: cases across most societies, sexual freedom was just for men.

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Speaker 1: Inheritance was the main issue there. That was because there

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Speaker 1: was the realization that if you weren't sure who your

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Speaker 1: kid's real father was, you might leave your worldly goods

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Speaker 1: to the wrong people. So women were supposed to be

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Speaker 1: true to their husbands and that's where the fidelity stopped.

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Speaker 1: But things changed, believe it or not, with the invention

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Speaker 1: of the chimney. That's when houses began to have an

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Speaker 1: upstairs with individual fireplaces in private rooms. That simple invention

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Speaker 1: caused a major cultural shift that historians say basically saw

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Speaker 1: the invention of privacy. No more communal living. That behind

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Speaker 1: closed doors element made sex look like some thing to hide,

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Speaker 1: and that led to centuries of censure. So when was

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Speaker 1: the next sea change? When it came to our views

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Speaker 1: on sex. Wasn't until the craziness of the nineteen twenties,

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Speaker 1: what with the dawn of women's liberation as well as

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Speaker 1: in Your Face movie romance, that sex became more intriguing

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Speaker 1: and less shameful. And of course it really flowered in

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Speaker 1: the late sixties and beyond, thanks in part to the

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Speaker 1: birth control pill. So question is is sex shameful or

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Speaker 1: is it a celebration of life? Well, it seems the

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Speaker 1: answer is really just a reflection of whatever time you

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Speaker 1: live in. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartMedia and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.

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Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Steve Goldstein of Amplified Media. We're

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Speaker 1: out with new episodes twice a week. Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: to The Backstory, the pieces of history you didn't know

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Speaker 1: you needed to know.