Ouija Board Husband! Comstock Part 3

American Filth Pod. All right, let's do some history. So in the last couple episodes of American Filth, we were talking about Anthony Cumstock, who passed his Obscenity Law through Congress in eighteen seventy three, making it okay for him to arrest and charge people for sending obscene materials through the mail, even worse than a mall cop a post

office cop. And the convenient thing about the Comstock law is it didn't actually define what is obscene, so it was kind of up to whatever Comstock thought was obscenity, what a loophole, And towards the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth he was targeting women who worked in healthcare and provided birth control and abortions, but he was also going after women and men who were feminist scholars, philosophers, writers, and especially when they were talking

about sex yucky. And what I think is super crazy about Comstock coming after some of these people was that a lot of these feminists at the time weren't talking about sexual liberation or being sex positive things we associate with feminism today. A lot of these people were actually really into abstinence, chastity, celibacy, and so Comstock was going after people who are already like, hey, yeah, we're not actually promoting sex. We actually want you to have less

of it. There was a lot of feminist activity, you know, feminist activity going on in Chicago at the time. There was this one lady, doctor Alice Bunker Stockton, and she was a big old feminist and she believed that sex for men was a physical necessity, but for women it was not. She was like, marriage turns a woman into a prostitute because she loses all ownership of herself. She's like, actually, a wife is worse than a prostitute because you don't

even get paid for it. In marriage, you have no agency. You have to bear all these children you don't want to have because your husband needs to have sex. She was like, yeah, abstinence except for procreation, that's the way to go. And doctor Stockton, she was actually friends with the people over at Oneida, remember the Oneida community, and she believed in coitus reservetists, basically being like, dudes, you don't have to ejaculate to have a good time during sex.

Another woman who became a follower and then a colleague of Stockton was Ida Cratic and cratic well, she was a bit kookier than Stockton. She was all about coitus reservatus, but she doubled down with spiritualism. She was like, yeah, it's easy not to jiz Fellas, especially if there was a quote aspiration to have a communion with God. This communion creates the most intense physical and mental satisfaction in

the act. That's right, Fellas. If you embrace the Lord in the right way, you don't need to ejaculate to get pleasure from sex. Think about God while you're doing it, and yeah, this is all a bit he haha. But these were also serious people having serious thoughts trying to make life better for women at the time, and Comstock was coming after these people hard. She was trying to

ruin their lives, their career. And Cratic, the same as Mademe Foistelle from the last episode, met her demise because of Comstock, because she was arrested repeatedly for one of her pamphlets that was considered super duper obscene, and then after her last arrest, she just couldn't take it any longer. But during her life she was a sex expert for young couples and she knew what she was talking about because she had a husband who was also a ghost.

What this is American filth And I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history. This week's episode Comstock Part three, and don't worry, guys, it's also the last part. Then we're going to go on to something very stupid. Yes, you didn't miss here. I just said that Idacratic's husband was a ghost or maybe he was a like a spirit, like an angel, But will get there. Idacratic was born in eighteen fifty seven in Philadelphia, and she was raised by a single

mom and very religious amongst her Quaker Brethren. She was also pretty smart, pretty curious, and by the time she was sixteen, she was already a radical feminist. She protested against the University of Pennsylvania to be admitted as a student because at the time they were like, mmmmm, we don't want any women in here. She was denied, but that wouldn't stop her from trying to get an education.

And back then, if you're a woman trying to get an education, you were limited to being taught about shit like being a secretary. So by eighteen, Kratick was the frickin' best secretary that she could be. And she even wrote a textbook called Primary Phonography, and then she taught a stenography course at a business college. But you know, once you already write a textbook, you're kind of like, well, this is boring, what do I do next? So what

she did is she moved from Philadelphia to California. Another reason she did this was she wanted to get away from her doma neering mother. And after she moved, she was bopping across the United States in England getting various

jobs working in business. When she was back in the States, she ended up going to Chicago and started connecting with people like doctor Stockton and other writers and thinkers, and she herself was thinking and writing about sexuality and feminism, so obviously she was set to be on Comstock's naughty list. And she was put in direct debate with Comstock in eighteen ninety three at the World's Columbian Exposition. Oh doesn't

everyone love an exposition? And what happened at the exposition was that there was a performance by this woman who went by Little Egypt and her act was quite controversial because it was, oh my god, belly dancing. And Anthony Comstock hated this. He was like, a woman undulating her belly, oscillating her tom tom. That is disgusting, that is obscene. He described it as a houcci coochy dance. Honestly, that description is more obscene than the belly dancing to me.

And he was like, this dance is so gross, we gotta get this show canceled. But then Kratick wrote an article that was like, hmm, seems like Comstock is being a little bit sensitive. You know, Comstock, you can see stuff much worse than this on the streets of New York City any day of the week. You're saying, this dance of the belly is worse es than that, And through the article she wrote, she elaborated some of the

finer points of her philosophy on sexuality. She was like, actually, I think Little Egypt's dance is pretty modest and there's no lewdness. Actually, I feel like this dance isn't promoting us to have wild, copious sex at all, but is demonstrating to us that we should show restraint in our own sexuality. She wrote, it shows that prolonged pleasure goes hand in hand with sexual self control and spiritual bliss.

And she was like, this dance shows married couples that they should exercise restraint and self control in their sex life, because that would end the horrors of accidental or forced maternity without violating the natural law. At the end of the article, she was like, Oh, by the way, I'm writing a whole pamphlet about this, so you should purchase that separately from this article, and that will you how to practice coitus reservatists and all that other good stuff.

And she's like, in conclusion, stupid comstock. I actually think this dance should be shown around the country so that everyone knows how to show sexual restraint. Yes, that's right. She got all of that from belly dancing. And I would say Kradick won this argument because first of all, the Post Office said that her article and the pamphlet she wrote was obscene, but then she wasn't sentenced to any prison time. And then the bigger win was that the dance did not close at the exposition. In fact,

it was the most popular attraction. So they're also like, oh, yeah, we can't close it because that's how we're making all of our money. Ah, so capitalism is the real winner. But this was just the beginning of her public disputes with Comstock, and he wasn't her only hater. Because many people, including her mom, wanted to throw Kratick in an asylum. Kratick's mom thought she was crazy. The main reason being was that Krati's husband, who was named soph wasn't a man.

Oh no, he was a spirit slash ghost who Cratic talked to via a Oigi board. We'll be right back after these soothing advertisements. So we finally reached the husband. Sof was a ghost or a spirit or like a heavenly presence who Kratic had met on my favorite dating app, Ouiji board and According to Kratik, they had a very sexually intellectual relationship. She learned everything she knew about sexuality

through Sof, her ghost husband. She was just like me and Sof, we have a lot of conversations and sexual experiences that will help me help other married couples. You know, that's why I'm a sex educator, because I've had all this experience with my ghost husband. So yes, a lot of people thought Kratick was delusional, including her mom, who had actually introduced Kratick to the world of spirituality in the first place. So Yes, Kratick was raised Quaker but

also spiritual. Spiritualism became quite popular in the US and the mid nineteenth century, and it kind of kicked off in eighteen forty eight after these two young sisters, the Fox sisters allegedly talked to some spirits in their family farmhouse. What happened is one day they asked their neighbor to come over because they had been hearing this weird tapping on the wall of their home. They were like, yeah, every night around bedtime, we hear a knocking on the

wall and it has this vibe of being otherworldly. So one night, the neighbored along with the sisters parents stood in the girls room and they were like, hey, spirit, if you're there, knock three times and guess what. The spirit did knock, or at least something knocked the neighbor, and the Fox parents were terrified. The Foxes were actually

so terrified that they moved house. But that incident it got reported around and propelled the Fox sisters into a career of communing with the spirits, and seances and spiritual ceremonies erupted across the United States. One reason seances might have been popular at the time was because it was pretty bleak out there. There was a lot of disease. A lot of people were dying of smallpox, especially children.

Women were dying in childbirth, men were dying at war, so there was a lot of loss, so it makes sense that people would want to talk to the beyond. Even Mary Todd Lincoln had a seance at the White House after her son died. And this is when ougi

boards became popular. Because the thing about a seance is sometimes it can get a little tedious, a little annoying, because usually what would happen is you would call out to the spirits and be like, hey, are you there, and then you would start calling out the alphabet and so the spirit could tap when you say the right letter. But that's tedious. That takes a long time. So people started making boards with the alphabet on them and then having a little tool that would then move them around

the board. And then this guy in Marylyn was like, huh, this seems like a good opportunity to make money, so he created a Ouiji board, got the patent, and then was able to make a lot of money off of this niche spiritual community and cratics. She was all about spiritualism as she was working as a secretary. She was also looking into stuff like which folklore the occult and she had a weija board or some sort of tool, and that's how she met soph who she called her

borderland husband. So anyway, after Kradik got all that public attention because of her article about the belly Dancer, she pitched herself as a lecturer and toured around the country being like, I'm an expert on sex education and maritual affairs. Obviously I know all about this stuff because I have a husband, and yes he is a spirit but whatever.

So yeah, she was writing all these pamphlets about sex, and then in eighteen ninety four ninety five, she wrote a pamphlet called Heavenly Bridegroom, where she talked about her spirit husband's soph She was like, yeah, he's my heavenly bridegroom, and I'm his earthly wife. And she was like, yeah, now I go by missus Kratick. But obviously she had a lot of critics about this. They're like, what, You're married to a ghost? That is ridiculou Liz. People were

accusing her of all sorts of stuff. They're like, you're just creating this mystical husband because you're trying to hide all of your illicit affairs, or you're an absolute crazy person. We can't trust you. And Kratick's mom was like, Hey, I do feel like you're getting a bit too into this spiritualism stuff, so I think you should be institutionalized.

Kratick hated that, but in eighteen ninety five she did spend a short time in an asylum, but then she was able to get out and she went to London to avoid legal action against her and her crazy writings. When she moved back to Chicago, she was giving lectures and opened up a sex clinic, basically pitching herself as a sex expert for young couples, and then if couples were too embarrassed to see her in person, she would send them pamphlets through the mail. And so you guys

know where this is going. She's sending of material through the mail. So Comstock came callin. In eighteen ninety nine, Credit got arrested after a medical journal published her pamphlet Right Marital Living, which she had also been sending in the mail. After that, her place was raided, her pamphlets were confiscated and destroyed, so she was arrested and she was able to get out of jail because a free speech advocate paid her bail, and then she was only

able to avoid prison time by pleading guilty. After this happened, Cradock was so depressed that she contemplated committing suicide, but instead she decided to write another pamphlet. This one was called The Wedding Night. And it's The Wedding Night that led to Cradock's end. So what was it about cratics writings that were so abhorrent to Comstock? It's weirdly she and Comstock actually agreed on a lot of things they

both didn't like, prostitution, masturbation, contraception, abortion. By the thing that they disagreed on was talking about this stuff in public. She said, I need make no plea for the propriety of my subject. What concerns us all is imminently fit for discussion by all, and too much light cannot be thrown upon it. So let's take a look at the Wedding Night. It's a pretty short pamphlet, about thirty pages, and what it does is outline how traumatic sex can

be for a woman on her wedding night. She was like, Hey, women don't usually know about this stuff, and then on their wedding night they're expected to just show men their genitals, even though they've been told their whole lives. Don't show anyone your genitals. But let's have a reading, shall we.

The young girl who has never been alone in a locked room with a man in all of her life, suddenly finds herself, as though in a dream, delivered over by her own innocent and pure affection, into the power of a man to be used at his will and pleasure. She who has never bared more than her throat and shoulders and arms to the world now finds that her whole body, especially those parts which she has all her life been taught it was immodest to fail to keep covered,

are no longer to be her own private property. She must share their privacy with this man. Fortunate, indeed is the bride whose lover at such a moment is a gentleman in every fiber of his being. For there is a wrong way, and there is a right way to pass the wedding night. In the majority of cases, no genital union at all should be attempted, or even suggested

upon that night. To the average young girl virtuously brought up, the experience of sharing her bedroom with an man is sufficient of a shock to her previous maidenly habits without adding to her nervousness by insisting upon the close intimacies of genital contact. And incredible as it may sound to the average man, she is usually altogether without the sexual experience which every boy acquires in his dream life. The

average typical girl does not have erotic dreams. In many cases, too, through the prudishness of her parents, a prudishness which is positively criminal. She is not even told beforehand that genital union will be required of her and the ideal honeymoon. The bridegroom will not seek genital contact until the bride herself shows indications of desiring it, but she might never

want it. My dear sir, you must be indeed lacking in manhood to be unable to arouse sex desire in a bride who loves you with even a halfway short of affection. Cratig then goes on to talk about how while a man thinks a penis is awesome, women think

they are disgusting. She says, you should remember that that organ of which you are justly so proud is not possessed by a woman, and that she is utterly ignorant of its functions practically until she has experienced sexual contact, and that it is to her who is not desirous

of such contact, something of a monstrosity. Even when a woman has already had pleasurable experience of genital contact, she requires each time to be aroused amorously before that organ, in its state of activity, can become attractive for a man to exhibit to even an experienced wife, his organ ready for action when she herself is not amorously aroused is as a rule, not sexually attractive. To her. On the contrary, it is often sexually repulsive and at times

out and out disgusting to her. But then Krata gets into the willy nilly of how you should have sex first for play. If you will kiss and caress her in a gentle, delicate and reverent way, especially at the throat and bosom, you will find that little by little, you will, by reflex action from the bosom to the genitals, successfully arouse within her a vague desire for the intertwining of the lower limbs, with ever closer and closer contact, until you melt into one another's embrace at the genitals

in a perfectly natural and wholesome fashion. You will then find her genitals so well lubricated that your gradual entrance can be affected not only without pain to her, but with a rapture so exquisite to her that she will be more ready to invite your entrance upon a future occasion. Kratik then gives some more advice. She's like, you got to stop smoking and drinking alcohol will lessen that coordination among your nervous ganglia, accentuate your prominent weaknesses, and inhibit

your powers of self control. Basically, you'll get whiskey dick. But then Krata gives some weird advice. She says, do not, upon any account use the hand for the purpose of sexual excitation at the bride's genitals. There is only but one lawful finger of love with which to approach her genitals, and this is the male organ. That's right, fellas, don't stimulate the clitteris with your hands disgusting, And she says that which is confusing. She's like, don't touch the clitterists.

But still try to make a woman come, she says. When you are performing your movements, do not indulge in the thought of how much you are enjoying them. Rather dwell in thought upon how much pleasure you are giving your bride, and study carefully every movement with reference to

its pleasure producing effect upon her. For the lady, bear in mind that it is part of your wifely duty to perform pelvic movements during the embrace, riding your husband's organ gently and at times passionately, with various movements up and down, sideways, and with a semi rotary movement resembling the movement of the thread of a screw upon a screw.

And then she gives this really great advice. She's like, hey, ladies, before your wedding night, you should go to a doctor and ask him to snip your hymen with surgical scissors. So obviously this pamphlet caused quite a stir with the Comstockians of the time. She moved to d C and was arrested there for her distribution of The Wedding Night, and then she moved to New York City, which was Comstock country. That's where he was from, that's where he

was living. An idocratic said about her move, I have an inward feeling that I am really divinely led here to New York to face this wicked depress man Comestock and open court. So she moved and she started reprinting The Wedding Night and sending it out through the mail. State police raided her home and busted her. They were like, wahaha,

are these your pamphlets? We're taking you to jail. In the courtroom, the legal people were like, hey, if you plead insanity, we can probably get all these charges dropped. You know, you have your spirit ghost husband's soaf, that's pretty good evidence that you're insane. But she was like, no, I refuse, so She was sentenced to three months at

Blackwell Island. As she was taken away in the courtroom, one newspaper wrote, Kradick took her sentence in stoic silence and looked neither to the right nor the left as she was led away. Right as she got out, Comstock then arrested her on federal charges of obscenity. Her mom even was like, hey, please, just plead insanity. Honestly, an indefinite stay in an asylum isn't going to be nearly as bad as five years in prison. Just say you're crazy.

But again Kradick refused. She locked herself away in her room, wrote a series of letters, and then she drank some lamp oil and cut her wrists and died. I know it's another sad one I told you in those letters. She wrote to her mom, I maintained my right to die as I have lived, a free woman, not cowed into silence by any other human being. She ended her letter to her mom saying that they would meet beyond the grave, where Comstock and corrupt judges and impure minded

people are not known. Twelve hundred people came to her funeral. She was heralded as a martyr fighting obscenity, and that woman, doctor Stockton, gave a speech where she was, like Kratik, spent her life nobly teaching tabooed subjects and seeking to educate where she found ignorance Anthony Comstock. He finally died of pneumonia in nineteen fifteen, but don't worry. The Comstock Act is still around, and it's what a lot of conservatives are trying to use right now to block people's

access to the abortion pill. Isn't life amazing? As always, we learn a lesson on American Filth, and I think that lesson today is that if you can't find that man of your dreams, get a Ouiji board. You might be there. Cure the credits. American Film is a production of School of Humans in iHeart Podcast. This episode was hosted, written, and produced by me Gabby Watts. It was sound designed by Jesse Niswanger. He also helped me write the theme song,

the Amazing Theme that everyone Loves. Our executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr And you can follow along with the pod on Instagram at American Filth Pod. Also leave us. Some stars leave us a review, help the algorithm, and finally come out to American Filth Live on June twenty ninth in Atlanta. We got all that information at the link in the description of the episode. All right, talk to you next time. Bye, School of Humans.