Short Stuff: Chastity Belts

I can take. Jerry has a lot on her plate, and we we're glad she's still around doing our full length episodes, right, Yeah, we are. We're very hashtag blessed to have Jerry still working. Left us in the dirt a long time ago, totally, and she doesn't because I secretly suspect that she likes us. So Chastity Belts, I don't think I ever got the memo. And we'll go

ahead and spoil this right up front. Uh, that Acity Belts were we're probably not even a real thing used for that the purpose that we all think they were used for. Yeah, I mean, I guess I never did either I never really sat around and gave some thoughts, so like reading this, I wasn't like blown away, but it it does occur to me that, um, I guess I had always thought that they were a real thing, and they are technically a real thing, but they're just

not from the time we thought they were from. And it all seems to just be uh misinterpretation of potentially an old timey joke that we just lost the punchline to over the years. Yeah, I think maybe that's kind of sad that this could have been a very believable thing that they did in medieval times, you know, because it seems like something that could could have happened. Well.

Part of it, though, is is like this desire from people looking backward and saying, like, look, how dumb and savage and brutal and just uncaring those people were back then, And it gives us a sense of self satisfaction and that that's why, like basically myths like this are allowed to perpetuate and it's really just a a misunderstanding. But it also prevents us from understanding those cultures a little better than we do because we just think they're dumb

and backwards instead. So it's a it's a real issue. It's probably the greatest issue humanity has ever faced. Chastity belts in the myth behind them, So I guess we should say what they are. I kind of figured everyone knows.

But if you have never heard of a chastity belt, the legend was that if you could picture basically um metal underwear that a man would put on his wife that is locked onto their body um like with a padlock, and it had a couple of openings for going pp and poopoo, and sometimes they were gussied up with like hearts and flowers and stuff. And the idea was like, well, I'm going out of town on a on a rampage,

like I don't want you messing around on me. I'm gone, so I'm gonna I'm gonna lock your private parts away basically behind this iron underwear. And that's what a chastity belt was. Yeah, And if you look at pictures of some of these chastity belts, like they like the the place where what did you say you go peepe and poop poo like the the the holes are exit only because they have like metal teeth like she carved into them.

So it's like, yeah, it's not meant to mess around. Um, and when you look at these things, you're like, this can't be right, Like is this for real? And it certainly seems that way because you can see these things with your own eyes. But the problem is is they the things you're seeing with your own eyes come much later than than the age that we attribute them to write. Yeah, so a guy actually wrote a book on this. His name was Albrecht Klassen, and he wrote The Medieval Chastity

Belt Colon a myth making process. Boy, I'm gonna flip my lid if we ever get a book that comes through this podcast it doesn't have a colon. Uh oh yeah, Like yeah, like just in our research, you mean, yeah, that's not a novel. I dare somebody to write one. Well, I mean we did well. Ours feels like as a colon, but it doesn't test it definitely does. The colon is implied for sure. Uh so that this is the book that all Wrecked Chasin wrote and basically he's like listen

poets wrote about it. Uh, you know, there were artists who made these things, but it's basically, um, it seems to be just a big sort of practical joke or or maybe he's the equivalent of like an editorial cartoon or something in its origin because the first mention of it comes from Conrad with a K. Kaiser von Eichstadt, great name, and this was an engineer who designed all this technology around sieges like weapons and and defenses and stuff.

And he wrote in the early fifteenth century about a device in a manuscript called Bellafortis meaning strong in War, which was just a big catalog of like military gadgets, and among them was a chastity belt. Yeah, because I mean this was frequently supposedly used by men who were leaving for war, um, while they were gone, like you're saying they would they would use it while they were

out of town or whatever. So it would kind of make sense that it would it would be in this you know, um military gadget book um, and you would say, okay, proof positive, this thing was written in the fourteen hundreds, early fourteen hundreds. This is a medieval device, and this

is possibly where it was invented, was in Belafortis. But the problem is is if you go through Bellafortis with a scrutinizing eye, you're going to see that there's other stuff in there that don't quite add up, like um a machine that makes you invisible um or a device that propels you um through fart power. That's my favorite.

There's a chariot apparently that shaped like a cat. So the while a lot of the stuff that von Eichs thought was was designing and creating was real and legitimate, he also was apparently not shy about peppering his works with joke stuff as well. Right, And there were other instances where it was clearly used in a satirical way,

uh like a political cartoon basically of the time. There was one in German from the sixteenth century that has this sort of older gentleman saying goodbye to his young wife and she is naked except for this chastity belt, and then behind a curtain is her younger lover sort of hiding with a chastity belt shaped key, and the husband has these donkey ears growing out of his head. So this all sort of leads us to believe that this was kind of a joke, not something that was

really used. No, and maybe it was even originally used and described metaphorically, and it just kind of took off from there, almost like a medieval meme. But the fact is there are chastity belts in existence, and I think we should take a break and then we'll come back and talk about where those came from. How about that? What a perfect spot. Okay, Chuck. Where did the chastity belts that you can actually go see in a museum come from? They come from much later. They come from

probably the nineteenth century. There was a little Gothic revival thing that happened then, and you know, iron and steel were much more readily available as Europe became more industrialized, and they started making things out of them, and they you know, obviously they made things like bridges and things

like that, but they also made things for fun. And it looks like there were these manufacturers in England who said, you know what, there are these curiosity shows and museums that would that would pay for chastity belts to display them, and so we're gonna start making them as sort of a joke. Yeah. So the idea was that the Victorians were wound up so tight and we're so proper that they would they would expel their prurient interest in uh bound up sexuality and like side shows and stuff like that.

They would pay to see things like torture devices or like a chassis or something. And for their part, part of it also was being able to become self satisfied with your your own culture, in your own place in history by mocking or or judging earlier ones. But the fact is these things were all they were recently made and apparently passed off as much older than they actually were.

And so some museums said, well, we need to get these out of our collection because we've been we've been displaying them as medieval and they were really created twenty years ago. Um. And the British Museum actually still has one, but there, um they have a little placard next to theirs that basically says, uh, there's no real evidence that any of these were actually created or used during the

medieval era. Yeah. I love that last line. It says that the evidence is largely anecdotal or in burlesque fiction. Very tantalizing. So yeah, they kept one around because you know, I guess they thought it was still funny to look at in their proper context. Um, which it's really not, you know when you think about it, right exactly, But yeah, it looks like it was basically an urban legend from back then that came about many years later as an

actual object. And like you were talking before, like you know, I think people look at the that period as these you know, backward people that would do something like this, and I think scholars of the Middle Ages try to be a little kinder, uh and point out that while it was no picnic certainly to live back then because of disease and uh no, no modern medicine and no

electricity and not very much plumbing. Um, it was no party, but they weren't like completely backward and it wasn't you know, just a culture full of maidens locked away in towers either, right exactly. And um, there's a USC professor named Lisa Battell. I think it's maybe how you say your last name.

She um. She points out that like, like, yeah, they had a different way of looking at things in the medieval era, and there were lots of different politics and socio politics, but they weren't just stupid, you know, like the the so the idea that that they that they couldn't possibly have had jokes or you know, written things in jest or whatever and basically pulled one over on those of us alive today inadvertently is a falsehood. It's

actually seems to be the case for sure. Yeah, and there were even some women who were writers who didn't write under pseudonyms or pen names or anonymously. And I don't think we're trying to make the case that it was just like a really progressive society or anything like that, but it may not be exactly as backward as as we're led to believe. Yeah, it's like, take a look at your own age for you know, for buddy, no kidding, maybe maybe put your own house in order first before

you go judging out right. Um, what's funny is that, Um, there really are chastity belts in existence today that are of recent manufacturer, but they're mostly made of latex and they're used almost exclusive le for B D s M. And I think, Chuck, we should just leave the listener here to explain to whoever else they're listening with what B D s M is. That's right, And maybe we should do a podcast on that one day. Sure we'll explain it for you later on. All right, Well that means,

of course, then everybody short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.