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A Ridiculous History of Sex, with Ross Benes · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
0:31
Speaker 1: much for joining us. Let's hear a shout out for
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Speaker 1: the Man, the Myth, the legend, our guest super producer,
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Speaker 1: Ben the Sleeping Dog Hacket. And for the record, we
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Speaker 1: did ask Ben in advance what nickname he wanted, and
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Speaker 1: that that was the name that you wanted us to
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Speaker 1: give you, Right, Ben, that's me baby, Okay, So that's
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Speaker 1: the that's the Sleeping Dog himself. I am Ben Bullet.
0:57
Speaker 1: My brother in podcast Crime. Noel Brown is on an
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Speaker 1: adventure but will be returning soon. In the meantime, we
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Speaker 1: are super excited to have a bit of a saucy
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Speaker 1: exploration through Ridiculous History. Through a part of history, a
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Speaker 1: phenomenon the waxes and wanes pops up in and out
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Speaker 1: of the news over the centuries. It's the concept of
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Speaker 1: the sex scandal. So parents listening with kiddos in the
1:29
Speaker 1: crowd be aware that this might get a little more
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Speaker 1: PG thirteen than normal. But this is despite the way
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Speaker 1: we're beginning the show. This is not going to be
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Speaker 1: a monologue. You don't have to hear my weird opinions
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Speaker 1: on this the whole time. We are instead joined today
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Speaker 1: by the fantastic journalist Picture your favorite literary magazine, your
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Speaker 1: favorite publication. This man is written for it, along with
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Speaker 1: a bevy of books about this and many other subjects
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Speaker 1: the author have turned on the author of sex, weird
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Speaker 1: Opedia and so much more. Joined us and welcoming Ross
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Speaker 1: Benish to the show. Ross dude, thank you for coming
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Speaker 1: on today.
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Speaker 2: I can't wait to share my weird opinions with you guys.
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Speaker 1: No, now, Ross, we were talking a bit off air
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Speaker 1: you been and myself and you have. You have been
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Speaker 1: such a prolific journalist and author and researcher. You have,
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Speaker 1: as some people may have just heard from that description,
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Speaker 1: you have more than one book dealing with some strange
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Speaker 1: history about sex. So could you tell us, first off
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Speaker 1: a little bit about how you got started as a
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Speaker 1: writer and particularly what fascinated you about what we call
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Speaker 1: sex scandals.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, my books are just fun things.
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Speaker 2: I love so Nebraska politics, nineties pop culture, and sex.
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Speaker 2: Gotta have that triumviran there. And the way I got
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Speaker 2: started is after college, I didn't know what the hell
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Speaker 2: I wanted to do with my life. But I knew
3:10
Speaker 2: I wanted to write a non fiction book in the
3:12
Speaker 2: vein of freakonomics. So I started writing these essays and
3:17
Speaker 2: I noticed a lot of them had to deal with sex,
3:19
Speaker 2: which you know, I don't know what that says about me,
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Speaker 2: but whatever, And I set out to get a literary
3:25
Speaker 2: agent to kind of write like a freakonomics of sex
3:28
Speaker 2: sort of type book, and then to get published, I
3:31
Speaker 2: knew I needed to have a lot of byline. So
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Speaker 2: then I started freelancing and interning at like Esquire and
3:37
Speaker 2: you know, Mental Floss and Slate and all these places,
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Speaker 2: and that helped me get that first book. And then
3:43
Speaker 2: after that first book, you know, I was able to
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Speaker 2: get more freelance pieces and more books. But the first
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Speaker 2: two books I wrote of my four were about the
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Speaker 2: strange history of sex and the way that it influences
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Speaker 2: our lives in strange and unpredictable ways. I've branched onto
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Speaker 2: the topics since then, but that was the one that
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Speaker 2: kind of got my career started.
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Speaker 1: Mmmm yeah, And this is this is a fascinating thing
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Speaker 1: from a even from just a publishing perspective. Without talking
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Speaker 1: too much about the business. I can clearly hear a
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Speaker 1: publisher and an agent, or I can see them in
4:21
Speaker 1: my mind look at in each other and saying at
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Speaker 1: the same time, sex sales. You know, you know my
4:27
Speaker 1: Tennessee came out. But yeah, sex Cells. I should have said.
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Speaker 2: It's funny you said that because they wanted to title
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Speaker 2: the book sex Cells. But I thought a lot to
4:37
Speaker 2: not have that be the title, because I thought that
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Speaker 2: would have been misleading.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's weird how you have to if you're
4:43
Speaker 1: in those kind of situations. This can happen with musicians
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Speaker 1: and albums. It's as well. It's weird how you have
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Speaker 1: to fight the powers that be sometimes over something as
4:55
Speaker 1: small as a title. You know, I always before we
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Speaker 1: made a book for one of the other shows, we
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Speaker 1: do stuff they'll want you to know. I had just
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Speaker 1: assumed that the writers get to make the titles. I
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Speaker 1: didn't know how many strange phone calls would have to
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Speaker 1: transpire about that. So I will say the books themselves,
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Speaker 1: beyond the titles sex Weirdipedia, and Turned On are oh
5:24
Speaker 1: with a forward everybody by our good friend aj Bahamas
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Speaker 1: Jacobsen turned On, These books are far more than the
5:34
Speaker 1: title would suggest. I mean that as a tremendous compliment
5:38
Speaker 1: because turned on. Maybe we start there as that's the
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Speaker 1: most recent work in this MILLU can you tell us
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Speaker 1: what we mean when we say investigation into how sex
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Speaker 1: has shaped our world?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so what I wanted to title the book was
5:57
Speaker 2: Invisible hand Jobs, and it was all about how sex
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Speaker 2: will guide our economies and our religion and our technology
6:08
Speaker 2: in ways that aren't always appreciated. You know. One example
6:10
Speaker 2: would be the influence that porn has had on Internet technology,
6:14
Speaker 2: you know, like cookies and web browsing and streaming, e commerce.
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Speaker 2: A lot of that was started by pornographers before web
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Speaker 2: giants like Amazon and Google took it forward.
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Speaker 1: You know.
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Speaker 2: Another thing that I look at in the book is
6:29
Speaker 2: how governments can influence birth rates and how that can
6:32
Speaker 2: actually ultimately influence your economy, you know, if you want
6:35
Speaker 2: to have young, productive workers and not have an aging workforce.
6:39
Speaker 2: The government across the world, government across the world have
6:42
Speaker 2: tried a lot of weird things to try to incentivize
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Speaker 2: people to have more kids, or in China's case, to
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Speaker 2: have less kids. You know, people don't think of sexuality
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Speaker 2: as a function a GDP, but you know, it kind
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Speaker 2: of is when you think about birth rates and what
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Speaker 2: that means for a working having a you know, young
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Speaker 2: workforce that can sustain and early base. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, what's what's the old rule of thumb, the replacement
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Speaker 1: rate of two point one kids. Yeah, and we see that,
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Speaker 1: we do see immediate, well, mid future, mid horizon consequences
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Speaker 1: of that. They can be dire, especially for talking about
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Speaker 1: you know, Japan or South Korea's birth rate. But I
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Speaker 1: love that you're bringing up the case of China because
7:27
Speaker 1: that very much that pendulum swung further than they wanted
7:32
Speaker 1: and I don't know if they really.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they relaxed it so you could have
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Speaker 2: two kids. But when you were so restrictive for so long,
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Speaker 2: it's hard to encourage the behavior to start doing the
7:42
Speaker 2: opposite of what you force people to do for you know,
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Speaker 2: a generation. And that's that really hinders the impact of
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Speaker 2: China's future growth. But you know, the investigations. The way
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Speaker 2: I would put it is, I was on a show
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Speaker 2: with Stephen Dubner of Economics after this book came out,
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Speaker 2: and he said, this sounds like this is the least
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Speaker 2: sexy book about sex ever written. That's it probably won't
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Speaker 2: actually turn you on, you all you'll learn things about like,
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Speaker 2: you know, the economy and religion and stuff.
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Speaker 1: And that's you know, we're all big fans of freakonomics,
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Speaker 1: so that's a that's a pretty cool compliment.
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Speaker 2: For that complimentservation, it was an observation.
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Speaker 1: One thing that I think, I mean, it's an astute
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Speaker 1: observation in that you're not writing just a bunch of
8:36
Speaker 1: purple prose. This is very highly researched. This is uh,
8:41
Speaker 1: this is spinning out and gaming through consequences and things
8:45
Speaker 1: that are you could sometimes call anywhere from humorous anecdotes
8:51
Speaker 1: to parables to cautionary tales such as the case of China.
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Speaker 1: One thing that often comes up when people are talking
9:01
Speaker 1: about Turned On is going to be a story that
9:04
Speaker 1: I was not aware of, which is well, I was
9:09
Speaker 1: lightly aware of this the original invention of the humble vibrator.
9:17
Speaker 1: It's an origin story, folks were an audio show. But
9:20
Speaker 1: you should just see the solemn way that Ross nodded
9:24
Speaker 1: on this one. So I'm sure you get this question
9:27
Speaker 1: pretty often, but could you tell us a little bit
9:29
Speaker 1: about the provenance or the origin story of this I
9:33
Speaker 1: guess sexual stimulation device.
9:36
Speaker 2: No one's asked me about the vibrator and sometimes so
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Speaker 2: this is a refreshing to go through this. And back
9:42
Speaker 2: in Victorian days, women were obviously well everyone was, you know,
9:50
Speaker 2: told to not masturbate. Your sexuality was very repressed and
9:54
Speaker 2: women were diagnosed with this disease which we now know
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Speaker 2: is a bogus disease called hysteria. So you know, it's
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Speaker 2: a really a sexist set of symptoms that would lead
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Speaker 2: a doctor at the time to say, oh, this woman's hysterical,
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Speaker 2: she needs to be treated for that. When one way
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Speaker 2: they would treat that is to sexually relieve the woman.
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Speaker 2: So instead of her doing it herself, she would have
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Speaker 2: a doctor manually massage her private parts for you know,
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Speaker 2: half hour, sometimes an hour. It would take a long
10:27
Speaker 2: time for him to actually get these women off to
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Speaker 2: relieve their hysteria. So these guys set out about inventing
10:36
Speaker 2: a tool that would help them do this quicker so
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Speaker 2: they could see more patients, and that contributed to the
10:42
Speaker 2: birth of the vibrator. The first vibrator looks nothing like
10:46
Speaker 2: something that you would buy Adam and Eve today, but
10:50
Speaker 2: that's the origin goes back to sexual repression in a
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Speaker 2: medical device. So you know, they set off a revolution
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Speaker 2: and self stimulation through indirect way of forcing women to
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Speaker 2: come to their office to use this device.
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Speaker 1: That's kind of creepy. It's very strange on the on
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Speaker 1: the doctor's side. And then also the fact that there
11:16
Speaker 1: was clearly a an innovator in the field or some
11:21
Speaker 1: guy have in the conversation and just saying, oh, heavens,
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Speaker 1: we simply have too many patients. We don't have enough time.
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Speaker 2: Honest on their hands would get tired because if you're
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Speaker 2: if you're having to you know, get if you if
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Speaker 2: you're having a well not it's not masturbate. I guess
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Speaker 2: you would be assisting these women. But if you're doing
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Speaker 2: patient after patient and this isn't like an intimate setting,
11:43
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's it's manual work for them.
11:46
Speaker 1: It's clinical.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, clinical, that's a good way to put it.
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Speaker 1: And uh so they're worried about carpal wrist tunnel syndrome
11:54
Speaker 1: and even if they didn't have the phrase at that time,
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Speaker 1: So that I think is a good way for us
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Speaker 1: to sort of open that conversation on the unexpected tremendous
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Speaker 1: historical shifts that have occurred because of because of things
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Speaker 1: that we often in America is still kind of puritanical society.
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Speaker 1: Things that we often dismiss is like, oh, that's a naughty,
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Speaker 1: naughty thing dimension. So I want us to move to
12:34
Speaker 1: another example. This is one that I was completely unaware
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Speaker 1: of until I started checking out turned on Ross. Is
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Speaker 1: it true that the US military played a role in
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Speaker 1: making San Francisco, as you as you call it a
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Speaker 1: gay mecca?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the military, through its suppression of homosexuality, inadvertently helped
13:01
Speaker 2: create the modern gay identity. So in San Francisco's case,
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Speaker 2: the way it did that is in World War Two,
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Speaker 2: if you were suspected to be gay, they would give
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Speaker 2: you a blue discharge and you could not serve in
13:14
Speaker 2: the military. And these men were discharged proportionally, disproportionally in
13:21
Speaker 2: port cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco. When
13:26
Speaker 2: those guys were discharged, they were publicly outed at a
13:29
Speaker 2: time when people weren't out publicly. So if you're coming
13:32
Speaker 2: from a small town in the Midwest, it's hard for
13:35
Speaker 2: you to go home with your blue discharge until your family.
13:39
Speaker 2: I can't go serve in war because they suspect them gay.
13:44
Speaker 2: So a lot of these guys stayed where they were discharged,
13:48
Speaker 2: and they formed their own neighborhoods and societies, And one
13:53
Speaker 2: of those is the Castro in San Francisco, which exploded
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Speaker 2: in population around the time of World War Two due
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Speaker 2: to all these gay men deciding to live there.
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Speaker 1: Oh man, So in one way, that's inspiring, you know,
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Speaker 1: the bravery of these people who said, look, I am
14:14
Speaker 1: going to start my life anew right because I can't
14:17
Speaker 1: go home. But in another way, it's absolutely horrifying. That
14:24
Speaker 1: feels like a what we would call a violation of
14:27
Speaker 1: human rights at this point because it's around this time.
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Speaker 1: Wouldn't it have been in some cases, almost like a
14:36
Speaker 1: death sentence to send somebody back to rural America where
14:41
Speaker 1: maybe the laws a little corrupt and so on.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean it definitely leads to a lifetime
14:47
Speaker 2: ostracization if they were home, And yeah, I mean it's
14:51
Speaker 2: not out of the question to think that they would
14:53
Speaker 2: have been targeted in that way. So these people are
14:58
Speaker 2: making the best of their situation. But yeah, it's it's
15:01
Speaker 2: a terrible situation by modern standards. But you know, they
15:04
Speaker 2: didn't let the the oppression get the best of them.
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Speaker 2: They were able to use that as fuel to create
15:14
Speaker 2: their own culture, which is beautiful in its own way,
15:19
Speaker 2: even if there was a, you know, an unjust struggle
15:22
Speaker 2: behind it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear what you're saying there. And it's also
15:27
Speaker 1: I think, especially here in the West and in the
15:32
Speaker 1: US in particular, there has always been this struggle between
15:40
Speaker 1: sexuality and not even spirituality more like religious dogma. Yeah.
15:48
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us are surprised when we
15:52
Speaker 1: learn later in history class or when we check out
15:55
Speaker 1: a good book that despite being known as very uptight folks,
16:02
Speaker 1: the Puritans and the Victorians had these practices that would
16:06
Speaker 1: seem downright unacceptable. You know here in the modern day.
16:11
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, like for Puritanical society or Puritan society, I
16:16
Speaker 1: should say, in particular, I'm thinking of the fact that
16:21
Speaker 1: there were so many strict laws against who could do
16:25
Speaker 1: what to whom when, or who could do what with
16:27
Speaker 1: whom when. That I was surprised to learn. Yeah, a
16:33
Speaker 1: lot of these big families lived in essentially one or
16:37
Speaker 1: two room houses and structures, and they the parents did
16:42
Speaker 1: sleep together while the kids were in the room. You
16:46
Speaker 1: know what I mean. That's the law and order SVU stuff.
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Speaker 1: So could you tell us through your research historically, What
16:57
Speaker 1: are some of the what are some of the strangest
17:02
Speaker 1: ways that we haven't discussed yet that sex has shaped
17:06
Speaker 1: society and history. Like, are there any things that you
17:10
Speaker 1: or any events or phenomenon that you came up with
17:14
Speaker 1: in your research that you later think about today?
17:17
Speaker 2: Right? I think about this one more than I should.
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Speaker 2: So the first Canon of the Nicea Council. So this
17:27
Speaker 2: is like, you know, the first huge council of the
17:30
Speaker 2: modern Catholic Church where we get the Nicea and Creed.
17:33
Speaker 2: If you go back and read, you will find that
17:35
Speaker 2: the first canon is about making it illegal for men
17:39
Speaker 2: who castrate themselves to become priests. So there were so
17:43
Speaker 2: many guys back then that were castrating themselves to make
17:46
Speaker 2: themselves unix for the sake of heaven. You know, like Origin,
17:51
Speaker 2: he's one of the church fathers. He castrated himself. That
17:55
Speaker 2: they had to put in a lot to say, like
17:57
Speaker 2: if you're gonna do that, you know, we're gonna we're
18:00
Speaker 2: gonna like restrict how high you can rise up. We
18:04
Speaker 2: got to do something about all these guys cash straight
18:06
Speaker 2: in themselves.
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Speaker 1: Oh man, that's frightening. And enough time has enough time
18:13
Speaker 1: passed that I could say that's darkly hilarious.
18:15
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, totally. I think enough time passed one thousand
18:18
Speaker 2: years ago, or not a thousand, but five hundred years ago.
18:20
Speaker 1: You could say that, Okay, good, good, don't come for
18:22
Speaker 1: us remaining members of that council that I see. It's
18:26
Speaker 1: just you nailed something that I think always astonishes me
18:31
Speaker 1: about those kind of laws. When we see them out
18:35
Speaker 1: of context, we have to realize there's a story behind them,
18:38
Speaker 1: like there was a this is totally unrelated, but this
18:41
Speaker 1: is a good good example. Imagine if you've ever walked
18:46
Speaker 1: into a store, maybe a restaurant, a mom and pop place,
18:50
Speaker 1: or just like a little store on your main street
18:53
Speaker 1: and they have the conventional sign, you know, no shirt,
18:57
Speaker 1: no shoes, no service, But every so often they'll they'll
19:01
Speaker 1: tack on another weird specific rule, you know what I mean.
19:05
Speaker 1: I was in uh, I was in a place where
19:10
Speaker 1: it said it had the no shirt, no shoes, no
19:13
Speaker 1: no service thing, and then it also had a sign
19:15
Speaker 1: that said no angry dogs.
19:18
Speaker 2: Oh and I've seen I've seen like no animals. Yeah,
19:20
Speaker 2: I've seen dogs specific though, Yeah, like.
19:23
Speaker 1: What happened? Is there just some real and please beat
19:27
Speaker 1: me here, bed is there just some real dog named
19:31
Speaker 1: Buster who was terrorizing the gas station? And soone was like,
19:35
Speaker 1: we need a sign to stop this lunatic. So those
19:39
Speaker 1: that's fascinating because it reminds us of all the you've
19:43
Speaker 1: seen these before, to russ all the uh historical uh
19:48
Speaker 1: compilate all the compilations of local historical laws that might
19:53
Speaker 1: deal with odd, very odd specific circumstances like no drafts
19:58
Speaker 1: in cars, it's gone too far. You know, Are there
20:03
Speaker 1: any weird other weird specific sex laws that you ran across.
20:08
Speaker 2: There's weird laws on the books still to this day
20:11
Speaker 2: in this country. So in Nebraska, this one actually was repealed,
20:17
Speaker 2: but not for decades. They adopted a lot in the
20:20
Speaker 2: twenties to cash straight sex offenders, and then it took
20:24
Speaker 2: them a long time to get that off the books.
20:26
Speaker 2: And there's like other ones that are even more bizarre
20:28
Speaker 2: that still are technically there but not enforceable.
20:32
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, like the old I remember reading stuff like
20:38
Speaker 1: I think it was Michigan. I want to say, where
20:40
Speaker 1: some part of Michigan had passed the law that said
20:43
Speaker 1: husband legally owns his wife's hair or something like that.
20:47
Speaker 2: I don't think about all those states that still have sodomy.
20:50
Speaker 1: Laws on the books.
20:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it's completely unenforceable, but they fight tooth and
20:55
Speaker 2: nail to keep them on there. That is a little
20:58
Speaker 2: more recent history. But if those laws in the books,
21:00
Speaker 2: that's say, one hundred years from now, someone will be like, well,
21:03
Speaker 2: that's a weird historic artifact. Why why is it illegal
21:06
Speaker 2: in Georgia?
21:07
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, they'll be like us with say, like
21:11
Speaker 1: how many guys were casually yeah that this this became
21:18
Speaker 1: an item on the agenda, right, and they were like,
21:21
Speaker 1: we cannot break for lunch until we figured this out.
21:24
Speaker 2: I would love to see the meeting minutes of the
21:28
Speaker 2: one where they passed those cannons.
21:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, and especially you know to that point. I'd
21:36
Speaker 1: love to see how how the vote shakes out. I'd
21:39
Speaker 1: love to see, you know, if there's how you know
21:41
Speaker 1: how there's always like nine out of ten dentists recommend
21:45
Speaker 1: this toothpaste. You have to wonder who that tenth dentist is. So,
21:48
Speaker 1: was there a guy in Icia who was like, I
21:51
Speaker 1: don't know, guys, no, let's really let's think this through. Okay,
21:55
Speaker 1: we're reacting to the headline.
21:57
Speaker 2: And maybe it was a five to four vote, like
21:59
Speaker 2: a scout this case, and it came down to the wire.
22:02
Speaker 2: I don't know, that's that's all lost the history.
22:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all lost to history. That is still just
22:09
Speaker 1: bizarre because it I think every every story we're telling
22:14
Speaker 1: here in this in this kind of grab bag exploration,
22:17
Speaker 1: it's just further further supporting your thesis that sex is
22:22
Speaker 1: shaping uh, these what we call human society in all
22:27
Speaker 1: these strange ways. It's still those possible ways. Yeah, Like
22:32
Speaker 1: two thousand.
22:32
Speaker 2: And nine, lawmakers in Egypt wanted to ban fake hymen's.
22:38
Speaker 2: So it's like these like virginity kits, so you know,
22:41
Speaker 2: you can make it seem like you haven't lost your
22:45
Speaker 2: virginity if you have. So like they would import you know,
22:49
Speaker 2: a hymen that is usually an animal drive product and
22:53
Speaker 2: uh be used on the on the wedding day, and
22:56
Speaker 2: they the fact that people have to use those, that's
22:58
Speaker 2: that's crazy right there, that there's that there's a market
23:01
Speaker 2: for that product, and then there's enough of a market
23:04
Speaker 2: that there's a push to legislate it.
23:06
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Yeah, because again somebody threw up their
23:10
Speaker 1: hands and said, well, it's up with all these counterfeit hymens. Yeah,
23:16
Speaker 1: that's that's uh, that's terrifying and it shows us too.
23:19
Speaker 1: You know, many of these things we've mentioned, especially even now,
23:25
Speaker 1: but especially as you go back further in history, a
23:27
Speaker 1: lot of them were indicative of society's attempts to control.
23:34
Speaker 2: Women, right, Yeah, I mean the history of vibrator. Even
23:37
Speaker 2: even if it had the unintended consequence of giving them
23:40
Speaker 2: a great masturbation device, the origin is controlling women's sexuality.
23:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I yeah. I think there's an important lesson there,
23:52
Speaker 1: and it's something that we we as a society, would
23:57
Speaker 1: ignore to our peril. There's another one I wanted to
24:02
Speaker 1: ask you about. Oh, this is where we want to shift. Okay,
24:06
Speaker 1: now we're getting to Now we're getting to some even
24:08
Speaker 1: more juicy stuff. Fellow ridiculous historians, Sex scandals. Ben, Can
24:14
Speaker 1: I get like a sex scandal? Q? I leave it
24:16
Speaker 1: up to your interpretation. Yeah, I got you perfect, The
24:21
Speaker 1: Sleeping Dog, ladies and gentlemen. All right, So sex scandals again,
24:27
Speaker 1: we said it at the top. This is a little
24:29
Speaker 1: more Pg. Thirteen than some of our previous episodes. Ross,
24:33
Speaker 1: you and I were catching up off air weather Palell
24:37
Speaker 1: the Sleeping Dog and I asked you about sex scandals.
24:41
Speaker 1: There's one that surprised you, and it surprised me. It
24:45
Speaker 1: happened recently. We'll save that and get to it in
24:48
Speaker 1: a moment. So first, can you tell us I know
24:52
Speaker 1: this is very basic softball stuff, but can you tell
24:54
Speaker 1: us what a sex scandal is, how you would define it.
24:58
Speaker 2: I mean, the way I would define it is a
25:02
Speaker 2: person of public interest, often a politician, but it could
25:05
Speaker 2: be a celebrity has sex in a way that is
25:10
Speaker 2: disapproved by their society at the time, and it blows
25:14
Speaker 2: up in such a way that it threatens to derail
25:17
Speaker 2: their career or reputation. You know, the most probably the
25:22
Speaker 2: biggest one in our lifetime, would be like Clinton and
25:26
Speaker 2: Monica Lensky and various other women Clinton had run ins with.
25:31
Speaker 1: Okay that I think we can only agree with that
25:33
Speaker 1: definition because it makes an important distinction between sexual activities
25:40
Speaker 1: or proclivities in the past that were either normalized or
25:46
Speaker 1: they were treated as just part and parcel of this
25:51
Speaker 1: you know, large time or larger than life, religious leader
25:55
Speaker 1: or royal member of political functionary. Because I'm thinking about,
26:01
Speaker 1: you know the fact that there would be numerous acts
26:05
Speaker 1: of adultery right, or even nefarious sexual activity on the
26:11
Speaker 1: part of the aristocracy or various heads of royal families,
26:17
Speaker 1: and those things didn't always result in a scandal. So
26:21
Speaker 1: it sounds like the real operative difference, the umammy of
26:24
Speaker 1: what makes something a scandal is when it endangers the
26:29
Speaker 1: person's career.
26:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, because what's a scandal in one generation may not
26:33
Speaker 2: be a scandal in another generation. And part of the
26:36
Speaker 2: way our perception is shaped on says scandals, is how
26:43
Speaker 2: press operates at the time. So like for the in
26:48
Speaker 2: the US, between like Jefferson and Clinton, there wasn't a
26:55
Speaker 2: lot of reporting on it, or maybybe a little bit later. Definitely,
26:59
Speaker 2: between like Eisenhower and Clinton, there's not a lot of
27:01
Speaker 2: reporting of the sex scandal. So what presidents do in
27:05
Speaker 2: their private lives is kind of just washing the rug
27:07
Speaker 2: kept from the public. The same type of behavior could
27:11
Speaker 2: be engaged though, but not lead to a scandal in
27:13
Speaker 2: the way that it would by the nineties, or the
27:16
Speaker 2: way that it would in America's early history when Alexander
27:19
Speaker 2: Hamilton and Jefferson were caught in scandals. So like, it's
27:23
Speaker 2: really it's not just the behavior of the sex itself,
27:27
Speaker 2: it's like another huge part of it is how it's
27:31
Speaker 2: that information is spread and how it's interpreted by the
27:36
Speaker 2: people of that time.
27:38
Speaker 1: So it's the it's really it's not the actor acts themselves,
27:42
Speaker 1: it's the context in which they occur.
27:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what's permissible in one era isn't permissible in another,
27:50
Speaker 2: And it can be kind of arbitrary. It's not like
27:53
Speaker 2: things just get more progressive more permissive over time. It
27:56
Speaker 2: waxes and wanes and you know, well, I think what
28:01
Speaker 2: you find though, is, especially in the US, presidents have
28:05
Speaker 2: had elicit affairs in the entire country's history. Those were
28:10
Speaker 2: just not public or blown into a scandal for like
28:13
Speaker 2: one hundred year period.
28:15
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it's sometimes this is a true story.
28:20
Speaker 1: It takes a it takes an up and coming grad
28:24
Speaker 1: student in history right to say, I really need my
28:28
Speaker 1: thesis paper. What do I know about what's the most
28:32
Speaker 1: obscure president and what did they do? Okay, this is
28:37
Speaker 1: the way that the research can move forward. And I
28:40
Speaker 1: think you're making some tremendous points there. With that being said,
28:45
Speaker 1: now that we've eaten our proverbial vegetables of pointing out
28:50
Speaker 1: the important stuff, the stuff that will be on the
28:53
Speaker 1: test later. Let's get to it. Man, Can you tell
28:58
Speaker 1: us about that really strange sex scandal from recent history
29:02
Speaker 1: that stayed with you?
29:04
Speaker 2: Well, so if you're a listener and you lived in
29:06
Speaker 2: Michigan about ten years ago, you probably know where I'm
29:09
Speaker 2: going with this. And State Representative Todd Curser was a
29:15
Speaker 2: Republican family values type candidate in Michigan and the Michigan
29:20
Speaker 2: House Representatives. He was having an affair with Cindy Gamrat,
29:26
Speaker 2: who was also a House rep. Now, they both were
29:30
Speaker 2: married to each other, so this would have been a scandal.
29:33
Speaker 2: But rather than just come out with that information or
29:38
Speaker 2: let their relationship be known, Curser asked his staff to
29:44
Speaker 2: spread the rumor that he was seeking male prostitutes because
29:49
Speaker 2: he thought that if they spread that rumor, it would
29:52
Speaker 2: create a distraction from his affair that he was actually having.
29:56
Speaker 2: But instead everyone found out that he was I was
30:00
Speaker 2: having that affair and that he was instructing people to
30:03
Speaker 2: lie about seeking male prostitutes, and he ended up getting
30:07
Speaker 2: expelled from the house. But it's very strange for like
30:11
Speaker 2: a family values candidate to spread the idea that they're
30:18
Speaker 2: seeking sex with a prostitute when they aren't even doing that. Yeah, yeah,
30:24
Speaker 2: like that's that's the worst of the two.
30:26
Speaker 1: Right right, that's that's a very unorthodox spin doctor approach
30:33
Speaker 1: or pr approach. You know, we were when when you
30:36
Speaker 1: first brought this up, and I had I think I
30:38
Speaker 1: had never heard of this because, like a lot of people,
30:42
Speaker 1: when you get increasingly inundated by news in the age
30:46
Speaker 1: of ubiquitous information, it's so easy to just skim past
30:50
Speaker 1: the headline, especially with political scandal these days. Uh, but
30:54
Speaker 1: when you've yeah, when when you first told me about this,
30:57
Speaker 1: I remember immediately thinking, game, what a dumb idea? Like
31:03
Speaker 1: how did this guy get this far? You know what
31:05
Speaker 1: I mean? Uh? Or how how one how did you
31:09
Speaker 1: get that far? Or two? How desperate do you have
31:12
Speaker 1: to be to mistake that for a good strategy? You
31:16
Speaker 1: know what?
31:17
Speaker 2: His chief of staff needed to step in there and say,
31:20
Speaker 2: you know what, we're not gonna tell everyone you're you're
31:21
Speaker 2: having sex with male prostitutes.
31:24
Speaker 1: Right right, And he wasn't.
31:27
Speaker 2: He wasn't. Yeah, Okay, it's a weird thing to want
31:29
Speaker 2: people to think.
31:30
Speaker 1: You're doing yeah with the phantom prostitute. That's that's so
31:34
Speaker 1: bizarre because that also, you know, what that also touches
31:38
Speaker 1: on something that really stood out in your most recent work,
31:43
Speaker 1: and we haven't really talked too much about it yet,
31:46
Speaker 1: but I believe I believe we should. Sex has a
31:58
Speaker 1: huge influen wents on crime, right, and you dive into
32:04
Speaker 1: some pretty fantastic research on the unexpected ways that not
32:11
Speaker 1: just laws about sex like sodomy laws as you mentioned,
32:14
Speaker 1: but social expectations about sex can influence rates of very
32:21
Speaker 1: nasty things like assault or even homicide. What what's the
32:28
Speaker 1: what's this connection? I sound like Andy Rooney of old Well,
32:32
Speaker 1: what's the deal with But what's this connection between the
32:36
Speaker 1: practice of polygamy and higher rates of crime?
32:40
Speaker 2: Okay? Oh? Basically the idea and this is this is
32:47
Speaker 2: some of the theory on how monogamy was instituted as
32:50
Speaker 2: a social construct was that if more men are married,
32:55
Speaker 2: they will commit less crimes collectively. So like if you
33:00
Speaker 2: if a man gets married, he becomes domesticated, he ends
33:03
Speaker 2: up having children, that man is less likely to commit
33:09
Speaker 2: a violent crime than if he's unattached. So if you
33:14
Speaker 2: you know, if you go from polygamy, if you go
33:16
Speaker 2: from a society that's polygamous to a society that's monogamy,
33:19
Speaker 2: more men will marry because most polygamist societies are polygynists,
33:25
Speaker 2: they're not polyandris. There they are where you know, a
33:29
Speaker 2: man has multiple wives. It's it's it's much rarer to
33:32
Speaker 2: see a society where women have multiple husbands. And in
33:36
Speaker 2: the societies where men can have multiple wives, it's usually
33:39
Speaker 2: like the rich and successful and descendants of heirs that
33:45
Speaker 2: have the most wives. It's often the man with the
33:48
Speaker 2: most resources tends to have most women. So we know,
33:51
Speaker 2: where there's a where there's a society where it's polygamists,
33:54
Speaker 2: you have just way more men without mates, and they
33:58
Speaker 2: have less incentive to not commit these crimes because they
34:03
Speaker 2: don't have the attachments and they're not domesticated, you know,
34:07
Speaker 2: in a way that a married man is. So there
34:09
Speaker 2: are theories by some historians that monogamy began to be
34:15
Speaker 2: instituted not as a religious practice, but as a political
34:19
Speaker 2: one because these you know, leaders of ancient Rome, they
34:25
Speaker 2: they wanted to quell disrest. They they didn't want to
34:28
Speaker 2: have you know, all these single, violent men out there,
34:32
Speaker 2: so they would you know, implement this rule. And they
34:36
Speaker 2: would also use it as like almost like a recruiting
34:39
Speaker 2: tactic in you know, military, like our society. You know
34:43
Speaker 2: it's monogamous. You're you're more likely to have a mate
34:46
Speaker 2: than you know elsewhere where, your your chances are are slim. Now,
34:51
Speaker 2: you know, some of this is a speculation, and monogamy
34:55
Speaker 2: legally doesn't mean monogamy in practice. There's still a lot
34:58
Speaker 2: of extra marital activity happening.
35:00
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, and then that would lead to the crime
35:04
Speaker 1: of I just think it's a fun word to say bigamy,
35:08
Speaker 1: which is, you know, double tapping on a marriage, right,
35:11
Speaker 1: having a couple of marriages and maybe not telling the
35:14
Speaker 1: partners from those separate, separate events of matrimony.
35:18
Speaker 2: Well, there's also the idea that you're competing for more
35:21
Speaker 2: women too, if you're in a society that's polygamous.
35:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I see, yeah, I see what you're saying.
35:27
Speaker 2: So the men can become more violent with each other
35:28
Speaker 2: because Batman wants to have his third wife or whatever.
35:32
Speaker 1: And there's this Yeah. I appreciate too how we're being
35:37
Speaker 1: diplomatic and careful or cautious with the the implications, but
35:43
Speaker 1: they're definitely out there. I mean, you freezed it perfectly.
35:46
Speaker 1: But then also, I can't be the only person in
35:50
Speaker 1: the audience tonight who immediately thought, yeah, when guys get married,
35:55
Speaker 1: they have more to lose. They called out a little bit.
35:58
Speaker 1: They're more integrated into society, like, Oh, I want to
36:03
Speaker 1: rob the bank, but I've got to pick up Drayton
36:07
Speaker 1: at three.
36:08
Speaker 2: So you're also tired. Oh yeah, yeah, I don't want
36:13
Speaker 2: to assault anyone. I need a nap.
36:16
Speaker 1: If I can say it on air, big congratulations to you,
36:19
Speaker 1: Russ because you have just welcomed your second child unto
36:25
Speaker 1: the planet, right and and so you're probably a little
36:29
Speaker 1: too tired to get back into the robbing banks hustle.
36:33
Speaker 2: Oh, definitely too tired. You know, if I was a
36:36
Speaker 2: single guy with no kids, I don't know who I'd
36:39
Speaker 2: be assaulting. But now doing the dishes before I go
36:43
Speaker 2: to sleep is my goal today.
36:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's the herculean task of the day. But
36:50
Speaker 1: I do think it is It is something that we
36:54
Speaker 1: have to examine. Just historically, there's no shortage of cases
36:58
Speaker 1: or arguments to be made. But we also have to
37:01
Speaker 1: be cautious with the exploration of this idea in these implications,
37:06
Speaker 1: because they can be used for nefarious purposes, for racism, right,
37:11
Speaker 1: for religious prejudice, and so on. When we're talking about religion,
37:16
Speaker 1: you also see you trace a lot of I guess
37:22
Speaker 1: we call it inter religious implications or disagreements about sax
37:28
Speaker 1: and society. And I was very surprised to learn, not
37:33
Speaker 1: being a practitioner of Islam myself, I was very surprised
37:35
Speaker 1: to learn things like the you know, you mentioned the
37:39
Speaker 1: hymen law, but then also the idea of reproduction and
37:44
Speaker 1: infertility you know, tied to I guess surrogate parents or
37:51
Speaker 1: artificial insemination.
37:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you see these weird instances where religious pluralism
37:58
Speaker 2: can actually help people overcome an obstacle from their own religion. Now,
38:05
Speaker 2: I gotta take my time here and remember what the
38:09
Speaker 2: difference between Sunni and Shia. It's been a while, so basically,
38:14
Speaker 2: in the there's a few Middle Eastern countries where they
38:19
Speaker 2: Sunni and Shia are relying on each other for reproductive assistance.
38:25
Speaker 2: So for the Sunni side, something like artificial insemination, you
38:32
Speaker 2: have to be married and you're only allowed to use
38:35
Speaker 2: your own eggs and sperm, and so it's more restrictive.
38:38
Speaker 2: But in Shia there tends to be more lenience on
38:47
Speaker 2: using other people's eggs and sperm for reproduction. So in
38:52
Speaker 2: these areas where you have high end fertility, you will
38:56
Speaker 2: have Sunni's relying on Shia. I mean, sorry, sorry, you
39:02
Speaker 2: have Shia relying on Sooni's because if everyone followed the
39:07
Speaker 2: more restrictive law there wouldn't you wouldn't be able to
39:11
Speaker 2: use other people like they wouldn't donate. They wouldn't. So
39:14
Speaker 2: you need a population that is more okay with this
39:17
Speaker 2: if you're going to go out and do this. So
39:21
Speaker 2: they kind of work together in this roundabout way of
39:26
Speaker 2: you know, finding donors because one one denomination prohibits it
39:30
Speaker 2: and one allows it. It's very confusing. I hope I
39:33
Speaker 2: explained that worth the shit.
39:35
Speaker 1: No, no, you nailed it, and I'm thinking through it
39:39
Speaker 1: because it's, uh, it's almost a I don't want to
39:45
Speaker 1: sound like I'm in any way diminishing the importance of this,
39:50
Speaker 1: but it's almost like a loophole that everybody figured out together.
39:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you'll see the Sunnies going into like Shia
40:00
Speaker 2: majority countries to do this. They'll like leave, you know,
40:04
Speaker 2: it's usually a country that's close by, but they'll you know,
40:07
Speaker 2: leave where they live to go where the other denomination
40:10
Speaker 2: is more prevalent, so that they could get the reproductive
40:13
Speaker 2: assistance they need because where they live they can't use
40:17
Speaker 2: other people scam meats.
40:19
Speaker 1: Jeez, this is this is a complication, but it's it's
40:23
Speaker 1: a complication, uh that arrives successfully. It I I'm stuttering
40:31
Speaker 1: a bit because I'm trying to get that Jeff Goldbloom
40:34
Speaker 1: line from Jurassic Park out of my head. You know,
40:38
Speaker 1: it finds a way. Yeah, there's so many of these
40:42
Speaker 1: sex finds a way, right. This is bringing us to uh,
40:47
Speaker 1: this is bringing us to maybe a little bit of
40:50
Speaker 1: a denimond. There's so much stuff that I want to
40:53
Speaker 1: ask you, and I know our Palnol has a lot
40:56
Speaker 1: of questions to Ben. I I imagine your your fury
41:00
Speaker 1: typing out some questions that we'll send to Ross off air.
41:03
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm getting ready.
41:06
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know if you were going
41:08
Speaker 1: to take the bait on that one, bet, But thank
41:11
Speaker 1: you so Russ. We talked about We talked about the
41:17
Speaker 1: importance of understanding what makes something to scandal. We talked
41:22
Speaker 1: about the ways in which top down sexual policies can
41:29
Speaker 1: affect a country right for generations. We talked about some
41:34
Speaker 1: specific episodes, some funny, some frightening, some inspiring, but one
41:39
Speaker 1: thing we haven't yet talked about, and maybe this is
41:43
Speaker 1: our big ticket item for our first episode with you, dude,
41:50
Speaker 1: Why is the US so hung up on sex? Why
41:54
Speaker 1: are we so weird about it?
41:57
Speaker 2: Man? I wish I had a good answer for that.
41:59
Speaker 2: That's a great question. I've wondered that myself. You know,
42:06
Speaker 2: I do think I know this is a long time ago,
42:09
Speaker 2: but the people who decided to come here, the Europeans
42:13
Speaker 2: who decided to come here, they were a lot of
42:17
Speaker 2: them were crazy and repressed sexually. Okay, I don't think
42:21
Speaker 2: we've gotten over that. It's just in the DNA. The
42:26
Speaker 2: most chilled out Europeans of that era weren't the ones
42:31
Speaker 2: come in here.
42:33
Speaker 1: Right and uh and and those just go on. It's
42:39
Speaker 1: a feedback loop. Uh man, hands misery on and everyone.
42:43
Speaker 1: I know.
42:43
Speaker 2: I know we're multicultural society now, but you know, when
42:47
Speaker 2: you're you're still stuck in the laws created by that system.
42:51
Speaker 1: M Yeah, that makes that makes sense. It's a systemic
42:54
Speaker 1: problem now.
42:56
Speaker 2: You are in we're also very religious too.
42:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was going to say, that's that's kind
43:01
Speaker 1: of the.
43:01
Speaker 2: Trade offs kind of go together.
43:04
Speaker 1: They very much team up right, like like a weird
43:07
Speaker 1: wrestling team of repression, because you're it's history and religion
43:12
Speaker 1: you're in. You're further north in upstate New York, and
43:17
Speaker 1: I am and my palt Ben and I here are
43:21
Speaker 1: further down in the American Southeast. And maybe you could
43:27
Speaker 1: argue they the repression takes slightly different historical paths, but
43:33
Speaker 1: we are We're very much in the Bible Belt. You know,
43:38
Speaker 1: even in our fair metropolis of Atlanta or in other
43:44
Speaker 1: really cool cities like Athens, you're never more than about
43:48
Speaker 1: twenty five thirty minutes away from some really weird billboards,
43:53
Speaker 1: like really in the arly stuff.
43:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean if I'm rolling Nebraska, so oh.
43:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you get it.
43:59
Speaker 2: I get it.
44:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We see then that history is always
44:05
Speaker 1: closer than it looks in the rear view mirror, and
44:08
Speaker 1: it has often unforeseen effects on the modern days. So
44:14
Speaker 1: we want to thank you for all the work that
44:16
Speaker 1: you have put into tracing these things. What they not
44:21
Speaker 1: just what we know about the past, but what it
44:23
Speaker 1: tells us about the future. With that, before we go,
44:29
Speaker 1: I gotta do two things rost and I hope it's okay,
44:33
Speaker 1: but I'm going to put you on the spot. Are
44:35
Speaker 1: you ready? All right? All right, cool? All right? Your
44:37
Speaker 1: game for it? Nice? First, can we have you back
44:41
Speaker 1: on for a future episode?
44:42
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'd love that.
44:44
Speaker 1: Okay, So we're thinking we talked a little bit off
44:48
Speaker 1: air about ICP, the Juggalos. You've been doing a lot
44:53
Speaker 1: of interviews and work on the nineteen nineties, so it'd
44:57
Speaker 1: be it'd be fantastic for to reconvene in the future
45:02
Speaker 1: with more from you on on those and other topics,
45:06
Speaker 1: especially what do we call it? Low culture?
45:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, low culture, trashy entertainment, you know, yeah, whatever a
45:12
Speaker 2: phrase you want to use.
45:14
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, Well, we're going to have you back
45:16
Speaker 1: on to learn more about that. The second thing that
45:20
Speaker 1: we have to ask is a question that's going to
45:22
Speaker 1: be on the mind of everybody in the audience today.
45:25
Speaker 1: Where can people learn more about your work?
45:30
Speaker 2: So you can just go to my website Ross Spinish
45:32
Speaker 2: dot com and I'm occasionally on Twitter and LinkedIn, but
45:37
Speaker 2: I have been inactive more recently.
45:42
Speaker 1: And that is spelled Ross r O S S B
45:46
Speaker 1: E N E s dot com. So do check it out.
45:51
Speaker 1: Check out the website folks, if you want to engage
45:54
Speaker 1: in some Twitter stall care, just be nice, as we
45:57
Speaker 1: always say, and in the meantime, thank you again so much.
46:01
Speaker 1: But Russ, this has been a blast. I have learned
46:05
Speaker 1: a lot. I'm not sure I wanted to learn everything
46:07
Speaker 1: I just learned, but I had to appreciate it. And
46:11
Speaker 1: we'll talk to you.
46:12
Speaker 2: Soon, all right, see you later.
46:15
Speaker 1: Man, what a what a ride we just had. There
46:21
Speaker 1: been the sleeping dog hacke it. I gotta ask you
46:27
Speaker 1: what stood out to you the most in some of
46:30
Speaker 1: these strange stories of sex man other Ben.
46:37
Speaker 3: I think the the scandal in the what was that
46:43
Speaker 3: Michigan ten years ago?
46:45
Speaker 1: Uh, I think it's pretty telling.
46:49
Speaker 3: What the representative thought was gonna be less scandalous, and
46:54
Speaker 3: it just goes I don't know, maybe I'm maybe I'm
46:57
Speaker 3: reaching a little far here, but it's like, maybe that's
47:00
Speaker 3: it's a not uncommon behavior that he's a little desensitized to.
47:05
Speaker 1: But that's just me.
47:06
Speaker 3: That was just what I was thinking in the moment.
47:08
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I didn't even connect that part, but
47:11
Speaker 1: I'm tempted to agree. We can't wait to have Ross
47:17
Speaker 1: Benish back on the show. We're going to be talking
47:19
Speaker 1: about low culture trash TV, all kinds of things from that,
47:25
Speaker 1: the halcyon days of the nineteen nineties, which sadly been
47:31
Speaker 1: seemed to get further and further away. You guys should
47:36
Speaker 1: see Ben the Sleeping Dog Hackett shake his head along
47:39
Speaker 1: with me in response to that. So we are going
47:43
Speaker 1: to call it a day. Big big thanks to our
47:46
Speaker 1: guest super producer, Been the Sleeping Dog Hackett. Big thanks
47:50
Speaker 1: to Ross Benish, who is going to earn his official
47:53
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History Moniker, probably in his second appearance. Big thanks
47:58
Speaker 1: to aj Bahamas Jacob, Big thanks to Alex Williams who
48:01
Speaker 1: can posed our track, our producer Max Williams. Big thanks
48:06
Speaker 1: of course to Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister, the Rude Dudes,
48:11
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime, my pal Noel Brown, who will be returning
48:15
Speaker 1: soon and as Noel always likes to say, we'll see
48:19
Speaker 1: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
48:29
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
48:32
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.