Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / Bittisode 013: The Chastity Belt Myth

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Bittisode 013: The Chastity Belt Myth · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast. Hi everybody, and
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: welcome to Who Did What?
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: The history podcast That's not your history class, Betty soodes
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the little bits of history they don't quite fit in
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: it anywhere else with me, your host Katie Charlwood, history
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  Speaker 1: harlot and reader of books. Now, now, now, before we
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: get into well the rest of the Betty's I was
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: going to say the rest of the show, but that
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: sounded weird in my head, and I don't know why.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I've got a radio broadcaster voice. What is that that
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: was weird? No, it's because I got this new microphone.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: It's so pretty. It's pink. You have no idea how
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: excited I am. So it's it's so pretty, and I
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: actually it's so pretty. I cannot convey to you how
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: excited I am to have a pink microphone. Like my
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: friend Seana. Actually, she has what's it called where you
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: can see colors like you like you see a name
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and you know which color it is. And she said
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: that my name that Katie was like Cherbert colors, so
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: like pinks and oranges, but like sheerberty. And it's really
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  Speaker 1: funny because ever since she said that I was like, yes,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: that is me, Like I already kind of veered that way,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and I already kind of wore i'd already started. I
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: want to call it my esthetic journey, and I've slowly
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: but truly just been leaning into the rainbow just as
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a concept. But yeah, it's good. It's good. And I
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  Speaker 1: have this microphone and it's so beautiful and I cannot
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  Speaker 1: convey like how happy this microphone makes me. But before
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  Speaker 1: I get into anything else, I went on about this microphone,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: which was not my intention. I wanted to talk about
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  Speaker 1: a little survey. If you're listening to this on day
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: of release or even the day after release, like Thursday Friday,
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  Speaker 1: I have this survey in the sort of bit down below.
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  Speaker 1: There's a way link there. It's also on the link
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  Speaker 1: of my socials. It's all there, and it's for Trover Trip.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: So Trover trip or it is Trover Trip, that is
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: how you pronounce it. I don't think i've ever heard
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: it actually said aloud. That's my fault for only reading it,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I guess. But yeah, they reached out to me and
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: they were like, hey, do you want to be a
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: host for, you know, a vacation? And I was thinking,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I like going places that could be nice. So if
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: you want to hang out with me on a holiday,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: if you want to go somewhere, if you want to
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  Speaker 1: go do some cool things, then yeah, just do the
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: we survey. Just fall it out to the best of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: your abilities. And it kind of gives me an idea of,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: you know, what kind of vacation to organize, you know,
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  Speaker 1: because the number one currently is Iceland, which really surprised me.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I was like, how many people plan to go to Iceland?
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  Speaker 1: And then I and then I'm like thinking, yeah, geezers
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: are nice though, guysers, geezers, geysers, Oh my god, what
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: is wrong with me today? Like I am just off.
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  Speaker 1: But anyway, I've got that if you are planning to
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: come see me in Kansas, I'm going to be at
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: the Heartland Pagan Festival. I'm doing a talk, three workshops,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and a live podcast recording. So that is going to
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  Speaker 1: be so much fun. I am very excited. And I
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: do have a link for the Heartland Pagan Festival in
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  Speaker 1: the description down below as well. And if you use
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the code Katie twenty three, so kat I E two three,
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  Speaker 1: then you'll get I think it's ten percent off so
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: you'll get a discount, So if you want to come
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  Speaker 1: see me, you may as well get a disc out
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  Speaker 1: when you're doing it.
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  Speaker 2: Oh and to.
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  Speaker 1: Anyone and everyone who has been giving reviews, putting the
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  Speaker 1: reviews in Apple and Spotify. Honestly, it's so nice for
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: it to still be happening, even though I wasn't able
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: to record for quite a while between the microphone issue
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and then the other stuff that happened that I will
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  Speaker 1: fill you in on in the next like proper episode,
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  Speaker 1: because yeah, I want to get into this and talk
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  Speaker 1: about this, because oh, all the stuff that we have
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: been and will be covering for like the next three
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  Speaker 1: weeks is pretty heavy, and it's pretty depressing and sad
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  Speaker 1: and rage inducing. And I want to give the buisodes
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  Speaker 1: for the next few weeks a little bit of a
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  Speaker 1: lighter topic, which is why, which is why we're going
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  Speaker 1: to be talking about this specifically. But I know what
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  Speaker 1: you're thinking, you're thinking, what your jibber jabber in fact me,
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  Speaker 1: in fact you, I will so who wants to talk
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  Speaker 1: about chastity belts? So this is the brilliant thing. So
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  Speaker 1: everything you've ever heard about chastity belts is a lie. Well, well,
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  Speaker 1: unless you're from a very specific community. I mean, how
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: do you know the difference between a nerd and a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: member of the kink community. Ask them what a dungeon
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  Speaker 1: master is. So yeah, modern city belts, I think are
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: usually worn by men, or not men, but people with
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: penises and or you know, a penis, a person with
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a penis, I mean, if they have more than one penis,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: good for them, that's that's gonna be a fun experience,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: or maybe a really unfun experience, but that's NEI if
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: you're not there. So a modern chastity belt, it's basically
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to you know, hinder pleasure. Well, people get their kicks
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: out of it. But a traditional medieval chastity belt is
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  Speaker 1: the one that was generally worn or assuming to be
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  Speaker 1: worn by women, never actually existed. Anything you've ever seen
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  Speaker 1: that claims to be a medieval chastity belt is bullshit,
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  Speaker 1: Like it could have been made with medieval materials, but
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  Speaker 1: it's not a real thing. It was never a thing.
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  Speaker 1: And the whole concept of a charity belt charity belt, no,
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  Speaker 1: a chastity belt is it's a metaphor. So yes, let's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: cover a few things first. So that strange metal g string,
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  Speaker 1: known as the chastity belt, was supposed to be worn
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  Speaker 1: by women, you know, by good wives, to ensure to
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  Speaker 1: ensure That was a weird way to say it, wasn't
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  Speaker 1: it to ensure fidelity. Well, men were out, I don't know,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: crusading and all the other shit they did. I don't know,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: early Middle Ages, they did things like spread the word
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of God by murdering people by the thousands, or at
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: least attempting to. Because that's that's exactly what the Bible says,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: isn't it. It's still about It's all about. Yeah, it's
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: not as if Jesus was consistently, you know, preaching compassion
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  Speaker 1: and complaining about rich people. But anyway, that's neither here
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  Speaker 1: not there. Okay, moving on. So somebody went to Sunday School,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Yes I did. H I am Katie and I'm a
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  Speaker 1: recovering Catholic. Sorry, So yeah, that was the point of
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  Speaker 1: the chastity belt. Now, I was informed of this TV
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  Speaker 1: show called A Thousand Ways to Die, which is slightly
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  Speaker 1: more exciting that it sounds, and less creepy than it sounds,
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  Speaker 1: but also is very creepy. So there's this story where
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: a woman is wearing a chastity belt, and her husband
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  Speaker 1: goes off to do whatever the fuck he does again,
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  Speaker 1: crusading and other such shit, and she smothers her body
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  Speaker 1: and olive oil so that she can wriggle out of
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  Speaker 1: her chastity belt and you know, shag her lover and
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: then she you know, reoils and shimmies back into the belt,
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  Speaker 1: you know, And she does this so often that she
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: ends up getting a scratch or whatever, an infection and
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  Speaker 1: gets sepsis and dies. Like that's the basic core of
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: the story. But there's no historical record of this ever happening,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: probably because chastity belts didn't actually exist, but also because
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  Speaker 1: this is from Boccaccio's The de Cameron, and in this
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  Speaker 1: book it's a story within a story which is based
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  Speaker 1: on much older stories, and it's it's not real. It's
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  Speaker 1: just it's fiction. It's pure fiction. But somehow somebody has
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  Speaker 1: asumed this was a fact instead of just like a
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  Speaker 1: fishwife's tail. But all right, but yeah, the concept of
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  Speaker 1: a chastity belt was actually, you're gonna be surprised by this,
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  Speaker 1: I know, invented by the Church, And like most things
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  Speaker 1: mentioned by the Church, it's a fucking metaphor. It's a
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  Speaker 1: metaphor for fidelity and chastity, even though it actually had
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  Speaker 1: chastity in the title. It's all about being like personal
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  Speaker 1: morality and you know, saving yourself like for your husband
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  Speaker 1: and basically telling you not to stray and to keep
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  Speaker 1: yourself private except for you know, procreation within wedlock. Like yeah,
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  Speaker 1: even though the church saw like men shagging around and
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  Speaker 1: you know, wanking and all that other stuff as like
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  Speaker 1: a necessary sort of evil, like it was a thing
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  Speaker 1: that you just kind of had to grin and baren
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  Speaker 1: accept happened. But like a woman doing that, oh no.
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  Speaker 1: But also in the early Middle Ages, what's really funny
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  Speaker 1: is that there's this sort of theory running along at
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  Speaker 1: the time that women are just as horny as men,
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  Speaker 1: more so even and that if you're not satisfying your wife,
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  Speaker 1: like she's gonna go and be satisfied by someone else.
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  Speaker 1: Like it was a very like prominent school of thought,
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  Speaker 1: and it was very common amongst like well just the
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  Speaker 1: common people. I'm not even the common people. Like I'm
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: not gonna say middle class because middle class didn't really
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  Speaker 1: exist because you had like rich people and you had
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: poor people. Right, That's that's it. So in the upper
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  Speaker 1: class they're like, eh, keep an eye and your wife
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  Speaker 1: or she's gonna go through a conveyor belt of like
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  Speaker 1: it's just yeah, and and so because these two ideas
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  Speaker 1: are like running concurrently, they're like alongside each other, they're parallel,
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  Speaker 1: it kind of brings forth a medieval meme. So there's
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  Speaker 1: a medieval meme. There is there are there is satirical
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  Speaker 1: chastity belt artwork. Like the reason you believe chastity belts
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: were a real thing is because of a medieval meme.
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  Speaker 1: So the gag was in all of these sort of
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  Speaker 1: you know pictures, is that the husband would be off
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  Speaker 1: on his way with a key in one hand, and
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  Speaker 1: the wife would be there with their chastity belt on,
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  Speaker 1: and then somewhere in the background, either like under the
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  Speaker 1: bed or behind a wall or in a bush, you know,
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  Speaker 1: there would be the lover with a key of his own.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: So husband away, he's got his own key, Which is
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: reason number one why chastity belts are entirely impractical. We're
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: gonna go through the reasons like we're gonna go through them.
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  Speaker 1: You can just make a spare key, like you can
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  Speaker 1: get a locksmith anyone who's good at, you know, breaking
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: into stuff. You know, medieval locks aren't exactly the most
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  Speaker 1: difficult to get into. That's option one reason. One reason
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  Speaker 1: number two, iron is expensive, Like can you imagine having
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: to ensure that you had enough metal for the blacksmith
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: or to pay them blacksmith enough to create an entire
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: chastity belt, you know, depending on how much you'd need,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: you know, because back in the day you were expecting
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to be, you know, a wee bit plumper because you
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: have to survive the winter, That's it, right, especially the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: lower classes, you needed.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: The extra the extra plumpness on you. So again, metals
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: is expensive, but also it has to fit accurately. So
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: a blacksmith would have to measure your wife and ensure
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: that the chastity belt fit her perfectly, like you would
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: have to have another man like all up in your
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: wife's ass, which is the kind of the whole thing you're.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Trying to avoid, isn't it. So that's number two and three.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Technically I suppose then, of course there's the risk of infection.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: And I know what you're thinking, it's the medieval period.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Nobody cares about infection, motherfucker. If there's one thing they're
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: worried about. It's infection, Like they know as soon as
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: they get a cutter of scratch, like, things are not
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: gonna go. Well, you need to make sure you got
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: a poltice on it. You know. There's there's some guides
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: for this. There's sooth sayers and old women like prepared
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: for you know, sepsis, because you don't want sepsis because
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: if you get sepsis, you're dead. You get a scratch,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: you could die. Because it's the medieval period, you know,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: we don't have you know, antibiotics and shit.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: So yeah, they are pretty concerned with not having to
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: have an infection. Nobody wants to have to do blood
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: letting and shit unless you're really into that kind of thing,
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: getting the leeches out and what not.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, and here's the thing. There are so many
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: things that make it impractical, like pooing, Like paying is fine,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not the easiest of things to do,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: and when you'd have to clean your legs an awful
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: lot more, I would assume, but you know, you can
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: manage it. But poohing, let's just put it out there.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Poohing is I mean, that's just a mess in every
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: sense of the word, Like, that's definitely gonna cause some issues.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: There's gonna be like a rash happening, like a diaper
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: rash situation. You know, it's it's not gonna be great
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: for anybody. Like and then of course you're married, you're
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: having sex, You're trying to procreate, like that's the purpose.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: If you have sex and then you fuck off to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: crusade or whatever bullshit you're doing for King and Country,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have a wife there. You could have impregnated
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: her before you go. And if she's got a chastity
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  Speaker 1: belt on, like when her stomach starts expanding, that's not
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: gonna end. Well, you know that's it's going to crush
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: her and it's going to cause a spontaneous abortion, Like
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: that's what it's going to do. Like and which is then,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: oh god, which is then it's whole other issue. I
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: mean menstruation, menstruation periods, periods, and a chastity belt, Like
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: does nobody think critically about this ever? Like, and it's
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: so easy to go, oh, well, back in the day
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: people did this, and they were so stupid because they
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: were ignorant and blah blah blah blah, blah. But you
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: know they could chart, you know, courses by the stars.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, look at the fucking Pyramids and Giza. Like
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: back in the day, people knew how to do a
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: bunch more stuff than a lot of us can do now. Like,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: just because a type of knowledge is different doesn't make
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: it any less worthy. But that's another rant for another day.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: But yet there's there are no chastity belts, like, no
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: medieval chastity belts. They don't exist. They never existed. It's
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: a fucking meme. And we we have been memed. We
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: have been trolled actually by a medieval meme. And it's
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: so easy to jump on sort of the ignorant past
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: bandwagon which has let us all here. So like, as
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're a regular listener, you know that
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: my area of expertise is actually the rise of sensationalism
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and the use of prinice propaganda in the late modern period.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So I'm I'm out with you know, medieval times. But
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: you know, you can it's a transferable skill, like you
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: can recognize it then, just like it's one of the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: reasons why I don't like memes. Actually like it for
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the most part, people like my friends tend to not
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: send me memes unless they are specifically history based or
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: you know, a very peculiar niche because a lot of
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: the time memes, you know, they remove so much information.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's utilized for propaganda, so I tend to
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: just avoid them. But yes, there we go. That is
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the history or on history I suppose of chastity belts.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I decided to do a slap and tickle
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: episode because just a bit a bit more lighthearted I
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: think than you know, the horrifically emotional and just melancholy
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: subject matter we're going to be covering in the sort
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: of the main episodes over the next few weeks. Well,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: if you liked this episode, feel free to rate and
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: review five starts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. And yeah, thank you so much for listening.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I hope this sound turned out well because I am
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: loving this microphone. It I just feel better using it.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I sound different, because I feel
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: like I sound different. I mean, I've just finished a
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: day of work and it was very busy, and I
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: am quite exhausted, but I just really wanted to give this.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: A go and just start talking again, and I fucking
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: love this. I love podcasting, I love researching, and I
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: love telling you stuff. I love talking to you.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And I know it's not a back and forth. I
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: know it's not. I mean, you might be back and
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: forth and with me hoymn's to say, but I get
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: messages and emails and dms and all this stuff about.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: You know, you feel like you're talking to a friend,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a friend chat, which honestly, I talk
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: so much that with my irl friends. But this is
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: quite like what our conversations are like, you know, because
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I don't bloody shut up. I'm trying to be better though,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: because of the whole ADHD scenario, because I have it,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and I'm trying to be aware of how I am
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: and how I act. And yeah, I'm a lot, I know.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: But anyway, here I am ranting at the end of
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: an episode, and I am looking forward to discussing in
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: detail more sad sad tales of drudgery and unfortunate circumstance.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: But with that, I shall bid you adiew adios or
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: of what of where does em my friends? Bye Bye,