Latest / Ridiculous History / Ottoman Harems Were Disturbing and Ridiculous, Part One: Busting Myths

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Ottoman Harems Were Disturbing and Ridiculous, Part One: Busting Myths · 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, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's give a shout out to our
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  Speaker 1: special guest, our super producer, Ben Sleeping Dog Hacket.
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  Speaker 2: Oh wow, you gotta let them lie. I hear the
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  Speaker 2: sleeping dogs. You're supposed to let them let them lie.
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  Speaker 1: There are three of us, so would that make this
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  Speaker 1: a three dog night?
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  Speaker 2: Apparently three dog morning, late morning, mid morning. I don't
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: know what do you call ten fifteen? It's always nighttime
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  Speaker 2: to me. Man, I bet bullied. You are mister Noel Brown.
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  Speaker 1: And today we are diving into a very strange concept
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  Speaker 1: that still is widely misunderstood in the West. What would
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  Speaker 1: you say, guys, if someone came to you and said, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: do you want to have a secret compound that is
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  Speaker 1: just full of women that you are in love with?
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  Speaker 2: Where do I sign up?
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  Speaker 1: Right? That's what I'd say. I actually problems, and I
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  Speaker 1: love the caveat.
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  Speaker 2: And I think you sort of stacked the deck a
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  Speaker 2: little bit by adding that you are also in love
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  Speaker 2: with right, Because I mean, let's be real, polyamory is
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  Speaker 2: certainly a thing, you know, it requires consent, it requires
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  Speaker 2: agency on the part of all participants. A harem ain't
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  Speaker 2: that though.
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  Speaker 1: No, no, we will. We will dive in here with
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  Speaker 1: this This episode maybe a two parter. It's about the
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  Speaker 1: most famous harems in the Western world world, which are
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  Speaker 1: the harems of the Automan Empire. But to understand how
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  Speaker 1: dangerous and disturbing the harem of the Ottoman Empire was,
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  Speaker 1: we have the first correct some myths about harems in general.
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  Speaker 1: With a big shout out to our pals over at Britannica.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, boy, do we love Britannica. Rural Britannica is what
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  Speaker 2: I say. Let's change the slogan.
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  Speaker 1: We also have some exciting news about the Smithsonian.
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  Speaker 2: Right, let's keep it under everybody, get the our stovepipe paths,
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  Speaker 2: which we are both definitely wearing right now. What is
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  Speaker 2: a harem? To your point, Ben, very important to corrects
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  Speaker 2: some myths and Muslim countries. The word harem refers to
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  Speaker 2: a part of a home set apart for women of
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  Speaker 2: the family, so you know, separated from all the kind
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  Speaker 2: of sexual connotations and sort of the exoticized you know,
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  Speaker 2: ideas of a harem is sort of a functional thing
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  Speaker 2: that has to do with a cultural more, you know,
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  Speaker 2: of the Muslim faith, which is not something that is
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  Speaker 2: inherently bad at all.
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  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, well said. And the etymology harimi is used
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  Speaker 1: collectively to refer to the to the occupants of the harem.
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  Speaker 1: And there are different terms in different languages in different
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  Speaker 1: parts of the world, right, Like what we'll call a
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  Speaker 1: harem in India would be zenana or and a room
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  Speaker 1: in Iran and in Persian this these just be like
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  Speaker 1: places for women or the inside part of the house.
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  Speaker 1: And we always associate harems in the West with Muslim practices,
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  Speaker 1: but they definitely also existed before Islam in the Middle East,
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  Speaker 1: and in the role of the harem right pre Islam,
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  Speaker 1: it was a secure private quarters for women who still
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  Speaker 1: still obviously played different roles in public life. The profit
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  Speaker 1: of Islam did not originate the idea of a harem,
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  Speaker 1: nor the idea of veiling or secluding women, but he
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  Speaker 1: did co sign it pretty heavily.
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  Speaker 2: So in pre Islamic Assyria, Persia and Egypt, many of
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  Speaker 2: the royal courts also included a harem, which consisted.
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  Speaker 1: Of the rulers wives.
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  Speaker 2: They're direct wives by marriage and also they're concubines, which
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  Speaker 2: is another term that is loaded and interesting and sort
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  Speaker 2: of bandied about, you know, in Western culture. I guess
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  Speaker 2: a lot of times this uses a stand in for
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  Speaker 2: sort of sex worker or even the more potentially problematic prostitute,
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  Speaker 2: which I think is a term that has largely been
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  Speaker 2: retired outside of using it as a term of abuse,
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  Speaker 2: because of course, sex work is work, and you know,
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  Speaker 2: many places it is becoming much more normalized, and it
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  Speaker 2: is absolutely with agency and you know, safety, in all
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  Speaker 2: a completely legitimate of earning a living. So this harem
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  Speaker 2: was kind of like a separate domicile, you know, a compound,
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  Speaker 2: let's call it, for all of these female members of
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  Speaker 2: the court, including attendants, handmaidens, and of course who we
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  Speaker 2: can't talk about this without talking about Unix, something that
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  Speaker 2: I just find endlessly fascinating and disturbing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll dive into the unique stuff just a bit,
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  Speaker 1: because it is disturbing and endlessly fascinating. As you said, concubine,
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  Speaker 1: the best way to think about it would be a mistress, right,
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  Speaker 1: And in these in these social hierarchies, being a concubine
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  Speaker 1: didn't have to be a dead end job. There was
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  Speaker 1: always the potential that one could become one could ascend
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  Speaker 1: to the role of wife or something like that.
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  Speaker 2: I believe it was even preferable in some cases for
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  Speaker 2: a concubine to bear children. Yes, interestingly, I'd love to
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  Speaker 2: get into the minutia of why that might be. But yeah,
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  Speaker 2: and then of course, you know, it's interesting. It's almost
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  Speaker 2: like a brothel in some ways, only it's not for sale.
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  Speaker 2: It's all for.
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  Speaker 1: One dude and one customer.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and his homies. I imagine you gotta imagine he'd
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  Speaker 2: bring no never never not. I mean, he has some pals,
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  Speaker 2: he'd he spread it around a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: I just gotta send a member of his harem to
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  Speaker 1: someone else, especially if they're cementing a political.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah sense, but never entry would be It's I just
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  Speaker 2: find that hard to believe. There would never be exceptions.
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  Speaker 2: But I trust you. That's that's. Oh, we don't we
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  Speaker 2: don't know. As It's just if if it were me,
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  Speaker 2: I'd be having parties, you know. It's it's it's weird,
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  Speaker 2: and it just seems like a kind of that you'd
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  Speaker 2: host like a bro down, you know. It just feels
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  Speaker 2: that way.
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  Speaker 1: Members of the Sultan's family like male members of the
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  Speaker 1: Sultan's family might be raised in the harem, right that
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  Speaker 1: would be that would be a way around it. But
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  Speaker 1: as far as like blowout ragers, the kind of it
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  Speaker 1: ain't no fun if the homies can't have none sort
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  Speaker 1: of vibe, that kind of thing. We don't have tons
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  Speaker 1: of proof on because for a long time the West
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  Speaker 1: didn't really understand what was going on in the arem,
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  Speaker 1: you know, they didn't know it was a political engine.
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  Speaker 2: And we're joking around a little bit and maybe being
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  Speaker 2: a little minor ely crass and not meaning to, but
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  Speaker 2: let's not forget this is, at the end of the day,
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  Speaker 2: not sex work. This is sex slavery, and this is
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  Speaker 2: sex trafficking in many cases as well, although it's complicated
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  Speaker 2: because many of the women that lived in these arams
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  Speaker 2: lived not too bad lives. They were pampered, they were
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  Speaker 2: able to kind of have all of the resources they needed,
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  Speaker 2: but they were living exclusively at the behest of this
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  Speaker 2: one dude, at the pleasure of this one dude, which
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  Speaker 2: is jacked up if yes, just no matter how it's like,
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  Speaker 2: it's like a gilded cage kind of situation, right, very.
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  Speaker 1: Much so, and in some cases, well we'll get we'll
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  Speaker 1: get in well, this just you know.
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  Speaker 2: I just want to make sure we put that ahead
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  Speaker 2: of everything else, because it's easy to joke about some
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  Speaker 2: of the stuff, but it is, at the end of
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  Speaker 2: the day, pretty serious. And there's a lot of you know,
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  Speaker 2: very opportunistic, nasty, misogynistic themes in this.
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  Speaker 1: Story and the idea of that sort of the racy
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  Speaker 1: sex parts. Sometimes they steal the headline from the function
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  Speaker 1: of the harem, which was again a political engine. You
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  Speaker 1: walk into a harem, especially in the Ottoman Empire there
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  Speaker 1: and what you're going to find is uh game of thrones,
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  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, success battle though yeah right,
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  Speaker 1: it's well not always, but what I'm saying is is
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  Speaker 1: a political engine, and that it was like pieces on
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  Speaker 1: the board that could be used, you know, at the
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  Speaker 1: discretion of the.
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  Speaker 2: Sultan. You know, like if you wanted to either get
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  Speaker 2: or give from the harem, that could be a political tool.
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  Speaker 1: That could be a political tool. That's one piece of it.
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  Speaker 1: The ultimate aim, the highlander esque part of this is
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  Speaker 1: that you, as a member of the harem, if you
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  Speaker 1: have a child and you can get your child to
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  Speaker 1: be the favored successor of the assaultan then you essentially
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  Speaker 1: have gained control of the empire all without necessarily leaving
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  Speaker 1: the Harom.
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  Speaker 2: Machinations within machinations.
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  Speaker 1: So secession, Game of thrones type stuff, real courts, intrigue,
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  Speaker 1: and often so. Yes, a lot of female members of
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  Speaker 1: the harem may come from enslavement, right, or may come
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  Speaker 1: from the horrors of war from an expansionist empire. But
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  Speaker 1: a lot of other women in harems came from influential,
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  Speaker 1: powerful families. They were politically, they were, uh, they were
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  Speaker 1: the links in political alliances, and they sometimes were sent
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  Speaker 1: to the harem with a mission.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, and to walk back my previous question or
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  Speaker 2: sort of I don't know, I guess hypothetical of life.
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  Speaker 2: Wouldn't they wouldn't the sultan bring his boys in? They
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  Speaker 2: had their own. If they were of a level where
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  Speaker 2: they were hanging out with the Sultans, and they were
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  Speaker 2: of a powerful enough family, they had their own. And
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  Speaker 2: it was very, very common.
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  Speaker 1: Uh.
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  Speaker 2: The Sultans was just the most bougie and and outrageous
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  Speaker 2: and largest, But it was common in affluent households for
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  Speaker 2: folks to have these, and even in slightly less affluent
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  Speaker 2: households they'd still the norm would be for a male
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  Speaker 2: to have multiple mistresses on the side.
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  Speaker 1: Well, if you could afford them, if you could, especially
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  Speaker 1: once Islam propagated throughout this part of the world, there
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  Speaker 1: are there were specific rules, so there are specific rules
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  Speaker 1: for how those relationships should be pursued and maintained. And
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  Speaker 1: I love that you're pointing out that this is kind
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  Speaker 1: of like a It's kind of like saying the bathroom,
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  Speaker 1: because most people have their own restroom. It's just some
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  Speaker 1: people have super opulent, like stupid fancy restrooms.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, gilded the toilets and the Japanese bidets, you know,
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  Speaker 2: things like that.
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  Speaker 1: I love it.
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  Speaker 2: I love it.
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  Speaker 1: And the Ottoman Empire, specifically in Imperial Turkey, the sultan had,
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  Speaker 1: like you said, fantastically complicated palatial harem or seraglio, and
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  Speaker 1: they this thing had a staff that disciplinary administrative officers.
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  Speaker 1: It was all overseen by a former Haram member themselves,
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  Speaker 1: the sultan's mother, the Vali da Sultan. Wait, she's saying
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  Speaker 1: she was like in charge kind of, She was in
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  Speaker 1: charge of the harem, which was a common thing because
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  Speaker 1: her son is the one who became the sultan's so
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  Speaker 1: she got that key to that power.
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  Speaker 2: The structure, though, does remind me still of a brothel
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  Speaker 2: where you have kind of the madam or whatever you know,
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  Speaker 2: that's in charge and that sort of like keeps everyone
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  Speaker 2: in check and make sure everyone's like, you know, going
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  Speaker 2: the line or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: But in this case it's the sultan's literal mother. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and kind of weird.
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  Speaker 2: She's the one that's making sure her son's sex pets
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  Speaker 2: are doing. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Again, a lot of it is not actually sex. It's
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  Speaker 1: like it's politics, it's intrigue. It's a lot of backstabbing
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  Speaker 1: put a lot of sex. There is, obviously there's sex
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  Speaker 1: that occurs, but consider this, there are women in a
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  Speaker 1: harem who may live the entirety of their lives there
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  Speaker 1: and not interact with the sultan. That's in the case
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  Speaker 1: of the Automan Empire, because it just it was so big.
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  Speaker 1: We know that it wasn't just separated or dare I say,
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  Speaker 1: segregated from the rest of the royal court, but from
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  Speaker 1: the entirety of public life. It was purposely mysterious. It
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  Speaker 1: was a black box. The women inside were either connected
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  Speaker 1: to the sultan in that they were family members, or
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  Speaker 1: maybe they were They did have some sort of romantic
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  Speaker 1: or sexual relationship. They were. They were kind of forced
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  Speaker 1: into this sequestered monastic existence. The idea was not it
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  Speaker 1: was a guilded cage. As you said, you you could
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  Speaker 1: wake up and say I want pomegranates or something, and boom,
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  Speaker 1: they would appear for you. But if you woke up
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  Speaker 1: and said I would like to walk to the market
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  Speaker 1: and get pomegranates, uh huh.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, these are kept women, you know, and the ling
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  Speaker 2: and all of that stuff. I mean, and part of
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  Speaker 2: that is I believe as a result of a religious belief,
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  Speaker 2: right is it part or is that not quite intersecting
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  Speaker 2: here yet? Ben like with the you know, you think
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  Speaker 2: of the veils and the idea of not letting other
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  Speaker 2: men see these women and all of that and keeping
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  Speaker 2: them separate or even that part of the home. Doesn't
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  Speaker 2: that stem from an Islamic belief?
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  Speaker 1: It predates Islam, but Islam does adopt that. Yeah, adopts it.
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  Speaker 1: That's a great word for it. And then also yeah,
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  Speaker 1: very like also this is an area the internal aspect
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  Speaker 1: of the compound means that you don't necessarily have to
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  Speaker 1: do that kind of stuff. You don't have to have
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  Speaker 1: a veil. It's just the in group and the reality
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  Speaker 1: of life there. For a long time, it was very
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  Speaker 1: confusing here in the West because Western observers started reporting
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  Speaker 1: about harems and other parts of life in the Ottoman
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  Speaker 1: Empire in the eighteen hundreds. They weren't what we would
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  Speaker 1: call pc. They were not especially careful nor sensitive in
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  Speaker 1: their descriptions, and they went for the lurid stuff, you
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  Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like how Europeans wrote crazy sex
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  Speaker 1: fantasies about Native Americans when they came over to North
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  Speaker 1: and South America. The Western writers about the Ottoman Empire
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  Speaker 1: weren't really tracing the nuances of political intrigue. They were
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  Speaker 1: more like sex house Ottoman and that's where we get
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  Speaker 1: a lot of these images of decadence, debauchery, oppression of women,
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  Speaker 1: and you know, the finest fabrics, the most succulent and
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  Speaker 1: delicious of fruits and meats.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, fine linens and oils, lotions, yes, of course, exotic fruits,
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  Speaker 2: you know, all of all of that sort. I do
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  Speaker 2: want to shout out more piece from Escapus Scott s
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  Speaker 2: k A p A s dot com on the Ottoman
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  Speaker 2: Harem just a really, really great resource with lots of details,
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  Speaker 2: and I was I was. I founded it when I
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  Speaker 2: was trying to figure out, like how many are we
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  Speaker 2: talking here, and it could be hundreds, right, This is
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  Speaker 2: like a almost like a micro city and in in
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  Speaker 2: and of itself in the.
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  Speaker 1: In the case of the Sultan's harem in the Ottoman Empire, yes,
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  Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a hidden city. We could call it,
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  Speaker 1: or at the very least a hidden town, just because
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  Speaker 1: there are so many people. But there are obviously there
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  Speaker 1: are other harems, right, They're just on this level.
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  Speaker 2: A million percent, like we were saying, you know, they
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  Speaker 2: had they had their own There's also like within the
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  Speaker 2: harems kind of a hierarchy, the concept. I found this
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  Speaker 2: again on this Escapus article.
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  Speaker 1: Odalisks. Yeah, we get at the bottom of the cast system.
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  Speaker 2: They were at the bottom of this hierarchy, were kind
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  Speaker 2: of more like servants or like handmaids again, and they
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  Speaker 2: were kind of not necessarily seen as being attractive enough
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  Speaker 2: to ascend to the level of being presented.
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  Speaker 1: To Let's jump to this part too, and well we'll
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  Speaker 1: get back to the rest of the cast later. But
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  Speaker 1: the Odelisque is a very interesting position to Haram because, uh,
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  Speaker 1: these are slave children these are child female child slaves
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  Speaker 1: who are purchased at a slave market and they're not
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  Speaker 1: necessarily going to become full time or they're not going
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  Speaker 1: to become Haram members for the rest of their life.
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  Speaker 1: You have to be the most beautiful. We don't know
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  Speaker 1: who judges that, maybe the Sultan's mom. You have to
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  Speaker 1: be judged the most beautiful of the odelisque to be
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  Speaker 1: trained in uh in sex work and then different like
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  Speaker 1: it's like the Ottoman version of a geisha kind of thing. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: what were going on? Entertainment etiquette, and then you would
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  Speaker 1: be presented to the Sultan and if the Sultan like
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  Speaker 1: your vibe, you could become a concubine. But if nine
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  Speaker 1: years pass and the Sultan doesn't ask about you, then
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  Speaker 1: you can leave the harem and you can get married.
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  Speaker 1: So nine years though nine years long time, but again
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  Speaker 1: they're enslaved since their children.
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  Speaker 2: Now that's right, right, right, So you could theoretically ascend
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  Speaker 2: from the position of odolisk to becoming Yeah, so that's
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  Speaker 2: it is like sort of like a ladder.
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  Speaker 1: Sort of chaos is a ladder. Sure, So during the
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  Speaker 1: sixteenth and seventeenth century, one of the things that really
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  Speaker 1: launched Western interest in the Harem, and specific was that
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  Speaker 1: the Ottoman court was known for just balling out, for
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  Speaker 1: being crazy, extravagant. If you are a if you are
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  Speaker 1: another old leader and you meet with the Sultan, or
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  Speaker 1: you travel there, or you send a dignitary there, they're
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  Speaker 1: going to have the best time of their life, or
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  Speaker 1: they might get murdered. So it's a real roll of
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  Speaker 1: the dice, it's right, yeah, but they definitely knew how to.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, some of the kind of.
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  Speaker 2: Cliche to the point of almost being offensive images we
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  Speaker 2: have of this era, you know, there is some truth
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  Speaker 2: to them. These these wild, debauched displays of wealth, right,
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  Speaker 2: and all of the uses of you know, fine materials,
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  Speaker 2: you know, slit silks and all of that, the best
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  Speaker 2: of the best, you know, all on display. This idea
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  Speaker 2: of like, look, you know, behold my wealth. There is
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  Speaker 2: there is truth to that. And then the idea of
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  Speaker 2: exotic fruits even and these you know, seductive women scantily clad,
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  Speaker 2: there is that. You know, there were times where they
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  Speaker 2: might feel like that, right, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And the sultan, given their unique position in the hierarchy
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  Speaker 1: of the empire, the sultan had rights other people didn't have,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and one of those was one of those was the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: right to possess as many women as he pleased, even
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: if only for a night. This reminds me of the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: old oh gosh, the old fake story about the origin
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: of the word beat me her ben, the origin of
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the word fornication under consent of the king. It was
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: the idea that the king had prima nactus.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: I think that was in Game of Thrones as well,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: where that was depicted, the idea of that you could
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: if you so desired. Basically, I think you could either
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: deflower a woman on her wedding nights or something like that.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Then that sort of puts a real damper on the
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: proceedings or also literally just possess another man's wife and
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: you couldn't do anything about it. But as we know,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: sometimes just because you can doesn't mean you should, uh,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't necessarily bode well for you politically if
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: you start messing with other people's you know, wives in
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: this way, right.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no opp And then also the also you know,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: we give democracy a hard time because it's far from perfect,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: but it's a little better than this system.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Ye say, yeah, yeah, one one one could certainly argue
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: that should we talk a little bit more about like
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: the kind of you know, cultural I guess vibes at
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: the time, right, or like the political you know system.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's do this. So the court had, because
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: of the Sultan's unique sort of social superpower and cartoonish privilege,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the court had hundreds of what we're considered the most
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: beautiful women of the entirety of the empire locked away
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: just surveying the pleasure of the Sultan. They had a
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: lot of free time because the Sultan's one dude, and
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: they spent this free time pursuing one thing, to ascend
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: this hierarchy, to navigate this political these political headwinds, and
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: become more than a servant, someone who could, should the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: dominoes fall correctly, someone who could basically have the power
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: of the Sultan. And these folks, you know, it's very
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: strange because a lot of them were there non consensually,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: but they had more power than the average person outside
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of the Harem. It's it's very it's very weird. We'll
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: get to some weird specifics here. We just need to
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I think we're doing a good job showing that the
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: harem is not just a sexual playground for the Sultan,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: it was, but it wasn't.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Just that, No, Yeah, it was very multifaceted for sure.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: To jump even you know, further beyond that point then
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: to take on the next level. There was actually a
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: period in the empire known as the Reign of Women
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: or the cot in Law Sultani, which saw Harem women
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: playing even more powerful roles in politics and wielding significant
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: political capital in the Ottoman Empire. And even you know
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: that of course, being the Ottoman Empire being what it was,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: that extended out beyond the wider world around and often
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: led to some of these women having incredible power because
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: of their association. I mean, maybe we could dive a
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: little bit more into the Reign of women, but I
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: assume it was just because of their association. This whole
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: idea of being a favorite, or the sultan perhaps relegating
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: or delegating some of his power to this person who
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: has become so close to him, not just sexually but personally,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: and there's a trust there and maybe it's like you
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: know what you do it, I'm gonna take a break,
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: and I don't know.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's having the ear of the king, you know
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Like, yes, there's one guy who gets
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: to sit on the fancy chair. But when someone asking Yeah,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: when someone asks him a question, he leans over to
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: you know, his his favorite wife, Vanessa and just says, Vanessa,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: you know more about you know more about the trade
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: and balance of us in Austria Hungary than I do.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: And she goes, oh, yeah, well you should do this.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: And he's like, all right, well, guys, Vanessa says you
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: got to get out.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it. Power behind the throw. I mean, that's
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: you know, that's that's inherent in any political dynasty, orb
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: especially especially in the case of a more totalitarian or
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: dictatorial rule, because it is all coming from one individual
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: who can get their info or their counsel from whomever
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: they please.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: And with this, let's let's go to the cast of
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: the Haram Right.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we tease it a little bit, let's dig in
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: a little deeper, and we're going to get to UNIX
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: trigger warning. We're going to talk a little bit about
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: genital mutilation here. As you can imagine the process that
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Lens will give another touristic trigger warning when it's actually
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: about yeah, yeah, it will be, and we won't be
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: super explicit, but it is important to know. So, uh,
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: the population of the harem falls into two groups, the
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: wives and relatives of a sultan. So you could, for instance,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: be the sultan's aunt or be the sultan's niece, and
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: you live in the harem, right, and you're not attached
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: to the sexual nature at all. So it does still
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: occupy that place of the part of the home for women.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, okay, we could even we could even argue
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: that the primary function a place, a specific place for
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: women in the home has been tainted by the success
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: of the sultan. And now he's leaning into maybe twisting
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the idea of a little because the second serving. Yeah, the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: second group, which is usually the larger group by by
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: a long by a country mile, is going to be
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the group of slaves that are brought inside the harem
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: from multiple parts of the world. Like we said, the
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: new girls were called odalisque. They might get if they
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: they got the right vibe. They get taught poetry and
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: different dance techniques and erotic arts, the erotic arts. If
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: they don't succeed in this, they become servants. And if
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: nine years past, in some cases they can leave the
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: harem because sometimes to be honest, the Sultan just completely
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: forgot about people. Well, yeah, that sounds very callous, and
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: it kind of is.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: But it's also like this is about there's a curatorial
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: aspect to the harem, right, this idea of like keeping
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: it popping, keeping an interesting. Don't want to get too
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: stagnat if someone's not pulling their way. It's not like
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: they're taking out back and shot. They might just be
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: dismissed and allowed to live a normal life, you know,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: and and then get married and have children of their own,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: which you know, it's not a magnanimous act. It really
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: is kind of like a very callous act. It's like, well,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: now that I've got no more use for you, I'm
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: going to let you go back out of the world.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: But at least it's better than the alternative, which would
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: be like banishment or you know, execution.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, also, if you die in a harem, there
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: is a not insignificant chance that you die as a
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: result of another rival in the harem not liking you. Yeah,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: like they would poison each other, they would try to
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: kill each other's children, et cetera.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: The political machinations within the harem itself, you know, everyone
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: vying for that top.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Spot right right exactly, and then also vying for the
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: favor of Look, Harem's definitely had a mean girl's click,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: so they're vying for the favor of maybe a more powerful,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: more established Haram member, and if that means you have
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: to follow her vibe, Like if you know, if the
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: mean girl crew that you're trying to get with says, oh,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: we don't like let's use Vanessa again as an example,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: we don't like Vanessa, then if you want them to
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: like you, you have to also dislike Vanessa.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: This is very weirdly complicated, but it's also very weirdly
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: understandable relatable. If anyone's ever been in middle school, you
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: kind of get these same vibes just playground bullying and
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: like again, it's when you come up and you come
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: from nothing and you have this sort of attitude where
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: you want to survive. You're gonna glom on in that way,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: even if sometimes it makes you go against your better
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: you know, the morals.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Perhaps you know, it's like self preservation. If you say, well,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I think Vanessa isn't that bad, then you may become
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: the next object of bullying. That's right, or poisoning in
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: this case, yeah.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: And you know, even in middle school with her, where
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: there are those clicks, sometimes you join the mean girl
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: click just so yourself don't get bullied exactly, you know, Yeah, yeah,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: I hate to see it, but there it.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Is breaking news here in the Ottoman Empire and Harem's folks.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: We are having such an immense time here. You know,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: we were talking off air about whether or not this
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: would be a two parter. I think we defer to
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Max the Sultan Williams, and we just got mured.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: He says he can neither confirm nor deny that he.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Is a saultant. But I am here, now he is here,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: and so we are going to call this a two parter.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: There is so much more ridiculous history to get into.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: We left it at a bit of a cliffhanger. We
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: don't want to leave you without a dope beat the
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: step two. So tune in Thursday for part two of
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the Ottoman Empire's Notorious Harem System. Big big thanks to
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: our returning super producer, mister Max Williams, Big big thanks
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: to our guest producer Ben Sleeping Dog Hacket.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: Indeed, well geez.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: Thanks always to Christopherrasiotis and Eves Jeffcoat here in Spirit,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: Jonathan Strickland, The quizt Aj Bahamas, Jacobs the Puzzler.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Yes, Big, big thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance Big,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: thanks to Alex Williams who composed our soundtrack, and Noel
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to you.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: On you as well, Ben. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,