Latest / Ridiculous History / Victorians Got Super Weird With Flirting, Part Two: Courtship and Calling Cards

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Victorians Got Super Weird With Flirting, Part Two: Courtship and Calling Cards · 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 hear it for the number one
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Speaker 1: guy who sets our hearts a flutter. We are so
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Speaker 1: twitter painted for our super producer, mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: He's our number one number two. Is that a thing?
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Speaker 2: I kind of like it. You're more than number two,
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Speaker 2: You're number one in our hearts. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: For some reason, number one, number two makes me think
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Speaker 1: of I've gotta say it, my favorite coop.
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Speaker 2: You know, that's all right, that's Max. No, no, no,
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Speaker 2: everyone's favorite.
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Speaker 1: Poop, which is it's funny. This is unrelated to anything,
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Speaker 1: but I saw quite recently a four year old absolutely
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Speaker 1: burned down an adult with the most vicious insult. The
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Speaker 1: four year old could think of, Oh, poopy head, poopy,
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Speaker 1: she said. She said someone I said, oh, you know,
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Speaker 1: don't I'm not going to give names because I'll get
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Speaker 1: in trouble, but oh, don't you want to come over
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Speaker 1: here and you know, give Auntie a hug? And then
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Speaker 1: she said, no, you're a poop.
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Speaker 2: And she said it was like just an old poop.
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Speaker 2: She said it was such vim.
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Speaker 1: And Visita like you could tell the she hadn't learned
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Speaker 1: the word MF yet.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's funny, dude, that that is an insult.
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Speaker 2: I guess it makes me think of like I love
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Speaker 2: Lucy when they go oh you old pooh, you know, yeah, oh.
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Speaker 1: Very lighthearted insults and sometimes lighthearted insults are a part
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Speaker 1: of flirting. You Well, that's mister Noel Brown. I am
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Speaker 1: ben Bollen. This is Part two of the Ridiculous History
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Speaker 1: of specifically Victorian flirting. Noel, what did we learn in
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Speaker 1: part one?
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Speaker 2: So much? We learned how to flirt via fan code
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Speaker 2: and postage stamp code, sending little sexy missives through the
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Speaker 2: mail and in person by fluttering our fan implement.
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Speaker 1: There's a one specific signal you can use. Oh so silly.
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Speaker 1: You put your fan on your right ear and tell
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Speaker 1: some what you have changed.
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Speaker 2: Oh, that's right, you have indeed changed. It's sort of
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Speaker 2: the Victorian version of looks maxing, or what do they
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Speaker 2: call it mogging? And or oh, geez, what's the other
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Speaker 2: word for it. We kind of suck cheeks in mogging.
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Speaker 2: It's looks maxing. Mogging is another word for it. It's
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Speaker 2: jen alpha stuff where you kind of suck your cheeks
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Speaker 2: in and sort of make that blue steel face like
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Speaker 2: from Zoolander, and sort of stroke your cheeks, you know,
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Speaker 2: with a two for four fingers and a thumb.
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Speaker 1: Okay, am I doing this right? Yeah?
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Speaker 2: Oh definitely. Yeah. You gotta stuck you cheeks in a
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Speaker 2: little more though, make make you know, cheek bones, lips, duckliss. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: it is a little more, a little on the ducklips side. Yep,
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Speaker 2: you got it there, Ben.
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Speaker 1: Okay, we're trying. Uh, you'll have to trust us because
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Speaker 1: we are an audio podcast.
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Speaker 2: We look ridiculous.
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Speaker 1: Yes, there's a whole history to it. We're also excited
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Speaker 1: to explore this with you folks. Uh we have our
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Speaker 1: own uh Maximill and I have our own, uh personal
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Speaker 1: ridiculous histories with flirting. I had a story just behind
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Speaker 1: the curtain on part one that, upon reconsideration, I asked
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Speaker 1: us to pull it from the air because.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was just for us, man, we get to
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Speaker 2: keep that particular flavor sauce in the family. As they say, well,
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Speaker 2: you know, we can maybe do a little low key.
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Speaker 2: It was basically just a description of you being flirted
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Speaker 2: upon by a lady during a social interaction, and you
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Speaker 2: maybe not until we discussed it after the fact, didn't
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Speaker 2: realize quite how horny a flirtation it was. And Beanie
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Speaker 2: Weenie's were involved, That's true. It was use your imagination, folks.
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Speaker 1: Fretty forward. Actually yeah, yeah, Well, when some lose some
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Speaker 1: the course of true love never did run smooth. If
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Speaker 1: somehow you are the person who is the subject of
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Speaker 1: that story, no love lost. And if you happen to
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Speaker 1: be hearing this, you know, what's up girl? So anyway,
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Speaker 1: we'll leave it there. Our first part of part two
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Speaker 1: here continues with Victorian flirtation methods because for many people
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Speaker 1: in the era, for women in particular, society was so oppressive.
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Speaker 1: You couldn't just come out and say what's up, Donathan Esquire?
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Speaker 3: No, you had there there was a certain, very rigidly
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Speaker 3: codified decorum that involved things like calling cards, and you know,
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Speaker 3: obviously this would make its way into business culture.
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Speaker 2: I think that's sort of the origin of that thing.
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Speaker 2: If we'd have like, you know, your name and business
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Speaker 2: and address and phone number and appropriate to you know,
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Speaker 2: contact information. But in the Victorian era these were referred
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Speaker 2: to as escort cards and ben it also reminds me
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Speaker 2: of another type of card that happened later that we
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Speaker 2: talked about in previous episodes of the dance card, the
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Speaker 2: idea of my dance card being full and only having
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Speaker 2: a certain number of slots for a fella to cut
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Speaker 2: a rug with you at certain you know, cotillion type events.
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Speaker 2: But we're getting ahead of ourselves there. What in fact
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Speaker 2: was the Victorian escort card or flirtation card or a
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Speaker 2: acquaintance card.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is this is great And I love
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Speaker 1: that callback and all to the dance card, because I
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Speaker 1: think we both always wondered whether that was a real.
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Speaker 2: Thing, very real, very real, a library book, like a
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Speaker 2: lending card, you know.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's for dancing, Yeah, yeah, for you know, for
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Speaker 1: the ballroom. That's a great comparison as well.
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Speaker 2: So honestly, in Victorian time, dancing might have been considered scandalous, you.
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Speaker 1: Know, yeah yeah. And so if if the business card
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Speaker 1: or the calling card is the G rated thing, then
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Speaker 1: the dance card might would have been the PG thirteen thing.
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Speaker 1: And this is trending toward R rated the flirtation acquaintance
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Speaker 1: escort card. They were a purposeful kind of sexy play
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Speaker 1: on the calling card. And you would if you were.
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Speaker 1: This was only for members of the aristocracy, of course,
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Speaker 1: because who could afford to have this many different specific
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Speaker 1: printed cards.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the lettering alone and the card stock it's bone perhaps,
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Speaker 2: you know, with a nice seraphy text.
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Speaker 1: Oh gosh, and the paperweight. So this is the issue here.
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Speaker 1: Escort cards would be like a very what we would
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Speaker 1: see is a very unsexy Valentine's Day card almost because
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Speaker 1: you would you would come by and you would say,
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Speaker 1: you know, is Dame Algervine home? And they would, you know,
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Speaker 1: the butler or whomever would say referreely not, and often
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Speaker 1: the aristok the caller would realize they weren't home, and
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Speaker 1: they would say, well, tell that scrumptious little the toffee topop.
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Speaker 2: Too far?
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Speaker 1: What's the thing that Tell that scrumptious little strawberry trifle
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Speaker 1: that Lord Butterball is stopped by for a visit. And
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Speaker 1: then they would, uh, this is of.
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Speaker 2: Course all in Lord Butterball's had because those words would
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Speaker 2: not have been uttered aloud to the chaperone, who was
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Speaker 2: basically the gatekeeper of said lady person right.
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Speaker 1: It said, he would have made, you know, like a
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Speaker 1: stiff upper lip sniff and thanked the butler and then
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Speaker 1: dropped his calling card. But his calling card, the dame
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Speaker 1: would find out later, was actually his acquaintance or escorts card.
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Speaker 1: And escort cards were often used to encourage that kind
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Speaker 1: of secrecy that people really like in flirtation, because you know,
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Speaker 1: if you're a young woman, you've almost always got your sheperone.
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Speaker 2: That's right, which could be the butler in this situation,
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Speaker 2: which could be a family member, a brother, you know,
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Speaker 2: someone that again would kind of gatekeep this young woman
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Speaker 2: to make sure that she was not up to anything
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Speaker 2: untoward with a fella. So a young man could opt
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Speaker 2: to slip his crush an escort card, and in turn,
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Speaker 2: then she could respond via the signal detailed in the
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Speaker 2: card or return a card of her own in response.
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Speaker 2: And you're absolutely right with the Valentines comparison, because they
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Speaker 2: would have borderline greeting card ask messages which maybe was
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Speaker 2: more co opted from this type of language, you know,
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Speaker 2: as a joke, but things like may I have the
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Speaker 2: pleasure of seeing you home this evening, or something a
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Speaker 2: little more straight to the point, let's get acquainted for
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Speaker 2: fun and results. That is such an AKA, what a child?
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Speaker 2: What are these said results men.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they have to they have to be a child,
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Speaker 1: that's what they're talking about. But also, to your subtle
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Speaker 1: American psycho reference earlier, it sounds like a Patrick Bateman
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Speaker 1: pickup line, Let's get acquainted for fun and results.
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Speaker 2: In Bateman's case, results might be your you know, bloody discourse.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, timely to buyse right. So a quick tangent here
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Speaker 1: just for film buffs. I'm sure you've run into this
9:54
Speaker 1: to Nolan Max, have you? So? I've read the book
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Speaker 1: right by Brett Easton. Ella's someone to say and I.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely pornographic, by the way, not for the faint of heart.
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Speaker 2: The movie is pg. Thirteen in comparison.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, very good point. And the thing that is
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Speaker 1: not clear in either the novel nor in the film,
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Speaker 1: particularly in the film, I think, is whether Bateman is
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Speaker 1: actually doing any of those horrific.
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Speaker 2: Acts of violence, and whether or not he gets caught
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Speaker 2: a lot of you know, the book is in the
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Speaker 2: film definitely a satire of the excesses of nineteen eighties
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Speaker 2: Wall Street culture and just the absolute kind of vacuousness
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Speaker 2: of people in that strata, and the idea being that
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Speaker 2: he is or is not actually doing these things if
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Speaker 2: he is that people are so aloof and up their
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Speaker 2: own keysters that they're just not even noticing because no
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Speaker 2: one's paying attention to anybody else.
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Speaker 1: I see, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm wondering, though, what do
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Speaker 1: you fall ben on whether or not he actually gave
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Speaker 1: these things. Yeah, I'm still I'm still wrestling with it
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Speaker 1: because there are a few there are a few moments,
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Speaker 1: especially in the film, where it seems that he's really
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Speaker 1: doing something, like when he has to wash his sheets
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Speaker 1: in the at the laundromat, right and they say there
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Speaker 1: are some stains. That's an outside person sightly, Yes, yeah,
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Speaker 1: but that's uh that that's the weird.
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Speaker 2: Uh.
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Speaker 1: The last note on this, because I know we have
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Speaker 1: to get to it. You know. Patrick Bateman Ian American
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Speaker 1: psycho looks a little bit like Josh Clark.
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Speaker 2: Oh, I see that. Just to take great great bone structure.
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Speaker 2: By the way, great cheekbones very looks maxing, Yes.
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Speaker 1: Very similar. Mouth. I think about people's mouths a lot,
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Speaker 1: which is what I would put on my acquaintance card.
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Speaker 2: Got a pretty mouth, which you definitely do bet another
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Speaker 2: thing on this particular. Oh yeah, of course you get
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Speaker 2: great bone structure too. On this acquaintance card that are
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Speaker 2: a wonderful research associate. Wren Fair Ren Fest Jones supplied
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Speaker 2: us with it's got the let's get acquainted for fun
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Speaker 2: and results and then makes the you know weird flex
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Speaker 2: of I am a millionaire's only son, check, not married,
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Speaker 2: still looking for someone to love. And then there's a
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Speaker 2: big old open space that is wrapped around this kind
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Speaker 2: of ribbon that spans the length of the card or
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Speaker 2: the width of the card. And on each side, on
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Speaker 2: the left side there's a gentleman with a cane and
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Speaker 2: a top hat and his fine you know, coach sharp
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Speaker 2: and shoes, sharply dressed, sitting And on the other side
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Speaker 2: is a lady with her parasol and you know, petty
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Speaker 2: coats and a roughly hat.
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Speaker 1: That probably has a huge pin in it, just no doubt.
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Speaker 2: Oh, check out our episode on hat pin Warriors. You
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Speaker 2: know what was it? The wolf whistlers or the cap callers?
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Speaker 2: That was it? They had to defend themselves against these
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Speaker 2: rascal mash I love the the mashers. I love the
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Speaker 2: separation that this line that's available for writing a particular
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Speaker 2: message is giving between these two. There is this like
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Speaker 2: will they won't they? Kind of sexual tension just communicated
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Speaker 2: on the card alone.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, to be clear, the female character on the
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Speaker 1: right looks to be interested in perhaps admiring the male figure.
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Speaker 1: The male figure, however, is a bit more salacious because
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Speaker 1: he's turned across his left shoulder and he is clearly
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Speaker 1: scari at her posterior her ruffle.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, her bustle, or ruffle her bustle indeed. And then
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Speaker 2: at the bottom we've got the final little kicker line
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Speaker 2: licensed to knock and butt in office hours seven pm
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Speaker 2: to one a m in some young lady these parlors.
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Speaker 2: This is absolutely it does feel like a joke. Is
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Speaker 2: it a joker, isn't it? Though? You know what I mean?
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Speaker 2: Maybe it's hiding behind the coyness.
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Speaker 1: Of a little joke. But you know what this fella
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Speaker 1: is up to. We know what this fellow I'm joking
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Speaker 1: if you're joking, right, and that kind of thing. But
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Speaker 1: also maybe this is a card you hand to someone
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Speaker 1: that you are already acquainted with, you know what I mean.
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Speaker 2: That's right, there's some cheekiness to all of these. We
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Speaker 2: have another great example, uh that says, I am see,
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Speaker 2: I can't read it. It's in like a real cursive,
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Speaker 2: the handwritten kind of uh script, who the and then
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Speaker 2: a sexy pop belly little devil?
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Speaker 1: Are you?
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Speaker 2: It's a picture?
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Speaker 1: So you write your name in here. So this is
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Speaker 1: very stylized. Fot it says, I am, And then you
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Speaker 1: write in your name. See why young?
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Speaker 2: He says young? Okay, good eyes?
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Speaker 1: Who the devil? Or you? It looks like, yeah, young,
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Speaker 1: or you mean well, I have to write no.
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Speaker 2: I think nail though.
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Speaker 1: Who you are?
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Speaker 2: I think you nailed it with young men? But who
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Speaker 2: the devil? Indeed are you? Some researchers think that the
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Speaker 2: escort cards may have actually been also used by queer
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Speaker 2: people as a way of subtly communicating with one another
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Speaker 2: in a time where this kind of thing would have
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Speaker 2: been completely verboten, you know, would have been perhaps even
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Speaker 2: subjects to prosecution in some cases. So this is a
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Speaker 2: very forward thinking way of folks to communicate with each
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Speaker 2: other and find love outside of the prying eye of
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Speaker 2: the very puritanical public and powers that be.
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Speaker 1: Oh and there's a conspiratorial aspect to this. This is
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Speaker 1: all a bit conspiratorial, honestly, but the escort cards in
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Speaker 1: the queer community at the time may have carried purposeful
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Speaker 1: typos and shout out to our research associate RED for
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Speaker 1: finding this, because these typos may have done one of
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Speaker 1: two things. First, they may have made it appear as
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Speaker 1: though someone was hitting on, you know, someone of the
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Speaker 1: same uh sexual orientation or uh se I should say
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Speaker 1: sexual identification. But then other times it may have been
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Speaker 1: like a case where you purposely went to that printer
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Speaker 1: because they've made those cards for that community, and it's
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Speaker 1: in a way that allows you plausible deniability, so you
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Speaker 1: can say, you know that you know that that foppish dandy,
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Speaker 1: that that macaroni young earl in Twistle has has said
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Speaker 1: some some saucy and unacceptable things about you, milord, and
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Speaker 1: then you would say, well, that's ever so dreadful. They
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Speaker 1: must have misunderstood.
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Speaker 2: I'll tell you what this really reminds me I've been
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Speaker 2: in more modern times is the LGBTQ plus community. These
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Speaker 2: handkerchief codes that were originated in the nineteen seventies in
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Speaker 2: New York City as well as I think even there's
17:07
Speaker 2: origins of it to date back to the San Francisco
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Speaker 2: gold Rush era. But it was a way of subtly
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Speaker 2: communicating sexual preference. And I mean you know within the
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Speaker 2: queer culture of types of activities, types with a high
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Speaker 2: degree of specificity, very high degree of specificity, and it
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Speaker 2: has a lot in common with the fan codes, because
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Speaker 2: it would be like a pink hanky worn on the
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Speaker 2: left or worn on the right meant something very different
17:35
Speaker 2: depending on the color. And if you can actually go
17:38
Speaker 2: to a website called the Closet Professor where you can
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Speaker 2: see a pretty incredible and in depth spreadsheet of this
17:45
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. So you know, this Victorian flirting code
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Speaker 2: language really kind of continued to have an impact further
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Speaker 2: into history.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can still see these kind of systems
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Speaker 1: of coded community in countries throughout the world and cultures
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Speaker 1: throughout the world in the modern day. It can seem
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Speaker 1: honestly quite unfamiliar to many of US Americans, or many
18:12
Speaker 1: of us from the United States, but when you travel abroad,
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Speaker 1: you will run into things like this, and sometimes you
18:21
Speaker 1: will accidentally find yourself in situations.
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Speaker 2: Well, Ben, aren't there still countries in the world where
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Speaker 2: being gay or being queer is illegal?
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, that is absolutely true. And then there are also
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Speaker 1: places where it's technically not a crime, but it's still
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Speaker 1: very culturally verbotan. One thing I will always remember, and
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Speaker 1: I can tell the story because enough time has passed.
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Speaker 2: I don't keep it very brief.
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Speaker 1: I went into the wrong store when I was living
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Speaker 1: in a small town in Guatemala and I was attempting
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Speaker 1: to attempting to buy a thing for a girl I
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Speaker 1: was courting, and it was a bridal store that also
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Speaker 1: sold flowers. And I don't know if there's a thing
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Speaker 1: for the whole country or if it's just the thing
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Speaker 1: that happened at the store, but flower code stuff. I
19:19
Speaker 1: think I asked for the wrong type of flowers. Spanish
19:22
Speaker 1: at the time was not super great, and so the
19:26
Speaker 1: person who was running the place took me to a
19:29
Speaker 1: kid you not a secret back room where they sold
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Speaker 1: things that I was not ready to buy.
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Speaker 2: Oh wow? That can you be more specific?
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Speaker 1: All air not on a family, but it's very do
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Speaker 1: you know me, man, I'm chill, I'm diplomatic. I'm not
19:46
Speaker 1: trying to step on toes and to read the room.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely. Oh no, I didn't want to read that room though. No, no, no,
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Speaker 2: you were forced to, at least to some small degree. Ben.
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Speaker 2: We talked a little bit in part one of this
19:58
Speaker 2: series about how a lot of these codes. We were
20:00
Speaker 2: relegated to the upper class because a silk fan was
20:03
Speaker 2: an expensive accessory. You know, having these types of cards
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Speaker 2: printed was not cheap either. All of the different flowers
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Speaker 2: required to communicate through that kind of code also not cheap.
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Speaker 2: This was, however, some of the early days of personal
20:19
Speaker 2: ads in newspapers, which were a little more affordable to
20:23
Speaker 2: folks who could not participate in some of these more
20:26
Speaker 2: high falutin methods of low key flirtation.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, classified advertisements, you know that is something that several
20:37
Speaker 1: of us in the audience today may remember. I wonder
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Speaker 1: whether anybody listening, any of our fellow ridiculous historians, have
20:47
Speaker 1: ever had the hypothetical pleasure of publishing a classified advertisement,
20:53
Speaker 1: Because when we came along, I think personals in print
20:58
Speaker 1: were still a thing, but a lot more people were
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Speaker 1: already online, like Craigslist or something.
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Speaker 2: Craigslist Missed Connections, remember.
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Speaker 1: I loved reading missed connections.
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Speaker 2: Can tell at home that they're young.
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Speaker 1: Let's double dragging it, Max. You might be a little
21:16
Speaker 1: young for miss connections too, so miss connections in a
21:20
Speaker 1: lot of local papers. But then especially on Craigslist, was
21:25
Speaker 1: you were shot in the dark. Your needle in the haystack,
21:28
Speaker 1: attempt to say that you found someone interesting. You saw them,
21:32
Speaker 1: you may not have even spoken with them, and you
21:35
Speaker 1: were so entrance that you wanted to know more about them,
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Speaker 1: so you tried to describe them. And typically the way
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Speaker 1: people would describe them was all ensconced within that.
21:46
Speaker 2: Moment that amazed them, right, but absolutely in a flirtatious fashion.
21:52
Speaker 2: All right, yes, yeah, yeah.
21:53
Speaker 1: It would never be like I'm angry at you because
21:57
Speaker 1: you cut line of Blockbuster. It was always like the
22:00
Speaker 1: woman who cut a line at Blockbuster with the chestnut
22:04
Speaker 1: brown hair and those entrancing green eyes. When I asked
22:07
Speaker 1: if you also liked sugar babies or whatever, what's a
22:13
Speaker 1: candy Blockbuster? There are some milk duds, milk duds. When
22:17
Speaker 1: I asked if you liked milk duds, I think you
22:20
Speaker 1: understood what I was really asking.
22:23
Speaker 2: Can I just say I found an article from Vox
22:25
Speaker 2: from twenty sixteen. I analyzed ten thousand Craigslist misconnections. Here's
22:30
Speaker 2: what I learned by Ilia Blenderman. Just to give you
22:34
Speaker 2: a few examples. Analyst girl in blue slash, white floral
22:38
Speaker 2: dress on en train headed uptown at nine pm Monday,
22:43
Speaker 2: m for W. What is M for W?
22:46
Speaker 1: Men for women or men's Thank you?
22:49
Speaker 2: I'm such a child cute brunette girl reading who shared
22:53
Speaker 2: my table at the bean on Monday M for W
22:56
Speaker 2: misconnections so they can really be quite pithy, like an
22:59
Speaker 2: early example of tweets.
23:01
Speaker 1: Oh and real quick. I can't believe we found this, Noel,
23:05
Speaker 1: thank you for bringing this, bringing up this lost internet artifact,
23:09
Speaker 1: this blast from the past. My favorite is uh, you
23:15
Speaker 1: farted near the produce. You were the hot brunette with
23:19
Speaker 1: curves that farted near the produce this weekend. I was
23:22
Speaker 1: this tall guy next to you that looked over and asked,
23:25
Speaker 1: was that you? You quickly replied no, wasn't me. You
23:28
Speaker 1: almost seem insulted. I was, I would ask. As this
23:31
Speaker 1: step grew, you continued to deny your flatulence, but it
23:34
Speaker 1: was evident I tried to get rid of the stench
23:37
Speaker 1: by waving a couple of loafs of bread from Lapagnier.
23:40
Speaker 1: You proceeded to storm off in an angry manner. You
23:43
Speaker 1: are beautiful and even though you are a liar and
23:46
Speaker 1: fart like at Clyesdale, I would love to meet up
23:48
Speaker 1: for a drink sometime.
23:50
Speaker 2: Ben what was it.
23:52
Speaker 3: Who was the Ulysses writer that was really into flies?
23:56
Speaker 1: James Joyce.
23:57
Speaker 2: That is so James Joyce. He's looking for a artie
24:00
Speaker 2: princess and.
24:02
Speaker 1: Max popped onto the onto the chat for a second.
24:06
Speaker 1: Oh my, I just had to read that. Thank you, Noel.
24:09
Speaker 1: I forgot about miss connections. I was obsessed with those.
24:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, they're very obsession worthy and you can definitely
24:14
Speaker 2: check out some examples of that if there's a quick
24:16
Speaker 2: cursory Google. And that Vox article I referenced is incredibly
24:20
Speaker 2: detailed and in depth and sort of like a quintessential
24:22
Speaker 2: analysis of this cultural moment. But let's talk about the
24:32
Speaker 2: Victorian predecessor to missed Connections and the personals ads. I
24:38
Speaker 2: always wonder but never bothered to. Look why they're called
24:40
Speaker 2: classified ads. It's pretty obvious in my mind. Classified means secrets,
24:44
Speaker 2: you know, government secret stuff, but it just means they're
24:46
Speaker 2: classified in different categories like things for sale, personals want ads, jobs,
24:51
Speaker 2: and things like that. But yeah, what was the deal
24:53
Speaker 2: with Victorian flirtatious ads? Yeah?
24:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, you had as a man, you had better luck
25:01
Speaker 1: with this option because it was essentially what we would
25:06
Speaker 1: call a dead drop in some other industries, you know
25:09
Speaker 1: how like in spy movies you have a dead drop
25:13
Speaker 1: to convey information. You put the message, you know, in
25:15
Speaker 1: the trunk of a tree, a certain tree apart.
25:19
Speaker 2: A trash band or something like that as well. Yeah,
25:22
Speaker 2: and so these personal.
25:23
Speaker 1: Ads I love the double enthalmesra they're classified or the
25:26
Speaker 1: double meaning. These personal ads were dead drops because the
25:30
Speaker 1: person replying to you, right, you wouldn't know who was
25:33
Speaker 1: reading it was anybody who was literate and could get
25:36
Speaker 1: a newspaper. And when they reply to you, it's a
25:39
Speaker 1: one way street for them unless they provide a return address.
25:43
Speaker 1: So there's a level of security there that doesn't really
25:47
Speaker 1: exist when you have the intercession of the chaperone or
25:52
Speaker 1: the intercession of the household staff. It was always kind
25:57
Speaker 1: of improper in the Victorian era for a woman you
26:00
Speaker 1: directly say what she was looking for in a partner, right,
26:05
Speaker 1: So the misconnections thing didn't really exist at the same
26:09
Speaker 1: level of a hilarity, maybe arguably as you would find
26:14
Speaker 1: on Craigslist. But you could place an ad to paper
26:19
Speaker 1: as a last ditch effort to avoid dying alone. Thanks
26:24
Speaker 1: to her pale red for that turn of phrase, and
26:27
Speaker 1: Noel when we're looking into some of the sources, we
26:30
Speaker 1: found some pretty illuminating examples.
26:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's an article that Wren linked us to date,
26:37
Speaker 2: like a Victorian Courtship and Romance in the Victorian Era
26:41
Speaker 2: by Ada Loewen Clark on a website called Friends of
26:45
Speaker 2: Dalnovert dot Ca, which I believe is a museum, and
26:49
Speaker 2: she actually very cleverly kind of put this in the
26:53
Speaker 2: tender format, and it's got a very you know, old
26:56
Speaker 2: Victorian image of a young lady apparently named Polly twenty
26:59
Speaker 2: three seeking a sensible, good natured husband who is fond
27:03
Speaker 2: of laughing and fun. Mmm mm hmm.
27:06
Speaker 1: And it makes sense too. I believe in a lot
27:09
Speaker 1: of these advertisements it would be somewhat uncommon to have
27:14
Speaker 1: a photograph published as well, because I would give away
27:17
Speaker 1: your identity.
27:18
Speaker 2: Right.
27:18
Speaker 1: So, now, if you are, if you are young Polly,
27:22
Speaker 1: and maybe your household staff and your parents and your
27:26
Speaker 1: relatives are just cracking down and they're mean to you
27:30
Speaker 1: because you know you're getting the wrong kind of escort
27:33
Speaker 1: or acquaintance cards or the wrong kind of flowers, then
27:37
Speaker 1: you could perhaps sneak away on your own and get
27:42
Speaker 1: this message out to the world and then maybe the
27:45
Speaker 1: people replying to you would be smart enough to send
27:48
Speaker 1: a letter that did not look overly flirtatious.
27:52
Speaker 2: That's right, and this would have been less common for women.
27:55
Speaker 2: And there was another phenomenon known as the redundant see
28:00
Speaker 2: where women outnumbered men in Great Britain by over half
28:05
Speaker 2: a million, and this was seen as a genuine crisis
28:08
Speaker 2: and forced the Victorians to kind of re evaluate their
28:12
Speaker 2: understanding of gender roles and led to something of a
28:15
Speaker 2: feminist movement that would lead to more focus on women's
28:20
Speaker 2: rights in the workplace as well as middle class women.
28:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, go team, And this is where we also see
28:28
Speaker 1: the beginning or I guess the turn of the conversational
28:34
Speaker 1: corner toward a future episode perhaps on a queer identity
28:40
Speaker 1: in the Victorian era, which was very much a thing
28:44
Speaker 1: and very much repressed, right, And you can see clear
28:49
Speaker 1: evidence of this throughout the historical record. Ren said enclosing,
28:54
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave you with this picture of quote
28:57
Speaker 1: two very platonic girlfriends who some how learned to make
29:01
Speaker 1: do without husbands.
29:03
Speaker 2: That was another last ditch effort to keep from dying alone,
29:07
Speaker 2: was just to move in with a girlfriend. And this
29:10
Speaker 2: picture that you're describing ben. One of them is very clearly,
29:13
Speaker 2: almost satirically. It would seem dressed in a men's clothing,
29:19
Speaker 2: like wearing a suit and a corsage, and then the
29:23
Speaker 2: other women seated on kind of a fainting couch, is
29:27
Speaker 2: you know, wearing more period appropriate women's clothes, and they
29:31
Speaker 2: are kind of in an embrace. I mean this very
29:33
Speaker 2: much is a you know, even by today's standards, a
29:36
Speaker 2: very queer forward image.
29:39
Speaker 1: They were regarding each other. We could say they were
29:42
Speaker 1: fondly right right, And this this reminds me of you
29:48
Speaker 1: know that old Trope build situation where they say, oh, yeah,
29:51
Speaker 1: you know, Aunt Becky never got married, but she lived
29:57
Speaker 1: with her roommate for many, many many.
30:00
Speaker 2: Dude, even in the nineties. You know, I grew up
30:02
Speaker 2: and my best friend growing up from elementary school, he
30:08
Speaker 2: had a queer parents, two women who lived together and
30:12
Speaker 2: raised him, you know, as as his parents, of course,
30:16
Speaker 2: and it was not something that they were hiding per
30:19
Speaker 2: se or ashamed of. I slept over there many many times,
30:23
Speaker 2: but it just wasn't exactly something that would be considered
30:27
Speaker 2: socially acceptable at the time publicly. I actually distinctly remember
30:31
Speaker 2: calling in to a local kind of conservative talk radio
30:35
Speaker 2: show as a kid and talking about this because I
30:39
Speaker 2: heard them kind of being not negative about this kind
30:43
Speaker 2: of thing, and I just felt the need to call
30:45
Speaker 2: in and say that my friend had, you know, two moms,
30:47
Speaker 2: and they were absolutely loving, wonderful parents. Nice man.
30:52
Speaker 1: Good on you as young nol. And let's say, with
30:56
Speaker 1: just a few little notes of context to set us
31:00
Speaker 1: off here. One we teased in part one about chicken
31:05
Speaker 1: right right, we mentioned that the idea of white and
31:09
Speaker 1: dark meat does not come from your local chicken joy.
31:12
Speaker 1: It comes from the Victorian era because they were afraid
31:15
Speaker 1: of saying breast and legs at the dinner table. This
31:18
Speaker 1: is how sexually repressed society had to pretend to.
31:24
Speaker 2: Be lest a fella be tempted with titillating thoughts of
31:28
Speaker 2: a lady impious, profane. But isn't that the funny thing
31:33
Speaker 2: about all of this, Ben, is that these societal structures
31:37
Speaker 2: did nothing but drive this kind of behavior underground.
31:41
Speaker 1: Yes, that always tends to be the case with this
31:43
Speaker 1: exact breast stuff, And I would argue it just made
31:48
Speaker 1: some things weirder and made people hornier. It made people
31:52
Speaker 1: hornier because now everything is naughty. So it's another example
31:56
Speaker 1: of how prohibition very rarely works out the way it's
32:01
Speaker 1: imposers in ten like even this even affected Victorian furniture.
32:06
Speaker 1: If you look at Victorian furniture, if you like us
32:09
Speaker 1: or fans of things like antique road show, then you'll
32:13
Speaker 1: see a lot of high detail on this furniture. Ornate legs,
32:19
Speaker 1: the Claude feet, you know, like everything at Claude feet.
32:22
Speaker 1: For some reason, they were very into feet and claws. However,
32:26
Speaker 1: a lot of people would drape fabric over these amazing
32:31
Speaker 1: works of material art because they thought they were so
32:35
Speaker 1: repressed that they thought it might be sexually provocative, like
32:38
Speaker 1: someone would what be driven to drink because they saw
32:42
Speaker 1: a claw foot bathtub and they just couldn't control themselves.
32:46
Speaker 2: So funny, And speaking of saucy little devils, ben the
32:50
Speaker 2: Victorians and food, the Victorians were also the first to
32:53
Speaker 2: use imageries of Lucifer himself, the Christian devil, to denote
32:59
Speaker 2: things like spiciness in condiments, for example.
33:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and we also know that, by the way,
33:08
Speaker 1: repression doesn't mean that these people were any more or
33:14
Speaker 1: less than the kind of people you run in today.
33:17
Speaker 1: And it might be surprising to realize there were some
33:20
Speaker 1: things that our current societies would consider honestly pretty gross,
33:26
Speaker 1: that victorious society was totally fine with, like marrying your cousin.
33:32
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. And we mentioned I believe in part
33:34
Speaker 2: one Prince Albert and his secret piercing, And that's a
33:38
Speaker 2: great example of something that is just hidden beneath the surface,
33:42
Speaker 2: you know, because that piercing today in many circles, would
33:46
Speaker 2: be considered the height of kink.
33:48
Speaker 1: It just seems impractical. I mean, if you have one,
33:53
Speaker 1: do as thou wilt, you know, as long as everything's consensual.
33:57
Speaker 1: I believe it has proven to be a myth.
33:59
Speaker 4: Well, no, they don't know.
34:01
Speaker 2: They don't know.
34:01
Speaker 4: They it was named after him, they don't know if
34:05
Speaker 4: he had one.
34:06
Speaker 1: I'm going to say that right now.
34:07
Speaker 4: It's also like, you know, medical science and stuff like
34:11
Speaker 4: that really lagged behind a lot of other things. So
34:13
Speaker 4: it's just like in this time period, having that piercing
34:16
Speaker 4: just would seem really like dangerous. Yeah, it's really infected
34:21
Speaker 4: and you died.
34:21
Speaker 1: It's an escort card for infection at that point. But
34:25
Speaker 1: what I love that callback And I'm even speaking more
34:29
Speaker 1: to the point that Queen Victoria married her first cousin
34:35
Speaker 1: and was deeply in love with him. That's the Prince
34:38
Speaker 1: alb what we're talking about, nine children.
34:41
Speaker 2: Quite a few kids. Yeah, so they very much were
34:44
Speaker 2: going at it. For Albert's twenty fourth birthday. In fact,
34:47
Speaker 2: the young Victoria's sent him quite the seductive portrait of herself,
34:52
Speaker 2: sort of what you might consider a boudoir photo, or
34:55
Speaker 2: is that right, like some of those kind of yeah, yeah, yeah,
34:58
Speaker 2: a type style thing, you know, sexy but class indeed
35:03
Speaker 2: neglige for self, in which she wears her hair, oh goodness, gracious,
35:08
Speaker 2: partially down around her exposed shoulders against a sexy red
35:14
Speaker 2: velvet cushion.
35:15
Speaker 1: And everything about this portrait is purposeful. It is, as
35:19
Speaker 1: you said, boudoirs. The red velvet cushion is supposed to
35:23
Speaker 1: be part of the whole, you know, the whole gestalt effect.
35:28
Speaker 1: Exposed shoulders the devil. You say, why she's the.
35:32
Speaker 2: Queen turning that velvet cushion in and of itself. I
35:36
Speaker 2: think you were getting at Ben. There's a certain implication,
35:41
Speaker 2: a testure that is in line with a certain female
35:46
Speaker 2: body part.
35:47
Speaker 1: Let's just say, let's just say, I love how we
35:50
Speaker 1: are three grown men. We're super mature and we're so
35:56
Speaker 1: happy that you have tuned in and joined us for
36:00
Speaker 1: Part two of the Ridiculous History of Victorian Flirting. There's
36:04
Speaker 1: more about flirtation on the way. We'd love to hear
36:07
Speaker 1: your ideas. Folks. Drop by our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians.
36:12
Speaker 1: In the meantime, big big thanks to our super producer,
36:17
Speaker 1: the literal man of the hour, mister Max Williams, also
36:20
Speaker 1: his biological brother Alex Tijuana Williams, who composed this lap
36:25
Speaker 1: and bop.
36:26
Speaker 2: Indeed, Christopher Hasiotis and Eve's Jeffcoats here in Spirit, Jonathan Strickland,
36:31
Speaker 2: the Quist, aj Bahamas, Jacob's The.
36:33
Speaker 1: Puzzler, and of course big thanks to Rachel Big Spinach, Lance,
36:37
Speaker 1: Big Spinach, Thanks to you, doctor Lance, Big thanks to
36:40
Speaker 1: Rude Dudes over at Ridiculous Crime, and big thanks to
36:48
Speaker 1: honestly big thanks to Max for editing this. I know
36:51
Speaker 1: I had a lot of lot, went to a lot
36:53
Speaker 1: of weird places man.
36:54
Speaker 2: Indeed, we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
37:04
Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
37:08
Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows.