Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Chastity Belts

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

Were chastity belts real? Sort of. But not in the way you might think. Tune in to hear the real story. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Dave's here in spirit.

And that means this is short stuff, which I already said, which is a waste of time. Let's just start. Which is funny because Jerry is actually here. I think supposedly she is, but I haven't heard from her in a while. So who knows? She's here, but then she's like, I can't be bothered with those 12 minute episodes, Dave. Here, you take it. Yeah, I can't. There's only so much of these schmoes I can take. Jerry has a lot on her plate and we, we're glad she's still around doing our full length episodes, right? Yeah, we are. We're very hashtag blessed to have Jerry still working with us. She could have left us in the dirt a long time ago.

Totally. And she doesn't because I secretly suspect that she likes us. So Chastity Belts, I don't think I ever got the memo, and we'll go ahead and spoil this right up front, that Chastity Belts were probably not even a real thing used for that, the purpose that we all think they were used for. Yeah. I mean, I guess I'd never did either. I never really sat around and gave some thoughts. So like reading this, I wasn't like blown away, but it does occur to me that I guess I had always thought that they were a real thing. And they are technically a real thing, but they're just not from the time we thought they were from. And it all seems to just be a

misinterpretation of potentially an old-timey joke that we just lost the punchline to over the years. Yeah. I think maybe that's kind of sad that this could have been a very believable thing that they did in medieval times, because it seems like something that could have happened. Well, part of it, though, is this desire from people looking backward and saying, like, look at how dumb and savage and brutal and just uncaring those people were back then. And it gives us a sense of self-satisfaction. And that that's why basically myths like this are allowed to perpetuate. And it's really just a misunderstanding, but it also prevents us from understanding those cultures a little better than we do, because we just think they're dumb and

backwards instead. So it's a real issue. It's probably the greatest issue humanity's ever faced, chastity belts and the myth behind them. So I guess we should say what they are. I kind of figured everyone knows. But if you have never heard of a chastity belt, the legend was that if you could picture basically metal underwear that a man would put on his wife that is locked onto their body like with a padlock. And it had a couple of openings for going peepee and poo poo. And sometimes they were gussied up with like hearts and flowers and stuff. And the idea was like, well, I'm going out of town on a rampage. Like, I don't want you messing around on me while I'm gone. So I'm going to lock your

private parts away basically behind this iron underwear. And that's what a chastity belt was. Yeah. And if you look at pictures of some of these chastity belts, like the place where, what did you say you go peepee and poo poo? Like the holes are exit only because they have like metal teeth carved into them. So it's like, yeah, it's not meant to mess around. And when you look at these things, you're like, this can't be right. Like, is this for real? And it certainly seems that way because you can see these things with your own eyes. But the problem is, is they, the things you're seeing with your own eyes come much later than the age that we attribute them to, right? Yeah. So a guy actually wrote a book on this. His name was Albrecht Klassen.

And he wrote the medieval chastity belt colon, a myth making process. Boy, I'm going to flip my lid. If we ever get a book that comes through this podcast, it doesn't have a colon. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah. Like just in our research, you mean? Yeah. That's not a novel. Okay. I dare somebody to write one. Well, I mean, we did. Well, ours feels like as a colon, but it doesn't. It definitely does. The colon is implied for sure. Right. So that this is the book that Albrecht Klassen wrote. And basically, he's like,

listen, poets wrote about it. You know, there were artists who made these things. But it's basically, it seems to be just a big sort of practical joke, or, or maybe it's the equivalent of like an editorial cartoon or something in its origin. Because the first mention of it comes from Conrad with the K Kaiser von Eichstadt. Great name. Yeah. And this was an engineer who designed all this technology around sieges, like weapons and, and defenses and stuff. And he wrote in the early 15th century about a device in a manuscript called Belafortis, meaning strong in war, which was just a big catalog of like military gadgets. And among them was a chastity belt. Yeah. Because I mean, this was frequently supposedly used by

men who were leaving for war while they were gone. Like you're saying they would, they would use it while they were out of town or whatever. So it would kind of make sense that it would, it would be in this, you know, military gadget book. And you would say, okay, proof positive. This thing was written in the 1400s, the early 1400s. This is a medieval device. And this is possibly where it was invented was in Belafortis. But the problem is, is if you go through Belafortis with a scrutinizing eye, you're going to see that there's other stuff in there that don't quite add up like a machine that makes you invisible or a device that propels you through fart power. That's my favorite. There's a chariot apparently that shaped like a cat. So

while a lot of the stuff that von Eichstadt was designing and creating was real and legitimate, he also was apparently not shy about peppering his works with joke stuff as well. Right. And there were other instances where it was clearly used in a satirical way, like a political cartoon basically of the time. There was one in German from the 16th century that has this sort of older gentleman saying goodbye to his young wife. And she is naked except for this chastity belt. And then behind the curtain is her younger lover sort of hiding with a chastity belt shaped key. And the husband has these donkey ears growing out of his head. So this all sort of leads us to believe that this was kind of a joke, not something that

was really used. No, and maybe it was even originally used and described metaphorically, and it just kind of took off from there almost like a medieval meme. But the fact is, there are chastity belts in existence. And I think we should take a break and then we'll come back and talk about where those came from. How about that? What a perfect spot. End of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man.

And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're

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Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck, where did the Chastity Belts that you can actually go see in a museum come from? They come from much later. They come from probably the 19th century. There was a little gothic revival thing that happened then. And iron and steel were much more readily available as Europe became more industrialized. And they started making things out of them. Obviously, they made things like bridges and things like that. But they also made things for fun. And it looks like there were these manufacturers in England who said, you know what? There are these curiosity shows in museums that would pay for Chastity Belts to display them.

And so we're going to start making them as sort of a joke. Yeah. So the idea was that the Victorians were wound up so tight and were so proper that they would expel their purient interest and bound up sexuality in side shows and stuff like that. They would pay to see things like torture devices or like a Chastity Belts or something. And for their part, part of it also was being able to become self-satisfied with your own culture and your own place in history by mocking or judging earlier ones. But the fact is these things were all, they were recently made and apparently passed off as much older than they actually were. And so some museums said, well, we need to get these out of our collection because

we've been displaying them as medieval and they were really created 20 years ago. And the British Museum actually still has one, but they have a little placard next to theirs that basically says there's no real evidence that any of these were actually created or used during the medieval era. Yeah. I love that last line. It says that the evidence is largely anecdotal or in burlesque fiction. Very tantalizing. That's right. So yeah, they kept one around because, you know, I guess they thought it was still funny to look at in the proper context, which it's really not, you know, when you think about it.

Right. Exactly. But yeah, it looks like it was basically an urban legend from back then that came about many years later as an actual object. And like you were talking before, like, you know, I think people look at that period as these, you know, backward people that would do something like this. And I think scholars of the Middle Ages try to be a little kinder and point out that while it was no picnic, certainly to live back then because of disease and no modern medicine and no electricity and not very much plumbing. It was no party, but they weren't like completely backward and it wasn't, you know, just a culture full of maidens locked away in towers either.

Right. Exactly. And there's a USC professor named Lisa Betel. I think it's maybe how you say your last name. She points out that like, yeah, they had a different way of looking at things in the medieval era and there were lots of different politics and sociopolitics, but they weren't just stupid, you know. So the idea that they couldn't possibly have had jokes or, you know, written things in jest or whatever and basically pulled one over on those of us alive today inadvertently is a falsehood. It actually seems to be the case for sure. Yeah. And there were even some women who were writers who didn't write under pseudonyms or pen names or anonymously. I don't think we're trying to make the case that it was just like

a really progressive society or anything like that, but it may not be exactly as backward as is we're led to believe. Yeah. It's like, take a look at your own age for, you know, for once, buddy. No kidding. Maybe put your own house in order first before you go judging others. That's right. I love that term. What's funny is that there really are chastity belts in existence today that are of recent manufacture, but they're mostly made of latex and they're used almost exclusively for BDSM. Oh. And I think, Chuck, we should just leave the listener here to explain to whoever else they're listening with what BDSM is. That's right. Maybe we should do a podcast on that one day. Sure. We'll explain it for you later on. All right. Well, that means, of course,

then everybody's short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.