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About this Episode
Summary
A long time ago, people were pure at heart. Of course, sex happened occasionally, but no one took off their clothes for it–that would be gauche. Then James Joyce wrote a book called Ulysses and things started to go downhill. In 1933, a judge named John M. Woolsey ruled in a case called United States v. One Book Called Ulysses that Ulysses was not obscene, and since then we have lost all moral compass. Right?
Well, not exactly. Join Em and Jesse as they journey through the mystifying world of book bannings, what constitutes art and obscenity, and finally come to focus on such ridiculous Medieval things as phallus trees and vulva pilgrimage badges.
Notes
0/ Dionysus in Wisconsin Amazon link! And Goodreads link! This is the song I’m playing in the background–“St. Peter’s Bones,” by Girlyman.
1/ Yeah, we record in advance. Quite a bit in advance. Also, there were more book bannings (and more public) in 2022. 
Anyway they have been terrible AND they made John Green sad. So you know it’s bad.
2/ Ted Cruz limericks here (link to HuffPo)–or Google Ted Cruz Nantucket limericks and see what comes up 
3/ “It was all very odd.” The motto of 2021.
4/ Kurt Vonnegut letter: (link to an essay about the letter)
5/ PEN America’s site that collects lists of banned books, including ALA’s lists of banned books: link here
Ok so. As I recall, the ALA (and other professional bodies) doesn’t really endorse the idea of segregating books by age. But also, if you are saying to yourself, well, bookstores and such are more progressive, let me tell you about the erotica dungeon on Amazon. Basically, people who wrote erotic novels find their books don’t come up in search results, not ranked on Amazon, etc., making it hard to get noticed. They could very easily do that with any genre they want. And authors would have no say in the matter. The books may be available, but if you can’t get a copy…
6/ This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006). It’s definitely streaming somewhere–check it out!
7/ Jesse is of course referring to Thud!, by Sir Terry Pratchett, in which two characters, who are investigating a theft from an art museum, have the following conversation:
“Tawnee says what she does is Art, Sarge. And she wears more clothes than a lot of the women on the walls around here, so why be sniffy about it?”
“Yeah, but…” Fred Colon hesitated here. He knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky.
“No urns,” he said at last.
“What urns?” said Nobby.
“Nude women are only Art if there’s an urn in it,” said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit weak even to him, so he added: “Or a plinth. Both is best, o’course. It’s a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it’s Art and okay to look at.”
“What about a potted plant?”
“That’s okay if it’s in an urn.”
8/ Billy Connolly on Graham Norton: https://youtu.be/iBefd6lT-aA
Bonus discussion question: has widespread censorship of nudity and “trigger” words on social media made us a more prudish society?
9/ The one non-NC-17 film I can name with male frontal nudity is Walk Hard. I don’t see a lot of films though. Also it is very incidental.
10/ Mikhail Baktine, Rabelais and his world. See also episode 44 notes 4 and 5
Pro tip: giving birth is absolutely terrifying, it’s true. (Both of my children were from my womb untimely ripped. It was strangely chill for all that.)
11/ Phallus tree: episode 12, note 28. See the image here on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus_tree
Massa Marittima (Check under “Main Sights”)
Marginalia: Bibliotek National, BNF25526, folio 160 recto and folio 106 verso.
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000369q/f325.item
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000369q/f218.item#
Jeanne de Montbaston et son mari, Richard. She continued to work after he died. See some of her work here: https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/105F5P
12/ The episode on illumination: Episode 32, especially note 10
13/ Badges (just Google “obscene medieval pilgrim badges” and look at the images!):
- Pilgrims
- Phalloi
- Woman riding phallus
- Phallus caught by lion
- Phalloi on ship
- Vulvas on palanquin
- Vulvas going hunting
- Vulvas as pilgrim
- Vulva and phallus are pilgrims
- Sheila na gig
- Link to Kiki’s sheila na gigs: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChFph7LKPTq/?hl=en
14/ Medieval Obscenities, ed. by Nicola McDonald
Georgia Rhodes, “Decoding the Sheela-Na-Gig,” Feminist Formations, vol. 22, no. 2 (summer 2010), 167–194.
15/ Quick mentions at the end of:
Hosts & Guests
No transcript available for this episode.
