I love history.
It’s a lifelong soap opera because history is actually riddled with drama and crazy.
But most of it is hidden from us.
Why is that? Don’t educators realize that the more salacious it is the more everyone will pay attention?
I’ve learned things about the past out of school that would’ve gotten me an “A” in class, because my attention would’ve been peaked.
An unknown Redditor wanted to get into some scandalous information we missed out on when we were younger.
They asked:
“Knowledgable Redditors, what are some R-rated facts about history that usually get left out of the average middle/high school classroom?”
Let’s get to learning.
Snip, snip, snip…
“JFK was the first US President to be circumcised. He was 22 at the time.” ~ otis_the_drunk
The Most Powerful Symbol
“Ancient Romans drew penises on everything.” ~ CorporalThornberry
“They also wore necklaces with winged cocks on them.”
“It was replicated recently by a jewelry company and turned out to look like a cock-cross so the Catholics all said nay nay and they cancelled it.”
“Source: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.kansascity.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/stargazing/article4447208.html“. ~ rezlang
Hiding the truth…
“Powdered wigs became popular because they hid the baldness caused by syphilis, which was rampant in Europe during the 17th century.” ~ Reddit
“Another crazy fact about these wigs, right before the French revolution.”
“The wigs the French aristocracy wore at the time were massive. To keep them from losing shape, they starched them.”
“Meaning they used edible grain to create wig starching powder. While the population couldn’t afford to eat because a loaf of bread became more expensive than a week’s wage.”
“It’s no wonder the revolution started and ended the way it did. French aristocracy was literally using foodstuffs to make their giant wigs stay up.” ~ Mister_Dink
How Very Fifty Shades of It All
“History is really, really kinky.”
“Some ancient temples and holy places, especially in India, depict acts that range from orgies to bestiality.”
“Temple prostitute is one of the oldest professions and were widely accepted in early history, showing up as early as the Epic of Gilgamesh, which coincidentally also featured bestiality.” ~ xenomorphs_at_disney
“Considering the number of ancient cultures that had ‘God have sex with animal’ as a prominent story it amazes me that people don’t realize how prevalent it has been throughout history.”
“I mean, there’s a whole story about Loki turning into a horse and doing it and birthing a superhorse, not to mention all the Roman/Greek deities gettin’ crazy.” ~ losian
Oh My Anne…
“The diary of Anne Frank also included detailed accounts of her exploring her sexuality/ masturbation which was quickly edited out before it was published.” ~ bttrflyr
“That was brave when she was living in a small space with several other people. I mean the masturbation is one thing, but writing about it in front of people with little to do? Damn.” ~ Merle8888
Sacrifice the Children
“Infanticide happened through ‘almost’ every culture, on every continent, throughout history, to a significant degree.”
“Sometimes gender was a factor, sometimes it wasn’t. Ancient Egypt was the exception, but unwanted kids usually became slaves instead.” ~ TimelyKaleidoscope
“The biggest reason in Christian Europe was birth defects.”
“A daughter could still pull her weight on the farm but a child with spina bifida or Downs or missing limbs couldn’t.”
“This was even worse than it seems because the rural poor, who made up over 90% of the population, were so inbred that up to one in eight children were born with an identifiable defect.” ~ Reddit
“Pretty much. And there were myths that grew around these things to justify them, such as human beings being switched with troll babies, identifiable because the switched baby seemed sick and wasn’t thriving.”
“They were supposed to basically torture it until their ‘real’ child was returned.” ~ TimelyKaleidoscope
A Scandalous Expedition
“The were able to follow the trail of Lewis and Clark by finding mercury. Which they were taking to combat syphilis.” ~ Klaxon722
“York, Clark’s slave who accompanied the Corps, had a lot of sex because of his curiosity as a Black man.”
“Few Whites were ever in the area at all and no Black person ever made it that far up. It was mostly French trappers and Russian or Spanish explorers.” ~ AudibleNod
2 is Too Many
“Twins were a scourge and were left in the wilderness. What a burden to a family.”
“I think we don’t appreciate how besieged by death and illness everyone was. A family could have 20 children and see 5 raised to adulthood.”
They weren’t inured to it or callus, they loved and grieved their children the same as we do.”
“They had God, family, friends, and untreated depression, alcohol, and suicide to get through it. And a lot of hard work.”
“So killing an infant they can’t care for was a mercy for the children they already had.”
“If you have 5 mouths and money barely to feed the 7 of you, it is cruel to all of you to bring in another 1 or 2 and make the lot of you starve.”
“Even more so if that child is born with a mark on them that shows it won’t make it past a few months or a few years.”
“Why starve 2 children when you can kill only 1? They didn’t do this cheerfully.”
“They did it to survive.” ~NotMyHersheyBar
The Stench of It All
“Not R rated on its own, but have you ever considered how smelly history would be?”
“Imagine the signing of the declaration of independence.”
“A reportedly hot day, during a time when people didn’t bath often, people wore a bunch of layers, and you have a bunch of dudes packed into a room for hours.”
“The R rated part, all of these people had sex. And it would smell so bad.” ~ jpterodactyl
Rituals
“The Aztecs would wear someone’s skin for days until it peeled off as a ritual sacrifice to the maize goddess during the new harvest season, the skin was supposed to represent the husk of corn and how it would dry up and peel off the cob, also around this time they would have priests wear penis hats to represent fertility.” ~ lizardlord217
“Let’s be honest, it’s the Aztecs we’re taking about.”
“A literal society based around human sacrifice, whose founding myth involves the revelation that the gods wanted human sacrifices “‘ike tortillas fresh off the griddle.’ (I.e., early and often).”
“What do you think the answer is?” ~ DowncastAcorn
Now that is fun.
We really should scatter the fun with the just OK parts of history.
Scandal is the bedrock of every nation.
Just let the freak flag fly!