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- [00:00]
Danielle Robaix
This is an iHeart podcast. Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.
- [00:13]
Ross Benish
I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies.
- [00:18]
Danielle Robaix
I'm Danielle Robaix and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from hello Sunshine and I Heart Podcast where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week, I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:46]
Ben Bullard
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartrad Foreign. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always so much for joining us. Let's hear a shout out for the man, the myth, the legend, our guest, super producer, Ben the Sleeping Dog Hackett. And for the record, we did ask Ben in advance what nickname he wanted and that. That was the name that you wanted us to give you, right, Ben?
- [01:36]
Ross Benish
That's me, baby.
- [01:38]
Ben Bullard
Okay, so that's the. That's the sleepy dog himself. I am Ben Bullard. My brother in podcast crime, Noel Brown, is on an adventure but will be returning soon. In the meantime, we are super excited to have a. A bit of a saucy exploration through ridiculous history, through a. A part of history, a phenomenon that waxes and wanes and pops up in and out of the news over the centuries. It's the concept of the sex scandal. So parents listening with kiddos in the crowd, be aware that this might get a little more PG13 than normal. But this is despite the way we're beginning the show, this is not going to be a monologue. You don't have to hear my weird opinions on this the whole time. We are instead joined today by the fantastic journalist Picture your favorite literary magazine, your favorite publication. This man has written for it. Along with a bevy of books about this and many other subjects, the author of turned on the author of Sex, Weirdopedia, and so much more. Join us in welcoming Ross Benish to the show. Ross, dude, thank you for coming on today.
- [02:59]
Ross Benish
I can't wait to share my weird opinions with you guys.
- [03:04]
Ben Bullard
Now, Ross, we were talking a bit off air. You, Ben and myself and you have been such a prolific journalist and author and researcher. You have some people may have just heard from that description, you have more than one book dealing with Some strange history about sex. So could you tell us first off a little bit about how you got started as a writer and particularly what fascinated you about what we call sex scandals?
- [03:42]
Ross Benish
Yeah, well, you know, my books are just on things I love. So Nebraska politics, 90s pop culture and sex. Gotta, gotta have that triumvirate there. And the way I got started is after college, I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do with my life, but I knew I wanted to write a nonfiction book in the vein of Freakonomics. So I started writing these essays. And I noticed a lot of them had to deal with sex, which I don't know what that says about me, but whatever. And I set out to get a literary agent to kind of write a Freakonomics of Sex sort of type book. And then to get published, I knew I needed to have a lot of byline. So then I started freelancing and interning at Esquire and Mental Floss and Slate and all these places. And that helped me get that first book. And then after that first book, you know, I was able to get more freelance pieces and. And more books. But the first two books I wrote of my four were about the strange history of sex and the way that it influences our lives in strange and unpredictable ways. I've branched on to other topics since then, but that was the one that kind of got my career started.
- [04:52]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, and this is. This is a fascinating thing from a. Even from just a publishing perspective. Without talk too much about the business, I can clearly hear a publisher and an agent, or I can see them in my mind looking each other and saying at the same time, sex sales. You know, My Tennessee came out. But, yeah, sex Sells. I should have said, that's funny you.
- [05:18]
Ross Benish
Said that because they wanted to title the book Sex Sells. But I thought a lot to not have that be the title because I thought that would have been misleading.
- [05:27]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, and it's weird how you have to. If you're in those kind of situations. And this can happen with musicians and albums as well. It's weird how you have to fight the powers that be sometimes over something as small as a title. You know, I always. Before we made a book for one of the other shows, we do Stuff They Don't Want yout to Know. I had just assumed that the writers get to make the titles. I didn't know how many strange phone calls would have to transpire about that. So I will say the books themselves, beyond the titles, Sex, Weirdopedia and Turned on are. Oh, with a forward. Everybody by our good friend AJ Bahamas Jacobs. When Turned on, these books are far more than the title would suggest. I mean that as a tremendous compliment because Turned on, maybe we start there as that's the most recent work in this milieu. Can you tell us what we mean when we say investigation into how sex has shaped our world?
- [06:41]
Ross Benish
Yeah. So what I wanted to title the book was Invisible Handjobs. And it was all about how sex will guide our economies and our religion and our technology in ways that aren't always appreciated. One example would be the influence that porn has had on Internet technology. You know, like cookies and web browsing and streaming E commerce. A lot of that was started by pornographers before web giants like Amazon and Google took it forward. You know, another thing that I look at in the book is how governments can influence birth rates and how that can actually ultimately influence your economy. You know, if you want to have young, productive workers and not have an aging workforce, the government across the world. Governments across the world have tried a lot of weird things to try to incentivize people to have more kids or in China's case, to have less kids. You know, people don't think of sexuality as a function of gdp, but, you know, it kind of is when you think about birth rates and what that means for a working. Having a, you know, young workforce that can sustain an elderly base.
- [07:47]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, yeah. What's. What's the old rule of thumb? The replacement rate of 2.1 kids. Yeah, and we see that. We, we do see immediate, well, mid future, mid horizon consequences of that. They can be dire, especially if we're talking about, you know, Japan or South Korea's birth rate. But I love that you're bringing up the case of China because that very much that pendulum swung further than they wanted. And I don't know if they relate to that.
- [08:19]
Ross Benish
Yeah, and then they, they relaxed it so you could have two kids. But when you were so restrictive for so long, it's hard to encourage the behavior to start doing the opposite of what you force people to do for, you know, a generation. And that's. That really hinders the impact of China's future growth. But, you know, the investigations, the way I would put it is I was on a show with Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics after this book came out, and he said, this sounds like this is the least sexy book about sex ever written.
- [08:53]
Ben Bullard
That's.
- [08:54]
Ross Benish
It probably won't actually turn you out. You'll learn things about like, you know, the economy and religion and stuff.
- [09:00]
Ben Bullard
And that's you know, we're all big fans of Freakonomics, so that's a. That's a pretty cool compliment for me.
- [09:08]
Ross Benish
I don't know if it was a compliment. Yeah, it's an observation.
- [09:12]
Ben Bullard
It was an observation. One thing that I think. I mean, it's an astute observation in that you're not writing just a bunch of purple prose. This is very highly researched. This is. This is spinning out and gaming through consequences and things that are. You could sometimes call anywhere from humorous anecdotes to parables, to cautionary tales such as the Case of China. One thing that often comes up when people are talking about turned on is going to be a story that I was not aware of, which is, well, I was lightly aware of this. The original invention of the humble vibrator. It's an origin story, folks. We're an audio show, but you should just see the solemn way that Ross nodded on this one. So I'm sure you get this question pretty often, but could you tell us a little bit about the provenance or the origin story of this, I guess, sexual stimulation device?
- [10:22]
Ross Benish
No one's asked me about the vibrator in some time. So this is refreshing to go through this. And back in Victor days, women were obviously, well, everyone was told to not masturbate. Sexuality was very repressed, and women were diagnosed with this disease, which we now know is a bogus disease called hysteria. So it's really a sexist set of symptoms that would lead a doctor at the time to say, oh, this woman's hysterical. She needs to be treated for that. And one way they would treat that is to sexually relieve the woman. So instead of her doing it herself, she would have a doctor manually massage her private parts for, you know, half hour, sometimes an hour. It would take a long time for him to actually get these women off to relieve their hysteria. So these guys set out about inventing a tool that would help them do this quicker so they could see more patients. And that contributed to the birth of the vibrator. The first vibrator looks nothing like something that you would buy at Adam and Eve today, but the origin goes back to sexual repression and a medical device. So, you know, they set off a revolution in self stimulation through indirect way of forcing women to come to their office to use this device.
- [11:56]
Ben Bullard
That's kind of creepy. It's very strange on the doctor side. And then also the fact that there was clearly an innovator in the field or some guy having the conversation and just saying, oh, heavens, we simply have too many patients we don't have enough time.
- [12:14]
Ross Benish
Well, they said their hands would get tired. Cause if you're having to get. If you're having a. Well, it's not masturbate, I guess you would be assisting these women. But if you're doing patient after patient and this isn't like an intimate setting, it's manual work for them.
- [12:32]
Ben Bullard
It's clinical.
- [12:33]
Ross Benish
Yeah, yeah, clinical. That's a good way to put it.
- [12:36]
Ben Bullard
And so they're worried about carpal wrist tunnel syndrome. And even if they didn't have the phrase at that time. So that I think is a good way for us to sort of open that conversation on the unexpected tremendous historical shifts that have occurred because of things that we often in America's still kind of puritanical society, things that we often dismiss is like, oh, that's a naughty, naughty thing to mention.
- [13:12]
Paul Holz
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- [14:13]
Danielle Robaix
Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.
- [14:21]
Ross Benish
I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies.
- [14:26]
Danielle Robaix
I'm Danielle Robaix and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from hello Sunshine and I Heart podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers and more to explore Explore the stories that shape us on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving booktok theories and obsessing over book to screen casts for years, and now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character or cried at the last chapter or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book club on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts.
- [15:13]
Kate Winkler Dawson
A murder happens, the case goes cold. Then, over a hundred years later, we take a second look. I'm Paul Holz, a retired cold case investigator.
- [15:22]
Ben Bullard
And I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a journalist and historian.
- [15:25]
Kate Winkler Dawson
On our podcast Buried Bones, we reexamine historical true crime cases using modern forensic techniques.
- [15:31]
Ben Bullard
We dig into what the original investigators may have missed.
- [15:35]
Ross Benish
Growing up on a farm, when I.
- [15:36]
Ben Bullard
Heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think murder.
- [15:38]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Unless this person went out to shoot squirrels, they're not choosing a.22 to go hunting out there.
- [15:45]
Ben Bullard
These cases may be old, but the questions are still relevant and often chilling.
- [15:50]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I know this chauffeur is not of concern. You know, it's like, well, he's the last one who saw her alive, so how did they eliminate him?
- [15:59]
Ross Benish
Join us as we take you back.
- [16:00]
Ben Bullard
To the cold cases that haunt us to this day.
- [16:04]
Kate Winkler Dawson
New episodes every Wednesday on the exactly Right network. Listen to Buried bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [16:17]
Ben Bullard
So I, I want us to move to another example. This is one that I was completely unaware of until I started checking out Turned on Ross. Is it true that the US Military played a role in making San Francisco, as you call it, a gay mecca?
- [16:41]
Ross Benish
Yeah. The military, through its suppression of homosexuality, inadvertently helped create the modern gay identity. So in San Francisco's case, the way it did that is In World War II, if you were suspected to be gay, they would give you a blue discharge, and you could not serve in the military. And these men were discharged disproportionately in port cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco. When those guys were discharged, they were publicly outed at a time when people weren't out publicly. So if you're coming from a small town in the Midwest, it's hard for you to go home with your blue discharge and tell your family, I, you know, can't go serve in war because they suspect I'm gay. So a lot of these guys stayed where they were discharged and they formed their own neighborhoods and societies. And one of those is the Castro in San Francisco, which exploded in population around the time of World War II due to all these gay men deciding to live there.
- [17:50]
Ben Bullard
Oh, man. So in one way, that's inspiring the bravery of these people who said, look, I am going to start my life anew, right, because I can't go home. But in another way, it's absolutely horrifying. That feels like what we would call a violation of human rights at this point, because around this time, wouldn't it have been in some cases almost like a death sentence to send somebody back to rural America where maybe the law's a little corrupt and so on?
- [18:30]
Ross Benish
Yeah, well, I mean, it definitely lead to a lifetime of ostracization if they were home. And. Yeah, I mean, it's not out of the question to think that they would have been targeted in that way. So these people are making the best of their situation. But, yeah, it's a terrible situation by modern standards. But, you know, they didn't let the. The oppression get the best of them. They were able to use that as fuel to create their. Their own culture, which is beautiful in its own way, even if there was a, you know, unjust struggle behind it.
- [19:10]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, I hear what you're saying there. And it's also, I think especially here in the west and in the US in particular, there has always been this struggle between sexuality and not even spirituality, more like religious dogma. I think a lot of us are surprised when we learn later in history class or when we check out a good book that despite being known as very uptight folks, the Puritans and the Victorians had these practices that would seem downright unacceptable here in the modern day. I'm thinking for puritanical society, or Puritan society, I should say. In particular, I'm thinking of the fact that there were so many strict laws against who could do what to whom when, or who could do what with whom when, that I was surprised to learn. Yeah, a lot of these big families lived in essentially one or two room houses and structures, and the parents did sleep together while the kids were in the room. You know what I mean? Like, that's a Law and Order SVU stuff.
- [20:36]
Ross Benish
Yeah.
- [20:38]
Ben Bullard
So could you tell us through your research, historically, what are some of the. What. What are some of the. The strangest ways that. That we haven't discussed yet that sex has shaped society in history? Like, are there any things that you. Or any events or phenomena that you came up with in your research that you later think about today? Right.
- [21:04]
Ross Benish
I think about this one more than I should. So the first canon of the Nicaea Council. So this is like, you know, the first Huge council of the modern Catholic Church where we get the Nicene Creed. If you go back and read, you will find that the first canon is about making it illegal for men who castrate themselves to become priests. So there were so many guys back then that were castrating themselves to make themselves eunuchs for the sake of heaven. You know, like Origen, he's one of the, like, church fathers, he castrated himself that they had to put in a law to say, like, if you. If you're going to do that, you know, we're going to, like, restrict how high you can rise up. We got to do something about all these guys castrating themselves.
- [21:54]
Ben Bullard
Oh, man, that's frightening. And enough time. Has enough time passed that I could say that's darkly hilarious?
- [22:02]
Ross Benish
Oh, yeah, totally. I think enough time passed a thousand years ago. Or not a thousand, but 500 years ago. You could say that.
- [22:07]
Ben Bullard
Okay, good, good. Don't come for us remaining members of Council of Nicaea. It's just you nailed something that I think always astonishes me about those kind of laws. When we see them out of context, we have to realize there's a story behind them. Like, there was a. This is totally unrelated, but this is a good, good example. Imagine if you've ever walked into a store, maybe a restaurant, a Mom and pop place, or just like a little store on your main street and they have the conventional sign, you know, no shirt, no shoes, no service. But every so often they'll tack on another weird, specific rule. You know what I mean? I was in a place where it said it had the no shirt, no shoes, no service thing. And then it also had a sign that said, no angry dogs.
- [23:04]
Ross Benish
Oh, yeah, I've seen, like, no animals. Yeah, I've seen angry dogs is specific, though.
- [23:09]
Ben Bullard
Yeah. I'm like, what happened? Is there just some real. And please beat me here, Ben. Is there just some real dog named Buster who is terrorizing the gas station? And someone's like, we need a sign to stop this lunatic. So those. That's fascinating because it reminds us of all the. You've seen these before, too, Ross. All the historical compilation. All the compilations of local historical laws that might deal with odd, very odd, specific circumstances. Like no drafts in cars. It's gone too far, you know? Are there any weird, other weird, specific sex laws that you ran across?
- [23:55]
Ross Benish
There's weird laws on the books still to this day in this country. So in Nebraska, this one actually was repealed, but not for decades. They adopted a law in the 20s to castrate sex offenders. And then it took them a long time to get that off the books. And there's like, other ones that are even more bizarre that still are technically there but not enforceable.
- [24:19]
Ben Bullard
Okay, yeah, like the old. I remember reading stuff like, I think it was Michigan, I want to say, where some, some part of Michigan had passed law that said a husband legally owns his wife's hair or something like that. I don't know.
- [24:34]
Ross Benish
Think about all those states that still have sodomy laws on the boat. Like, it's completely unenforceable, but they fight tooth and nail to keep them on there. That's is a little more recent history. But if those laws are in the books, let's say 100 years from now, someone will be like, well, that's a weird historical artifact. Why, why is it illegal in Georgia?
- [24:53]
Ben Bullard
You know, like, they'll be like us with say, like, how many guys were.
- [25:00]
Ross Benish
Castrating themselves in Nicaea?
- [25:02]
Ben Bullard
Yeah. That this, this became an item on the agenda, right. And they were like, we cannot break for lunch until we figure this out.
- [25:11]
Ross Benish
I would love to see the, the meeting minutes of the one where they pass those cannons.
- [25:17]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, right. And especially, you know, to that point. I'd love to see how the vote shakes out. I'd love to see, you know, if there's, how, you know, how there's always, like 9 out of 10 dentists recommend this toothpaste. You have to Wonder who that 10th dentist is. So was there a guy in Nicaea who was like, I don't know, guys, no, let's really, let's think this through. Okay? We're reacting to the headline and maybe it was a.
- [25:45]
Ross Benish
For a vote, like a SCOTUS case, and it came down to the wire. I don't know. That's all lost to history.
- [25:51]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, that's all lost to history. That is still just bizarre because I think every story we're telling here in this kind of grab bag exploration, it's just further supporting your thesis that sex is shaping what we call human society in all these strange ways.
- [26:15]
Ross Benish
It still goes on.
- [26:17]
Ben Bullard
Yeah.
- [26:17]
Ross Benish
Like in 2009, lawmakers in Egypt wanted to ban fake hymens. So it's like these like, virginity kits. So, you know, you could make it seem like you haven't lost your virginity if you have. So, like, they would import, you know, a hymen that is usually an animal derived product and be used on the, on the wedding day. And they. The fact that people have to use those, that's. That's crazy right there. That people. That there's a, that There's a market for that product, and then there's enough of a market that there's a push to legislate it.
- [26:53]
Ben Bullard
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Because again, somebody threw up their hands and said, what's up with all these counterfeit hymens? Yeah, that's. That's a. That's terrifying. It shows us, too. You know, many of these things we've mentioned, especially even now, but especially as you go back further in history, a lot of them were indicative of society's attempts to control women, right?
- [27:21]
Ross Benish
Oh, yeah. I mean, the history of vibrator. Even if it had the unintended consequence of giving them a great masturbation device, the origin is controlling women's sexuality.
- [27:35]
Ben Bullard
Yeah. I think there's an important lesson there, and it's something that we as a society would ignore to our peril. There's another one I wanted to ask you about. Ooh, this is where we want to shift. Okay, now we're getting to. Now we're getting to some even more juicy stuff, fellow ridiculous historians. Sex scandals. Ben, can I get, like, a sex scandal cue? I leave it up to your interpretation.
- [28:05]
Ross Benish
Yeah, I got you.
- [28:07]
Ben Bullard
Perfect. The Sleeping dog, ladies and gentlemen. All right, so sex scandals. Again, we said it at the top. This is a little more PG13 than some of our previous episodes. Ross, you and I were catching up off air with our pal the Sleeping dog, and I asked you about sex scandals. There's one that surprised you, and it surprised me. It happened recently. We'll save that and get to it in a moment. So first, can you tell us. I know this is very basic softball stuff, but can you tell us what a sex scandal is? How you would define it?
- [28:45]
Ross Benish
I mean, the way I would define it is a person of public interest, often a politician. But it could be a celebrity has sex in a way that is disapproved by their society at the time, and it blows up in such a way that it threatens to derail their career or reputation. You know, the most, probably the biggest one in our lifetime would be, like, Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and various other women Clinton had run ins with.
- [29:17]
Ben Bullard
Okay, I think we can all agree with that definition because it makes an important distinction between sexual activities or proclivities in the past that were either normalized or they were treated as just part and parcel of this, you know, large tie or larger than life religious leader or royal member, political functionary. Because I'm thinking about, you know, the fact that there would be numerous acts of adultery. Right. Or even nefarious Sexual activity on the part of the aristocracy or various heads of royal families. And those things didn't always result in a scandal. So it sounds like the real operative difference, the umami of what makes something a scandal is when it endangers the person's career.
- [30:17]
Ross Benish
Yeah. Because what's a scandal in one generation may not be a scandal in another generation. And part of the way our perception is shaped on sex scandals is how press operates at the time. So like for the, in the US between like Jefferson and Clinton, there wasn't a lot of reporting on, or maybe a little bit later, definitely between like Eisenhower and Clinton, there's not a lot of reporting of the sex scandal. So what presidents do in their private lives is kind of just washed under the rug, kept from the public. The same type of behavior could be engaged though, but not lead to a scandal in the way that it would by the 90s or the way that it would in America's early history when Alexander Hamilton and Jefferson were caught in scandals. So like it's really, it's not just the behavior of the sex itself. It's like another huge part of it is how that information is spread and how it's interpreted by the people of that time.
- [31:24]
Ben Bullard
So it's not the act or acts themselves, it's the context in which they occur.
- [31:32]
Ross Benish
Yeah. And what's permissible in one era isn't permissible in another. And it can be kind of arbitrary. It's not like things just get more progressive, more permissive over time. It waxes and wanes. And you know, I think what you find though is, especially in the US Presidents have had illicit affairs in the entire country's history. Those were just not public or blown into a scandal for like a hundred year period.
- [32:02]
Ben Bullard
Oh yeah, yeah. It, sometimes this is a true story. It takes an up and coming grad student in history, right. To say, I really need my thesis paper. What do I know about what's the most obscure president and what did they do? Okay. This is the way that the research can move forward and I think you're making some tremendous points there. With that being said, now that we've eaten our proverbial vegetables of pointing out the, the important stuff, the stuff that will be on the test later. Let's get to it, man. Can you tell us about that really strange sex scandal from recent history that stayed with you?
- [32:50]
Ross Benish
Well, so if, if you're a listener and you lived In Michigan about 10 years ago, you probably know where I'm going with this. And State Representative Todd Cursor was a Republican family values type candidate in Michigan, the Michigan House of Representatives. He was having an affair with Cindy Gamrat, who was also a House rep. Now they're not. They, they both were married to each other. So this would have been a scandal. But rather than just come out with that information or let their relationship be known, Cursor asked his staff to spread the rumor that he was seeking male prostitutes because he thought that if they spread that rumor, it would create a distraction from his affair that he was actually having. But instead everyone found out that he was having that affair and that he was instructing people to lie about seeking male prostitutes and he ended up getting expelled from the house. But it's very strange for like a family values candidate to spread the idea that they're seeking sex with a prostitute when they aren't even doing that.
- [34:09]
Ben Bullard
Yeah. Yeah.
- [34:10]
Ross Benish
Like that's, that's the worst of the two.
- [34:13]
Ben Bullard
Right, right. That's, that's a very unorthodox spin doctor approach or PR approach. You know, we were, when, when you first brought this up and I had, I think I'd never heard of this because like a lot of people, when you get increasingly inundated by news in the age of ubiquitous information, it's so easy to just skim past a headline, especially with political scandal these days. But when you first told me about this, I remember immediately thinking, what a dumb idea. Like, how did this guy get this far? You know what I mean? Or how, how one, how did you get that far? Or two, how desperate do you have to be to mistake that for a good strategy? You know?
- [35:04]
Ross Benish
Yeah. His chief of staff needed to step in there and say, you know what? We're not going to tell everyone you're. You're having sex with male prostitutes.
- [35:10]
Ben Bullard
Right. Right. And. And he wasn't.
- [35:13]
Ross Benish
He wasn't. Yeah.
- [35:14]
Ben Bullard
Okay.
- [35:14]
Ross Benish
It's a weird thing to want people to think you're doing.
- [35:17]
Ben Bullard
Yeah. With the phantom prostitute. That's, that's so bizarre because that also, you know what, that also touches on something that really stood out in your most recent work. And we haven't really talked too much about it yet, but I believe we should.
- [35:37]
Paul Holz
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- [36:38]
Danielle Robaix
Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll meet. Never forget.
- [36:46]
Ross Benish
I think any good romance. It gives me this feeling of like butterflies.
- [36:51]
Danielle Robaix
I'm Danielle Roubais and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from hello Sunshine and I Heart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers and more to explore the stories that shape us on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theory and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character or cried at the last chapter, or passed a book to a friend saying you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [37:38]
Kate Winkler Dawson
A murder happens, the case goes cold. Then over a hundred years later, we take a second look. I'm Paul Holz, a retired cold case investigator.
- [37:47]
Ben Bullard
And I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a journalist and historian.
- [37:50]
Kate Winkler Dawson
On our podcast Buried Bones, we re examine historical true crime cases using modern forensic techniques.
- [37:56]
Ben Bullard
We dig into what the original investigators may have missed.
- [38:00]
Ross Benish
Growing up on a farm, when I.
- [38:01]
Ben Bullard
Heard a gunshot, I did not immediately think think murder.
- [38:03]
Kate Winkler Dawson
Unless this person went out to shoot squirrels, they're not choosing a.22 to go hunting out there.
- [38:10]
Ben Bullard
These cases may be old, but the questions are still relevant and often chilling.
- [38:16]
Kate Winkler Dawson
I know this chauffeur is not of concern. You know, it's like, well, he's the last one who saw her alive, so how did they eliminate him?
- [38:24]
Ross Benish
Join us as we take you back.
- [38:26]
Ben Bullard
To the cold cases that haunt us to this day.
- [38:29]
Kate Winkler Dawson
New episodes every Wednesday on the exactly right network. Listen to Buried bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [38:43]
Ben Bullard
Sex has a huge influence on crime, right? And you. You dive into some pretty fantastic research on the unexpected ways that not just laws about sex, like sodomy laws, as you mentioned, but social expectations about sex can influence rates of very nasty things like assault or even homicide. What, what's the. What's this connection? I sound like Andy Rooney of old. What's the deal with. But what's this connection between the practice of polygamy and higher rates of crime?
- [39:27]
Ross Benish
Okay. Oh, yeah. Basically, the idea, and this is some of the theory on how monogamy was instituted as a social construct was that if more men are married, they will commit less crimes collectively. So, like, if you, if a man gets married, he becomes domesticated, he ends up having children, that man is less likely to commit a violent crime than if he's unattached. So if you, you know, if you go from polygamy, if you go from society that's polygamous to a society that's monogamy, more men will marry because most polygamous societies are polygynous. They're not polyandrous. They're. They are where, you know, a man has multiple wives, it's much rarer to see a society where women have multiple husbands. In the societies where men can have multiple wives, it's usually like the rich and successful descendants of heirs that have the most wives. It's often the man with the most resources tends to have most women. So where there's a society where it's polygamous, you have just way more men without mates, and they have less incentive to not commit these crimes because they don't have the attachments and they're not domesticated, you know, in a way that a married man is. So there are theories by some historians that monogamy began to be instituted not as a religious practice, but as a political one. Because these, you know, leaders of ancient Rome, they. They wanted to quell disrest. They, they didn't want to have, you know, all these single, violent men out there. So they would, you know, implement this rule and they would also use it as, like, almost like a recruiting tactic in, you know, military, like our society, you know, it's monogamous. You're. You're more likely to have a mate than, you know, elsewhere, where your chances are slim. Now, you know, some of this is. Is speculation, and monogamy legally doesn't mean monogamy in practice. There's still a lot of extramarital activity happening.
- [41:47]
Ben Bullard
Sure. Yeah. And then that would lead to the crime of. I just think it's a fun word to say bigamy, which is, you know, double tapping on a marriage. Right. Having. Having a couple of marriages and maybe not telling the partners from those separate, separate events of matrimony.
- [42:05]
Ross Benish
And there's also the idea that you're competing for more women, too, if. If you're in a society that's polygamous.
- [42:11]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, yeah, I see. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
- [42:14]
Ross Benish
So the men could become more violent with each other because that man wants to have his third wife or whatever.
- [42:19]
Ben Bullard
And there's this. Yeah, I appreciate, too, how we're being diplomatic and careful or cautious with the. The implications, but they're definitely out there. I mean, you phrased it perfectly. But then also, I can't be the only person in the audience tonight who immediately thought, yeah, when guys get married, they have more to lose. They calm down a little bit. They're more integrated into society. Like, oh, I want to rob the bank, but I've got to pick up Drayton at three.
- [42:55]
Ross Benish
So you're also tireder.
- [42:58]
Ben Bullard
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [43:00]
Ross Benish
I don't want to assault anyone. I need a nap.
- [43:02]
Ben Bullard
And if I could say it on air, big congratulations to you, Russ, because you have just welcomed your second child onto the planet. Right. And so you're probably a little too tired to get back into the robbing banks hustle.
- [43:20]
Ross Benish
Oh, definitely too tired. If I was a single guy with no kids, I don't know who I'd be assaulting. But now doing the dishes before I go to sleep is my goal today.
- [43:32]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, yeah. That's the Herculean task of the day. But I do think it is. It is something that we have to examine just historically. There's no shortage of cases or arguments to be made. But we also have to be cautious with the exploration of this idea and these implications because they can be used for nefarious purposes, for racism, for religious prejudice and so on. When we're talking about religion, you also see or you trace a lot of, I guess we call it inter religious implications or disagreements about sex and society. And I was very surprised to learn, not being a practitioner of Islam myself, I was very surprised to learn things like the, you know, you mentioned the Hyman law, but then also the idea of reproduction and infertility, you know, tied to, I guess, surrogate parents or artificial insemination.
- [44:41]
Ross Benish
Yeah. So you see These weird instances where religious pluralism can actually help people overcome an obstacle from their own religion. Now I gotta take my time here and remember what the difference between Sunni and Shia. It's been a while. So basically there's a few Middle Eastern countries where Sunni and Shia are relying on each other for reproductive assistance. So for the Sunni side, something like artificial insemination, you have to be married and you're only allowed to use your own eggs and sperm. And so it's more restrictive. But in Ashe, there tends to be more lenience on using other people's eggs and sperm for reproduction. So in these areas where you have high infertility, you will have Sunnis relying on Shia. I mean. Sorry, sorry. You have Shia relying on Sunnis because if everyone followed the more restrictive law there wouldn't. You wouldn't be able to use other people. Like, they wouldn't donate. They wouldn't. So you, you need a population that is more okay with this if you're going to go out and do this. So they, they kind of work together in this roundabout way of, you know, finding donors because one, one denomination prohibits it and one allows it. It's very confusing. I hope I explained that worth the shit.
- [46:21]
Ben Bullard
No, no, you nailed it. And I'm thinking through it because it's, it's almost a. I don't want to sound like I'm in any way diminishing the importance of this, but it's almost like a loophole that everybody figured out together.
- [46:41]
Ross Benish
Yeah. So you'll see Sunnis going into like Shia, the majority countries, to do this. They'll like, leave. You know, it's usually a country that's close by, but they'll, you know, leave where they live to go where the other denomination is more prevalent so that they could get the reproductive assistance they need. Because where they live, they, they can't use other people's gametes.
- [47:05]
Ben Bullard
Geez. This is, this is a complication, but it's, it's a complication that arrives successfully. I'm stuttering a bit because I'm trying to get that Jeff Goldblum line from Jurassic park out of my head.
- [47:24]
Ross Benish
Life finds a way.
- [47:25]
Ben Bullard
Life finds a way. Yeah. So many of these. Sex finds a way. Right. This is bringing us to maybe a little bit of a denouement. There's so much stuff that I want to ask you and I know our pal Noel has a lot of questions to Ben. I imagine you're furiously typing out some questions that we'll send to Ross off air.
- [47:50]
Ross Benish
Oh, yeah, I'm Getting ready.
- [47:54]
Ben Bullard
I didn't know if you were going to take the bait on that one, but thank you. So, Russ, we talked about. We talked about the importance of understanding what makes something a scandal. We talked about the ways in which top down sexual policies can affect a country. Right. For generations. We talked about some specific episodes, some funny, some frightening, some inspiring. But one thing we haven't yet talked about, and maybe this is our big ticket item for our first episode with you. Why is the US so hung up on sex? Why. Why are we so weird about it?
- [48:44]
Ross Benish
Man, I wish I had a good answer for that. That's a great question. I've. I've wondered that myself. You know, I do think. I know this is a long time ago, but the people who decided to come here, the Europeans who decided to come here, they were. A lot of them were crazy and repressed sexually.
- [49:06]
Ben Bullard
Okay.
- [49:07]
Ross Benish
I just, I don't think we've gotten over that.
- [49:09]
Ben Bullard
It's just in the DNA.
- [49:11]
Ross Benish
Yeah, yeah. Like.
- [49:11]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, okay.
- [49:12]
Ross Benish
The, the most chilled out Europeans of that era weren't the ones coming here.
- [49:20]
Ben Bullard
Right. And. And we have.
- [49:23]
Ross Benish
And those neuroses just go on.
- [49:26]
Ben Bullard
It's a feedback loop. Man hands, misery onto man and everyone.
- [49:30]
Ross Benish
I know, I know we're a multicultural society now, but you know, when you're still stuck in the laws created by that system.
- [49:38]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, that makes sense. It's a systemic problem. Now you are in.
- [49:44]
Ross Benish
We're also very religious, too.
- [49:46]
Ben Bullard
Yeah, yeah. I was going to say that's kind of the trade off.
- [49:49]
Ross Benish
But those two things kind of go together.
- [49:51]
Ben Bullard
They very much team up. Right. Like a weird wrestling team of repression. Because you're. It's history and religion you're in. You're further north in upstate New York, and I am. And my pal Ben and I here are further down in the American Southeast. And maybe you could argue the repression takes slightly different historical paths. But we're very much in the Bible Belt. Even in our fair metropolis of Atlanta or in other really cool cities like Athens, you're never more than about 25, 30 minutes away from some really weird billboards. Like really gnarly stuff. Yeah.
- [50:43]
Ross Benish
I mean, I'm from rural Nebraska, so.
- [50:45]
Ben Bullard
Oh, yeah. So you get it?
- [50:46]
Ross Benish
I get it.
- [50:46]
Ben Bullard
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We see then that history is always closer than it looks in the rear view mirror. And it has often unforeseen effects on the modern day. So we want to thank you for all the work that you have put into tracing these things. Not just what we know about the past, but what it tells us about the future with that. Before we go, I got to do two things, Ross, and I hope it's okay, but I'm going to put you on the spot. You ready?
- [51:22]
Ross Benish
All right.
- [51:23]
Ben Bullard
All right, Cool. All right. You're game for it. Nice. First, can we have you back on for a future episode?
- [51:29]
Ross Benish
Oh, yeah. I'd love that.
- [51:31]
Ben Bullard
Okay. So we're thinking we talked a little bit off air about icp, the Juggalos. You've been doing a lot of interviews and work on the 1990s. So it'd be fantastic for us to reconvene in the future with more from you on on those and other topics, especially what do we call it? Low culture.
- [51:56]
Ross Benish
Yeah, low culture, trashy entertainment. You know, whatever phrase you want to use.
- [52:01]
Ben Bullard
All right. Yeah. Well, we're going to have you back on to learn more about that. The second thing that we have to ask is a question that's going to be on the mind of everybody in the audience today. Where can people learn more about your work?
- [52:17]
Ross Benish
So you can just go to my website, RossPenish.com and I'm occasionally on Twitter and LinkedIn, but I have been inactive more recently.
- [52:29]
Ben Bullard
And that is spelled Ross R O S S B E N E S dot com. So do check it out. Check out the website, folks. If you want to engage in some Twitter stalkery, just be nice, as we always say. And in the meantime, thank you again so much, Russ. This has been a blast. I have learned a lot. I'm not sure I wanted to learn everything I just learned, but I do appreciate it. And we'll talk to you soon.
- [52:59]
Ross Benish
All right. See you later.
- [53:02]
Ben Bullard
Man, what a, what a ride we just had there. Ben the sleeping dog Hackett, I gotta ask you, what stood out to you the most in some of these strange stories of sex? Man, Other Ben, I think the, the scandal in the.
- [53:29]
Ross Benish
What was that? Michigan, 10 years ago.
- [53:32]
Ben Bullard
I think it's pretty telling what the representative thought was going to be less scandalous.
- [53:40]
Ross Benish
And it just goes, I don't know.
- [53:42]
Ben Bullard
Maybe I'm, maybe I'm reaching a little far here.
- [53:45]
Ross Benish
But it's like maybe that's not uncommon behavior that he's a little desensitized to. But that's just me. That was just what I was thinking in the moment.
- [53:55]
Ben Bullard
Oh, my gosh. I didn't even connect that part. But I, I tempted to agree. We can't wait to have Ross Benish back, back on the show. We're going to be talking about low culture, trash tv, all kinds of things from that. The Halcyon days of the 1990s, which sadly, Ben seemed to get further and further away. You guys should see Ben the Sleeping Dog Hackett shake his head along with me in response to that. So we are to going going to call it a day. Big big thanks to our guest super producer Ben the Sleeping Dog Hackett. Big thanks to Ross Benish who is going to earn his official Ridiculous History moniker probably in his second appearance. Big thanks to AJ Bahamas Jacobs. Big thanks to Alex Williams who composed our track our producer Max Williams. Big thanks of course to Jonathan Strickland ak AKA the Quister, the rude dudes at Ridiculous Crime, my pal Noel Brown who will be returning soon. And as Noel always likes to say, we'll see you next time folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
- [55:20]
Paul Holz
Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations Just like.
- [55:51]
Danielle Robaix
Great shoes, Great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget.
- [55:59]
Ross Benish
I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies.
- [56:04]
Danielle Robaix
I'm Danielle Robaix and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from hello Sunshine and I Heart Podcast where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.