116. My Dad Excavated A Porno
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman
4.7 • 3.8K Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2020
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The word ‘pornography’ arrived in English in the 1840s so upper class male archaeologists could talk about the sexual art they found in Pompeii without anyone who wasn’t an upper class male archaeologist knowing about it. Even though, at the same time, Victorian England was awash with what we’d now term pornography.
Dr Kate Lister of Whores of Yore and pornography historian Brian Watson of histsex.com explain the history of the word, and how the Victorian Brits dealt with material that gave them stirrings in their trousers. Sorry, ‘sit-down-upons’. ‘Inexpressibles’! If they couldn’t even express trousers, it’s little wonder they struggled to cope with pornography.
Content note: though the episode is educational and thoroughly untitillating - I know, I know, what a disappointment - the nature of the topic is such that the episode may not be suitable for all audiences or circumstances.
Find out more about this episode, the subject matter and the interviewees, at theallusionist.org/pornography.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thanks to Canva for sponsoring the illusionist and for helping me address a massive gap in |
| 0:07.6 | my skills, I know, can you believe it? A gap in my skills says it isn't so, it is so. |
| 0:12.8 | Being a podcaster, I'm good at making noises. But visuals? Not great. I didn't get into |
| 0:19.8 | audio making because I'm good at visuals, but people do sure love looking at stuff. |
| 0:25.9 | I don't blame you. The first bite of the internet is with the eye mouths, as they say. |
| 0:30.4 | So, like many of my podcaster friends, how did you make that cool thing? Oh, I used Canva. |
| 0:36.2 | I'm using Canva to spruce up my game on Instagram and the slides for the illusionist live shows |
| 0:41.6 | and YouTube where the podcast is now available, but with currently zero visual interest. |
| 0:46.5 | Not for too much longer though. I am really excited to play with all this and will update you with |
| 0:51.3 | my progress on my journey to visuals. Why don't you join me? And if you work with people, |
| 0:56.3 | you can design and collaborate with Canva for teams. Right now, you can get a free 45 day extended |
| 1:02.3 | trial when you go to Canva.me slash illusionist. That's C-A-N-V-A-DOT-ME slash illusionist. |
| 1:10.4 | For a free 45 day extended trial, Canva.me slash illusionist. |
| 1:22.3 | This is the illusionist in which I, Helen Salzman, maintain a six foot distance from language. |
| 1:28.1 | Just a little note from the front lines of fact-based light entertainment podcasting. |
| 1:32.3 | I know a lot of you listen to my stuff to help simmer down when times are hard, |
| 1:36.4 | and I want to provide that relief, but it also feels disingenuous to act like the present |
| 1:41.1 | is something that can be escaped. On the other hand, nobody came here for my pain takes on current |
| 1:47.1 | events, including me. So what I'll say is a lot of what the illusionist is about is power, |
| 1:53.2 | how it is enacted and perpetuated through language. And of course, I talked mostly about the English |
| 1:58.8 | language, which has been an oppressive force in many cultures, and its story as a global language |
| 2:04.4 | is also the story of colonialism and empire. Things of which to put it extremely euphemistically, |
... |
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