Spectrophilia: The Ghost Fetish

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If you happen to be a Spectrophiliac, then October must be a particularly exciting time for you.

What is a spectrophiliac? Well, it's a fetish for ghosts (as well as mirrors), so being turned on by anything lurking in the non-physical realm. After all, as the old adage goes, the most important sex organ is the brain.

What are the historic origins of this fetish and phenomenon? And what real life stories can be told of it?

Today features an interview Kate did with Maddy Pelling and Anthony Delaney on our sister podcast, After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal.

Head to their feed here to find brand new episodes already out on such mysterious and unsettling topics such as HMS Terror, the origins of Halloween and Murder in Ancient Rome.

This podcast was edited by Siobhan Dale and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello my lovely betwixtas it's me Kate Lister I am here you are here which is the really
0:06.5	important thing but before you and I can go any further with this podcast I need to give you the fair dues warning here it is this is an adult podcast
0:14.8	spoken about adults to other adults about adult
0:16.9	things in an adulty way and there's a range of adult subjects
0:20.0	and you should be an adult too.
0:23.0	And now that we've got that little lot out of the way,
0:26.0	you have been forewarned, forewarned is forearmed.
0:29.0	Fair do's, you can't say fairer than that.
0:31.0	On with the show!
0:33.2	Don't mind me, but tricksters, I'm just in the ceramic studio in the basement of the History
0:41.0	Hits building. I didn't know there was one there either, but
0:44.0	here I am sitting at my pottery wheel throwing a pot. The lights are dimmed. The mass
0:50.1	between my hands is bulging. What, what are you sniggering at?
0:54.0	This is just how I do my best work.
0:56.0	While I'm at it, maybe I could summon a sexy spirit from the other realm
1:00.0	to see if they can help me,
1:02.0	you know, shape this gorgeous vase that I'm now creating.
1:05.8	Because if Hollywood has taught us anything, it's that ghosts make for fantastic ceramicists.
1:12.1	I mean if it's good enough for Demi Moore in Ghost it's got to be good enough for me too.
1:16.0	Now where was I?
1:20.0	What are you a funny man?
1:24.0	Oh, money, of course.
	...

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