Jessica Cale

A man in 4th Century BCE Macedon wants to separate a woman he desires from a rival. In 2nd Century CE Egypt, a woman wants the woman she desires to return her feelings. The Pompeian man seeks the help of Cupid, and the Egyptian woman is seeking help from a ghost. More than 500 years and 1,000 miles separated them, but the solution to their dilemma was the same. They each went to a magical…

If you drive along the Long Island Expressway (Interstate 495), Horace Harding is your buddy. The Horace Harding Expressway, which runs parallel to the LIE, offers a convenient way around many traffic jams. But how did the road get there? And who on earth was Horace Harding? Construction on the road began during Mayor Jimmy Walker’s administration, with the first seven-mile stretch opening in…

To say there was a lot going on in Paris in 1780 is the understatement of the century, but besides the charged political atmosphere, there was one pungent issue affecting everyone that couldn’t be ignored. In central Paris, within sight of the popular Les Halles food markets, was the Cemetery of the Innocents, also known as Saints-Innocents. Burials had begun in the twelfth century, and almost…

The ‘Golden Age of Piracy’ was a harsh time for many people, on land and at sea. For a brief period in the early eighteenth-century, two women, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, roved the West Indies in Jack Rackham’s pirate gang, and in doing so, entered history. These women turned away from the law and anything remotely associated with female norms of the day. Some argue they were lovers.(1) Others…

The tale of Sophia Dorothea of Celle and her handsome, dashing lover, the Swedish Count Philip Christoph von Königsmarck, is tragic, but also rather foolish, because the lovers were so reckless that they brought about their own doom. It almost seems to me that the heedless teens Romeo and Juliet went about their wooing with more dignity and more sober awareness of the threats they faced than…

Casimir Pulaski, Intersex Hero of the Revolutionary War

The Father of the American Cavalry was an intersex Polish count. Casimir Pulaski, born in Warsaw in 1745, died on this day in 1779 due to injuries sustained during the Siege of Savannah, one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolutionary War. He was only 34, but he’d already had an incredible life. Born into nobility, he began his military career as page to the Duke of Courland, and at the age of…

Treating the (Last) Pandemic: Heroin, Aspirin, and The Spanish Flu

On September 16th, 1918, Lieutenant Colonel Philip S Deane, head of Health and Sanitation at the Emergency Fleet Corporation, claimed the outbreak of the Spanish Flu on the East Coast was due to the crews of a handful of German submarines who had made it to New York. How ever it had gotten there, it was the Germans’ fault, and in any case, it was no big deal. In the same statement, he said the…

“Some other girl’s mediocre brother”: Rejected Men in Nineteenth-Century English Culture

The title of this blogpost comes from one of my very favourite things I’ve found in my years spent researching Victorian marriage, engagement, courtship, and romantic culture in England. It is a little book entitled Shall Girl’s Propose?, written in 1893 by an author who gives himself the moniker of ‘a speculative bachelor.’ The premise of the book is simple— it succinctly outlines the process of…

“We are determined to foment a rebellion”: Women and Espionage in the American Revolution

It’s no secret that women in the eighteenth century had little to no political freedoms. The patriarchy that had worked so well for the male elite of Britain and the rest of western Europe had, by that time, been transplanted in the American colonies. Despite the lack of women’s rights in Britain’s New World colonies, even during the famous period of salutary neglect, American women had hope that…

New Podcast Streaming Now

Dirty, Sexy History is already a terrific way to burn lots of time, but have you ever wished you could listen to it while you’re cleaning, driving, or pretending to work? (It’s called being efficient, thanks) We’ve got your back. For our readers who prefer to to listen to their history, DSH has a brand new podcast streaming now where we talk about all the same things we cover here, with added…

Tales from the Crypt: Robertson’s Phantasmagoria and the 18th Century Origins of Horror Cinema

Given how often horror is dismissed as a low-culture guilty pleasure, it might surprise you to hear that modern cinema was more or less invented because of it. That’s right—when the first Magic Lantern was invented around 1650, it wasn’t to immortalize the pensive expression of some seventeenth-century Daniel Day Lewis. People wanted to see skulls. The invention of the Magic Lantern, an early…

Contraception in Cookbooks: Herbal Family Planning in the Early Modern Period and Beyond

When condoms began to somewhat resemble their modern form in the sixteenth century, it was a result of centuries of trial and error. Venereal diseases had plagued people since the time immemorial, and various barrier methods had been tried with limited efficacy. Gabriele Falloppio’s De Morbo Gallico recommended wrapping up in linen sheaths soaked in salt. Other reusable condoms were made from…

A Cure for (Anything) that Ails You: Cocaine in Victorian Medicine

Although the medicinal properties of the coca plant had been well known to the indigenous people of South America for thousands of years, cocaine as we know it was first isolated from the coca plant by German chemists in the 1850s. Having observed its status among indigenous people, scientists wanted to explore its uses in medicine. Among other things, the Incans had used it as a painkiller in…

Dreams of Love: Franz Liszt and la Dame aux Camélias

Marie Duplessis in 1845. J.C. Olivier

The archetype of the beautiful, doomed courtesan has appeared so often in media over the past two centuries that it has become a cliché. Think of La Traviata, Carmen, Les Misérables, even Moulin Rouge—their stories have become tragedies that titillate while serving as precautionary tales about the dangers of sex work. People live vicariously through these…

Trans and Non-binary Identities from Mesopotamia to Ancient Rome: Inanna, Cybele, and the Gallai

Ishtar. Lewis Spence (1916)

How many times have you heard that trans and non-binary identities are a new thing? With more people becoming aware of differing gender identities and many feeling empowered to share their own, the subject has become a staple of lazy comedy at best and an excuse for horrific violence and harmful legislation at worst. While arguments for the repression of these…

Coming of Age as Simone de Beauvoir: From Catholic Schoolgirl to Avant-Garde Rebel

Coming of age in early 20th-century Paris, Simone de Beauvoir (b. 1908) transformed herself from a devout Catholic schoolgirl into one of the foremost intellectual rebels of the 20th century. Energetic, probing, in search of commitment and deeply suspicious of the compromises of bourgeois life, she became a major figure in 20th century philosophy. Her subject? Liberty and contingency—choosing…

When Arthur Munby died in 1910 at the age of 82, he made headlines not for his death, but for how he had lived his life. He had been a friend and colleague of John Ruskin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and other influential artists and writers in the circles surrounding the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Munby himself was an accomplished author and photographer fascinated by the lives of working-class…