History Unzipped

Tony Perrottet
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  • HISTORY
  • EVERY-TWO-WEEKS SERIES
History Unzipped Podcast

Historian and journalist Tony Perrottet unearths sexual stories from throughout the ages. The series is modeled on the "secret cabinets" in Victorian museums, where medieval chastity belts, Renaissance pornography and perverse novels by the Marquis de Sade were hidden. Each episode will answer a burning question: How did Napoleon's penis end up in suburban New Jersey? Are champagne glasses modeled on Marie-Antoinette's breasts? How did you behave at one of Caligula's orgies? And what were Casanova's best pick-up lines?

  1. EPISODE 1

    AMERICAN VICE: Interview with Karen Abbott

    Who invented the term, "to get laid"? New York Times bestselling author Karen Abbott reveals this and other lurid secrets of US history -- including the most luxurious brothel of the Gilded Age, the birth of burlesque in Depression-era New York and the sordid Prohibition sex-murder scandal that inspired "The Great Gatsby."

    38 min

  2. EPISODE 2

    SEX AT DAWN: Interview with Chris Ryan

    Was Charles Darwin a player? Christopher Ryan, author of the New York Times bestseller Sex At Dawn, discusses the Victorian triumph of views on sexual evolution and what they mean for us today. Discussed: Can new research on prehistory help explain modern scandals? What do we know about Darwin's erotic life? Who invented "key parties"? What is an "anaphrodisiac"? And -- are Republicans stuck in the Agricultural Revolution?

    45 min

  3. EPISODE 3

    WHO STOLE JESUS' FORESKIN? Interview with David Farley

    Celebrity memorabilia is big business these days, but nothing quite compares to the Holy Foreskin, a portion of Jesus' most intimate anatomy revered by Christians since the Middle Ages. David Farley, author of An Irreverent Curiosity and star of a National Geographic TV special, The Quest for the Holy Foreskin, is the world's leading expert on the sacred prepuce and its mysterious fate. The relic was stolen from a church in an Italian hill town in 1983. Was it by Satanists, neo-Nazis... or the Vatican?

    44 min

  4. EPISODE 4

    THE SCIENCE OF LUST: Interview with Wednesday Martin

    Female desire has been a battleground for thousands of years. Men have downplayed it since the ancient Greeks, demonized it in Puritan witchcraft trials and misinterpreted in the studies of Sigmund Freud. Wednesday Martin -- author of Primates of Park Avenue, Untrue and The Button, a history of women's most sensitive part, unravels the saga from the Agricultural Revolution to the Renaissance and the "clitoracy" movement today.

    1h 9m

  5. EPISODE 5

    THE FASCINATING FASCIST WIFE: Interview with Nina Burleigh

    What does America's current First Lady, Melania Trump, have in common with the consorts of history's great dictators -- Mussolini's mistress Clara Petacci, Eva Braun, Evita Peron. Imelda Marcos? Nina Burleigh, author of "The Trump Women: Part of the Deal" reveals all! A fascinating insight into everything that is screwed-up with US politics today.

    33 min

  6. SEASON 1 TRAILER

    Erotic Archaeology

    An introduction to the series about unearthing sexual secrets from throughout the ages.

    1 min

  7. 05/06/2020

    Footnote: the Pages of Sin

    Prostitute guidebooks flourished in Renaissance Venice, Georgian London, belle époque Paris -- and early 1900s Kansas City. What can historians learn from studying their well-thumbed pages?

    11 min

  8. 15/06/2020

    Footnote: the Curse of Self-Abuse

    How an obscure 1712 pamphlet called Onania began the war on masturbation in Georgian London. Over the next 200 years, the campaign against self-pleasure became an international phenomenon, and led to such oddities as the creation of Corn Flakes and Graham crackers in the US.

    9 min
See All Season 1 (13)

Trailer

About

Historian and journalist Tony Perrottet unearths sexual stories from throughout the ages. The series is modeled on the "secret cabinets" in Victorian museums, where medieval chastity belts, Renaissance pornography and perverse novels by the Marquis de Sade were hidden. Each episode will answer a burning question: How did Napoleon's penis end up in suburban New Jersey? Are champagne glasses modeled on Marie-Antoinette's breasts? How did you behave at one of Caligula's orgies? And what were Casanova's best pick-up lines?

Information

  • Creator
    Tony Perrottet
  • Episodes
    13
  • Seasons
    1
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright Tony Perrottet
  • Show Website
    History Unzipped

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