Morbid Mondays
Two friends explore the weird, gross, disturbing and sometimes awesome morbid stories of history. Each week the host take turns telling each other new bizarre stories to cringe at.
Morbid Mondays
Morbid Mondays - Episode 26 - Chinese Foot Binding
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Today we talk about women's feet! More specifically, we talk about the now defunct practice of foot binding in China prior to the 1950's.
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I did that last time. I can't do it again. Greeting.
SPEAKER_00Hello.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to or welcome back to Morbid Mondays, your unhinged source for what the fuck moments throughout history. We will be taking turns giving you your weekly two tour through all the gross, gory, and downright odd moments in history. We are your host, Brian.
SPEAKER_00Katie.
SPEAKER_02Now let's get into it.
SPEAKER_00Fabulous.
SPEAKER_02So today I got a couple of quick things, uh, really just one quick thing. Trigger warnings for this episode.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Will be uh a little bit of body horror, but nothing super grotesque. Like it is, if you've seen pictures, kind of, but nothing super grotesque. Just a little bit. Fair warning. Uh, it's foot stuff. So if you have a thing about feet.
SPEAKER_00And just kind of like general. I don't want to say like chauvinism, but yeah. A little bit.
SPEAKER_02Little bit. Yeah. A little bit. A little bit of of uh of women not being in a great place due to cultural standards.
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, that's 90% of history. Let's be honest.
SPEAKER_02Which is how we open this episode, actually, is a quick, brief talk about that. So before we begin, footbinding, which is our our episode today. Foot binding uh is one of many practices around the world which in which bodies are modified to meet certain societal beauty standards. Boo standards.
SPEAKER_00Agreed.
SPEAKER_02Other practices include the neck rings of the Cayenne Lawi. I'm probably saying a lot of these wrong, uh, because they are all in um they exist all over the world at all times. Um, the lip plates of the Mersai and Surai peoples in Africa, uh, which some of you may have seen like people who have the large uh wooden or clay plates in their upper lip. Uh the corsets of the French aristocracy, and they're very, very, very tight lacing.
SPEAKER_00Fuck tight lacing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Jesus Christ. Uh the or the file teeth of the int Indonesian mintawai people, um, which some of y'all may have seen, uh, really artful tattoos and teeth sharpening. These practices exist for a multitude of reasons and are not always bad. Uh, as an example, the lip plates started as a way to deter slavers from capturing people. Uh, they're specifically done to women. And they now exist as a beautification thing. The bigger the plate, the more like value you are seen to have. And it's it's kind of like a uh That's cool. Yeah, the the higher the hair, the you know what I mean? Like it's one of those kind of things where like the bigger the plate, the more like social standing you have. And it's it's kind of being defended to current day because of its history of like, no, this is like a really proud thing of our history. This is how we kept our people from being like exploited by foreign interests. So sometimes they're not bad. Um unfortunately, this is not one of those times. Uh, but it's worth noting that people often have complex relationships with these kind of practices. They're usually they don't start out of like something simple, they're usually complex culture.
SPEAKER_00And there there are some that are designed. Like there, I I I'm loath to bring it up, but there there is a a vaginal mutilation that is nightmare fuel.
SPEAKER_02That that is like almost explicitly done so that uh people don't have as much sex during intercourse. I mean, as much pleasure rather during intercourse, so it's done specifically to have babies.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's some of it is is not good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and then you have like in that kind of same vein, you have things like circumcision, which probably had a very legitimate purpose at one point in time.
SPEAKER_00And now it's just aesthetics, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because at one point in time, like bacterial infection was a much greater issue.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, so not that making an open wound into someone is much better, but like chances are you could avoid certain things down the road and whatever that case may be. But yeah, like today it's probably just an aesthetic thing, or certainly it's a cultural thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was gonna say it is so standard that most hospitals don't even ask, they just do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And like I don't have kids, so I feel like I can't really weigh in on that.
SPEAKER_02Um Yeah, there's there's kind of reasons for and against it. You'll hear people arguing for and against sometimes, and they both kind of have valid reasons. But at the same time, like HEPACLINES exists.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02It's no longer really a thing.
SPEAKER_00And we have we've advanced medically so far, and like not not only in like actual like medications and drugs and chemicals and stuff, but in just general like knowledge of how the body works. Yeah, most people get your son to move the foreskin.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's it. Usually and usually too, the issue happens when they're like little babies, so it's kind of like on you, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Like, I I don't know. There's I feel like I'm not allowed to have an opinion on this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because one, I am female too, I don't have kids.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It's it's a it's a it's a thing that you have to weigh. I don't I don't like to bash people for it because sometimes it's straight up for like their own cultural or religious reasons.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like it, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02And then sometimes it's just because they don't know that there's another option.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00I think I think that's largely what happened here, like in the West. I'm not gonna say that because that's a generalization, but there is a large portion of the female population that had no idea what a foreskin was.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Until very, very recently.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they right. Yeah, because they because it was everybody. It's at least everybody who was like Yeah, yeah, like it it was pretty prevalent in a very specific population, which we are both members of.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So I'm gonna I'm gonna sit here with my with my not opinion on that because like I I feel like I shouldn't be allowed to weigh in on an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with me.
SPEAKER_02All right. Enough dick talk.
SPEAKER_00Literally. Sorry.
SPEAKER_02But it it's it's so here's the thing from I'm gonna list some of the sources off during this episode because some of them are very just pulled directly from uh from the University of Missouri. Uh the practice itself of foot binding, the practice itself consists of wrapping the feet with bindings to bend the toes under, break the bones, and make uh the front and back of the foot touch. As the practice spread, these bindings became progressively tighter until most women were permanently handicapped or limited in mobility. Uh, from the web site Soho in China, typically starting between the ages of four and six, with cloth uh to alter the shape, aiming to create what were termed lotus feet. Over time it became a defining aspect of feminine beauty and status among the elite, with the most desirable foot size being around three inches. Yeah. Um celebrated as the three-inch golden lotus. Women with with such feet were often seen as more marriageable, uh marriageable as smaller feet were equated to higher social standing and femininity. So to explain part of that, um, one of the reasons why they keep bringing up this lotus thing is that when you see somebody who's wrapped in bandages, their toes, their feet look like lotus buds. So not like the the blossomed flower.
SPEAKER_00And the way that the foot is bound, like once you take the the bandages off. I I happen to I happen to know a a bit about this, uh, because I'm uh you you and I went to school in largely the same era.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh do you remember The Good Earth?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I do. Yeah. Pearless books, one of my favorite books.
SPEAKER_00The that was that was my first like introduction into kind of Eastern like historical culture, even though it is put through a lens, as it were. But like the I ru I remember very specifically his wife binding his daughter's feet, and he walks up on them while they're talking. And the little girl's like, No, please don't. It hurts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And her mother says, I have to, otherwise you won't be beautiful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you'll end up like me.
SPEAKER_02Because she's like a farmer woman, right?
SPEAKER_00Like he he the main character marries her because he needs a wife, and then she subsequently gives him two children, and then he takes a concubine on the side because he's he gets he steadily gets richer and richer and richer and richer from his farm. Yeah, and then he eventually buys her and brings her home and like ignores his wife who has helped him through all of this, and then he like has that moment of realization as he's walking up on his wife binding his daughter's feet because she said, or you'll end up like me. Your your your husband won't love you.
SPEAKER_02And then all his I don't want to spoil the rest of the book, but it's very much like he everything that this poor woman builds for him goes away because more or less because it's such a patriarchal culture. She's clearly the smarter one of the bunch.
SPEAKER_00I I I went through that entire book, like that entire class, AP English, uh, like thinking this man is a moron.
SPEAKER_02He's pretty dumb.
SPEAKER_00He's so stupid. Uh anyway, but yeah, so the good earth, like back in, you know, 2001, was like my initial introduction into like the the concept of foot binding, like as an actual like a thing that girls needed to be considered beautiful. Societal beauty standards, yeah, is where I was going with that and just could not find the words. What was it I couldn't think of earlier? Harem. I couldn't think of the word harem earlier. Anyway, so yeah, to like segue way the fuck back into the point. When you when you look at the foot itself after it's been bound, like once it's essentially immobilized and frozen in the bound position, it looks it looks like a flower that is yet to blossom. Yeah, the way the petals like wrap around like that, because the toes are on the underside, and like the big toe is sitting on on top, looking more like a thumb than a toe itself, and the heel is pressed forward.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's like three ways that you see it. One is where it's like kind of broken in half, and the ball foot. Yeah, it looks like just like a massively high arch. You get sometimes where it comes out looking a bit like an elephant's foot, where all the toes are kind of on the bottom and visible, but it's like a like a club foot a little bit. Um, and then you get sometimes the perfect swirl where they basically take the shape of dancing shoes, which are where that cone shape comes from. And we'll get into why that is here in a second. In front of where I was at, real quick.
SPEAKER_00I wish y'all could see his face just now. You look like you were about to deliver like Evita's speech for just a second, and I was like, whoa. Ava, calm down. I don't care if it was a bad movie or not. I fucking loved that movie. Madonna's people beast.
SPEAKER_02Loved it. I don't yeah, like so. From Britannica, the four smaller toes were tucked underneath, pulled towards the heel and wrapped with bandages. Each time the feet were unbound, the bandages and feet were cleaned. Any dead skin, blisters, dried blood, and pus were removed because it did get that bad. Yes. You are crunching. The the point is it's done so young that the feet grow into the shape. Not that you have to like break them and form them, but sometimes if you start much later, yeah, you are doing it. Because kid bones are like malleable. Yeah, like they they are bendy. They they that's why they bounce when they get it.
SPEAKER_00There are two types of internet scholars here. Brian and Brian Bigbrain over here, like malleable, and I'm just like, Bendy.
SPEAKER_02The process could cause paralysis, gangrene, ulceration, or death. Because sometimes you get like blood clots.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, dude. Some of the reports that I've read, because I I I went into like I looked into this because I was like, why would you do that to a child? I was horrified. I was like, all of 12 and like justice. Um and like the you bruh, it is. I don't know if the general audience is is aware of how easy it is to catch an infection and how quickly just a standard like, oh, that's pus can turn into oh, that's poison in my blood. Now I'm dead.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's a hundred percent. That's why they used these. These bandages were like three feet long, and they would wrap them up. Like twice a day. Constantly changed. So part of one of the reasons why it was considered an upper class thing is you had to have the money. Yeah. Because these aren't they knew how to make bandages, right?
SPEAKER_00So and it was it was so like class driven too. Yeah. Because like as in in middle and lower classes, you you couldn't afford to bind your feet. Because A, you needed to work, you needed to be mobile.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like you needed to to to pull your weight in in your own household, even as a girl.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the male equivalent to this uh in the 1900s was um long nails. Yeah. You see guys with massive pinky. Yes, the pinky nails. Like yeah, and that meant like I don't have to work. Yeah. Otherwise, I couldn't grow these, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um or pale skin as we see in Western cultures.
SPEAKER_02Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And eastern cultures now that I think about it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's where the like classic Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese beauty standards of like having very, very the moonlight skin.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's kind of the moonlight lotus or something like that.
SPEAKER_02I don't have no idea.
SPEAKER_00I d I watch more sea dramas than you. I should, I should know this. White Lotus.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I was like, that's the one with Sydney Sweeney, uh, which I've never seen.
SPEAKER_00Not the show. I think it's like the direct translation of like an endearment or something that means like your childhood love of the ideal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, anyway, continuing. Foot binding, three foot bandages.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Class driven.
SPEAKER_02So binding the feet continued for the rest of the girl's life, woman's life, really, because it's a long time.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um decorated shoes and leggings were worn over the bandages and can differ with the time of day and occasion, just like any other clothes. Um, very much like you might wear jewelry. Uh, note when the foot's wrapped, it looks like a lotus bud. We talked about that a little bit earlier. And it it that was the you see a lot of like white silk when you when you look at pictures, historic pictures of foot binding, because that's kind of what they're going for. They would have like lightly colored or or white silk. People referred to it as the perfect golden lotus if it was like your foot was perfectly sized for this. Uh, three inches is ridiculous. I've never seen even a single picture of somebody with a foot that small. Um, so like that's but that's like the ideal, right?
SPEAKER_00No, I want you, dear listener, to imagine like your foot. You stand on your feet every day. You use your feet to not fall down. You you balance on your feet, you walk with your feet. Yeah. Imagine trying to walk with a little painful nub.
SPEAKER_02You so one of the authors that we'll talk about a little bit later, she says that it became easy for her because what she did is she spent like eight years trying to find people who had foot bindings because many of these people are still alive. So she learned of what was called like the foot binding gate and what she would look for. Uh, if you are um around any place that does rodeos, you might have seen like young men when they first get boots, they don't really know how to wear them, they're very stiff. And and as a game, they run around on their heels. So part of the the foot binding gait is that you're walking on your heels because you don't have toes, right? Like all your toes are underneath, yeah, and your toes are what balance your gait. Yeah. So like that's what she learned to look for was people slightly putting their weight backwards. Yeah. Yeah. Short, short gaits, walking on the heels, a little bit of shuffle. The univers from the again from the University of Missouri, footbinding in Chinese practice first documented, was first documented in the Southern Tong Dynasty, 937 through 956 A.D. Although some poetry from the Han Dynasty um uh dates as far back as 206 BC to 220 AD, China has a lot of very rapidly moving dynasties, which is definitely worth looking up all the things that happen in between. But um it suggests that small feet were culturally preferred before documentation of the custom, uh, which is pretty universal for this reason. It's one of the only things if your society wears a lot of like clothing and wears a lot of makeup, and especially if you are like a smaller built society, because this is a grain-based society, and we see this in like Rome, like the guys are a little shorter because that's just what happens when you when you don't have necessarily a protein-rich diet, you you will actually start to see like height differences in the aristocracy from like the common people because they eat more meat, right? So you actually see like they're bigger. It's it's really strange. But one of the ways in which they defined masculine masculinity or femininity is by things like foot size or how long your hair is, for instance, or or how your hair was braided. So, like in China, for instance, you see a lot of haircuts where the the men wear their hair back braided, but like back, and most of their face and stuff is like clean. They might even shave the front of their forehead. This is like pretty popular in Japan. Guys shave the front of their head. Uh whereas the women's hairstyle is a little more in their face, right? Like, so it's ways to be like you are differentiating masculinity from femininity and like clear at a glance. At a glance, right? And so um the clothing is different, the way that you walk is different. Small feet was their thing, right? Concubines and entertainers were originally the only women with bound feet, however, by the Song dynasty, 960 through 1279 AD, the practice was spread to other regions and classes of China. So side note, this is mostly in one ethnicity, which is the Han ethnicity. Um, the Manchurians and people like that, it never really spreads to them, only on the borders, and like way later in in history. It's it's mostly within the main ethnic group of China, uh, which is the Han. According to Britannica, the exact origin of the practice is an unknown, but most agree that it is because of a male erotic fascination with the shape and point of court dancers.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I heard a very, very, very long time ago because I once again I looked, I looked all of this up like, you know, in 2001 when I hit high school and was exposed to the good earth, and I was like, the fuck why?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Why would you do that to someone? And I read, and I do not know if this is true or not. So take this entire like little segment that I'm about to give you with a grain of sand, not even salt. I read that once upon a time, as it were, the empress sleepwalked to the point where like she would hurt herself. Like she would get, she would fall off things, she would, she would wake up injured in danger. And the emperor loved her so much that he like like was trying to find ways to keep her safe. And that's that's that was the beginning of feet binding because he noticed like when like if he if he bound her feet up just a little bit, she couldn't get as far away.
SPEAKER_02So I've got a terrible story for you.
SPEAKER_00And I don't think it's true, it's probably not like it's it's definitely something like romanticized.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so here's the story, here's the version I heard.
SPEAKER_00But it's stuck.
SPEAKER_02The version that I came across is that one of the emperors of because remember, at this point in time, there's many kingdoms.
SPEAKER_00It's always the goddamn emperor, yeah.
SPEAKER_02There is a prince, uh, whose name I think is Lee, um, like L-I. I it's in these notes somewhere, but he has a uh he has a concubine and he sees the court dancers and he likes the way they dance on their shoes. Think more like ballerina, they don't necessarily have bound feet, but the court dancers started getting bound feet because it was a practice that they had within their troops to perform very specific kind of dances. At this point, they are not trying to get a three-inch foot.
SPEAKER_00No, this was probably more like early stages of ballet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, think think more like toe dancing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like being on point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that is literally popular all across Asia. Yeah. People spinning and stuff in their dances, right? Especially when you get up into like Russia. Yeah. Right. Even currently with actual ballet, right? But but so probably it wasn't nearly as bad as what it became. But this guy basically made one of his courtesans do it. It started spreading from there because now it's a status thing. Well, I've got a I've I've got a uh a concubine that's doing the same thing as the princes, and you know what I mean? Like it becomes an aristocracy thing. As it spreads around largely through the kind of keeping up with the Joneses, like first it starts with the aristocracy and then it becomes the wealthy merchant class. Fashion. Fashion. Yes. This is like the hair accessories of uh aristocratic France, right? Like you start getting into the crazy shit. Although foot binding started uh in the upper classes, it rapidly spread, and poorer families could not afford the bandages or lack of labor, as you mentioned before, associated with hobbled women, because it's really hard to do farm work when you're hobbled. Foot binding was not done until the Girls were older once they got married, because for some reason they used the little kids for farm labor and not the teenagers. Like that, that part never truly made sense to me, but it's probably just because you can't really do it in reverse.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, like so. So once the girls got married, the bandages were taken off and she re-entered the workforce because wives in ancient China, like in Confucian China, basically, were part of the workforce. They did a lot of the work around the house.
SPEAKER_00Especially in in like middle and lower classes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Whatever farm work was to be done, she was out there doing it. Yeah, like so. However, once the practice had set in culturally, the practice would usually be introduced and enforced by the older women in the family. Um, there was supposed to be a part in there that was like, no, no, there was. We just we just bounced a little bit. Uh it started off as like a a like male erotic fixation around feet, essentially, around this one guy and these dancers. Um, and but it like all things that become generational, it starts being enforced by like why do women wear makeup because the other women, when they're teenagers, will fucking dog them if they don't. You know what I mean? Like it becomes a a bit of the social hierarchy and also the male gaze. Yeah. Right? Like, because of the marriage thing. Like, if you want to move up in society, in this society, having bound feet is basically a must.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, especially if you if you want to marry up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Or if you mentioned with the perilous buck thing, right? Yeah. If if you want to be seen as beautiful, you're gonna have to do this. Um, getting your feet bounded at at a later date, like 10 or 12, your feet are gonna break. Yeah. Like it's gonna be considerably more painful. Uh so here's here's where we've got um this is from Joe Farrell. Joe Farrell is a uh is a great last name.
SPEAKER_00That's what.
SPEAKER_02Joe Farrell is uh uh an author. She she spent a great, she's the person I was talking about earlier that spent eight years documenting um various women in China who had had their feet bound. A lot of interviews. She's featured on the BBC, she's featured on The Guardian, and a lot of other places, really excellent stuff. You know, that you can see photographs, interviews with these women. That they're all in like their 90s. It's it's that's really interesting. Um, a quote from her. I feel so many people talk about how barbaric the tradition was, but it was also tradition that empowered women. This is this is a little bit like odd, right? Farrell says it gave them a better life. They were doing the best for themselves because of feudal traditions, women with large feet were not likely to get married. Matchmakers picked women who had bound feet because it showed they could tolerate pain and she would not complain as a wife, explains Farrell. Because it it does have to be said that like China was a feudal culture all the way up into the early 1900s. Men were not super kind to women in in Confucianist society. Um and they were kind of expected to be very, very quiet, not complain a lot. You know, they were essentially kind of seen a little bit as property, you know, like the there was no little bit to it. Yeah. And so, and and that's not unique to China. That that is a thing that exists in many cultures all over the world. Quote, I think one of the most important things that came across was that they had a kind of pride in what happened to them. Most of them told me or showed me their feet had been much smaller before, she said. And the the reason why she says this is at some point it becomes, and we'll talk about this later, but it becomes illegal to have your foot bound. And probably not when people think, strangely enough. Um, from Asianometry.com, which I thought was a great name, John Y, um, who just says Y, doesn't give his full last name. Um how prevalent was footbiting in Han society? It was never practiced outside the Han ethnic group, and even a number of sub-ethnic cultural groups like the Hakka never practiced it. Various estimations of graveyards and historical accounts uh uh account for about 50% of Han society women. One survey of a small village in 1929, uh 1,736 women from 515 families found that some 99% of women 40 and over had their feet bound. For women 30 years and over, the percentage was 95. This was in 1929. Babe Ruth was hitting home runs for the Yankees at the same time. Jesus. I like that tidbit that he left in there of like same time, same time period. We are in the interim between two world wars. Adolf Hitler is like a shitty artist at this time.
SPEAKER_00Rejected from art school.
SPEAKER_02No, actually, he's he's coming up, he's coming up in the bad ways right about now, actually. Um, which sucks.
SPEAKER_00And people were still binding feet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And we're in Imperial, uh, not 1929, but when we're in the like early, early 1900s, all the way up till I think it's 1917, this is Imperial China. This is the last Emperor of China whose name is oh, I'll remember it here in a second. It's uh Pu Yi, that's what his name is. Yeah, um there's a whole great movie about the Forbidden City, about Puyi and his whole thing. So the the reason why I mentioned that earlier, though, about like what uh Joe Farrell said about the Amount of Pride is because there is a little bit of that, because it's a complex thing for them, right? Some of them, it's like I'm gonna get into some quotes from these women because we she published all of her work, so we can see like she's got these great snippets from these women. This is from Britannica. It symbolized a girl's willingness to obey, just as it limited the mobility and power of females, kept women subordinate to men, and increased the differences between the sexes. It ensured a girl's marriage ability in the patrilineal Chinese culture, and was uh a shared bond between daughters, mothers, and grandmothers. Foot binding was also a prestige symbol and a popular belief that was it uh a popular belief was that it increased the fertility because the blood would flow up to the legs, hips, and vaginal areas. Essentially, like, yeah. Not a good belief. It's it's it's under it's it's assuming that like the blood never, the amount of pressure never changes, that's always the same, you know what I mean? Like that we're gonna squeeze the feet so more of it stays higher in the body.
SPEAKER_00So angry. Continue.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's not how that works. It's not how that works at all.
SPEAKER_02Here we go. From an article in The Guardian, Bo Farrell uh met tens of women, I think it's like 50 something, uh, over a span of eight years with bound feet in China. And there were some here's some quotes from those articles. Su Xi Rong says she was the most beautiful woman in the village because of her small, well-formed bound feet. I saw her again in November 2014. She can no longer walk very far, and she has put on a lot of weight, and her small feet cannot support her. Su Xi Rong uh told me that because of feudal traditions, if you did not bind your feet, you would not get married. If she tried to unbind her feet, her grandmother would cut a slice of her the skin off of her toes to punish her. This is the very much the other side of it. Like some people were like, Oh, I take a lot of pride in this because it you know what we said about like all these women had this in common, all of her family had this in common. It's part of her culture, all that kind of stuff. But the other side of it is like, oh yeah, and it it was like torture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Pu He Ying, 76 years old in 2011 in Yunnan province, I think maybe Pei, Pei's feet were bound at seven and were briefly unbound at the age of 12 in 1949, which was required at that time. Unbinding hurt as it forced women to readjust the way that they stood and walk with broken toes. Because of this, Pue, I'm gonna say this like different every time, has kept her feet bound to this day. An avid bowler, she told me that she traveled to Kunming once a month to take part in a tournament.
unknownHuh?
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um, there's one really interesting story that I read where a group of these women from a small like agricultural city got together in the 1970s and they had a disco troupe. They would go dance, they would disco dances, and they all had bound feet.
SPEAKER_00That's so cute.
SPEAKER_02And they they got heckled at one place because they're like they got they said this is like a freak show. And because they their whole thing was like we're disco dancers who all have bound feet. They didn't see it that way. That they were just like, no, we're just trying to like have fun and get around, and like there's not a lot we can do. So, like, you know, like it it's a bittersweet kind of thing. It's a fun story, but it's kind of like, yeah, it's like you can't do any kind of work, right? They because they can't stand, yeah.
SPEAKER_00You can't stand for extended periods of time, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Without being in extreme amounts of pain, some of these women go through. Ma Zen Yi, um, 96 years old in 2014, Shandong Province. She had her feet bound at seven years old. She cried so much that her grandfather complained uh about he was like, kind of like your Pearl S. Buck reference of like the dad walking in, going like, well, what the hell? You know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But he couldn't stop it. She unbound her feet at 30, as women would be fined if they didn't. We'll get into why that is. Because earlier I said like 1946 it was required for her to unbind. This is from uh Yun Young, a writer whose book is about all of these women. Uh, this is how she sees them. These women were shunned by two eras, Young says. When they were young, foot binding was already forbidden. So they bound their feet in secret. When the communist era came, production methods changed. They had to do farming work, and again they were shunned. Wrapping all these stories together, one of these ladies said like she had to undo them when it came in 1946, uh, sorry in 1949. What happened was the rise of communism in China. They outright outlawed it. Um, the pro they the problem was is that Mao in the 60s, Mao is going to have this thing called the Cultural Revolution, and it's highly agrarian-based, and so everybody kind of becomes a farm worker or a factory worker for a little while. Can't do that with bound feet very well.
SPEAKER_00Either of those things.
SPEAKER_02So in con in hardcore communism, especially Maoism, your usefulness to society and how you're able to act within it, that's your cultural value. It's not based off of money, it's how like well you integrate.
SPEAKER_00How you can contribute. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so, and if you have bound feet, you like this is this is kind of the issue with this, is that like if you're stuck in a wheelchair, you know what I mean? Like it's it people might see you as lesser because you can't do the the fact some of the like farm work and stuff. Later, they're gonna get a lot better at about this, but like this is gonna culminate in a five-year plan that really, really does a lot of damage to the Chinese people. Mao is gonna kind of be shunted a little bit. Yeah, like they're gonna be basically go, like, okay, time to retire, grandpa. And then other people are gonna take over and try to modernize everything. From Britannica, during the uh Qing uh also called the Manchu Dynasty, uh, Emperor Kangxi uh reigned from 1661 to 1722. Uh he banned footbinding in 1662, but withdrew the ban because in 1668, because so many uh so many Chinese were still practicing it, opposition to the practice became more and more widespread when missionaries to China argued that it was cruel. Missionaries also pointed out the rest of the world looked down on it. Um, and this is this is um we'll go, we'll actually name the guy that that did this later, but part of this movement was not always great. Sometimes it kind of like infantilized Chinese people as like a backward barbarian culture. It didn't always come from a great place, but it did start the ball rolling. And most like a lot of Chinese authors that when I was doing this research did note that they were like, these are largely like guys that are coming in after the British and the French win a couple of wars, like like the um after the Boxer Rebellions and stuff, the British get more purchase into the country, the French get more purchase, and and missionaries are able to come into China. One of the things that they attack is footbinding uh as a cultural practice for not always great reasons, but towards a positive end. Because footbinding sucks, like footbinding is a terrible practice.
SPEAKER_00Full stop.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's painful. Yeah, it doesn't do anything for anybody. It's it's highly cultural specific. And by the time of the nationalist revolution in the early 1900s, it's it's out. Like you see photos from like 1911, 1917, where women are walking with bound feet right next to women in high heels. And like nobody has bound feet, and none of the young women have bound feet. And um this is again from uh John Y of uh Asianometry. Uh it is estimated that some two billion women had their feet bound over the years from 960, 949, sorry, to 1950. Foot binding is a tradition that lasted 1,000 years. It died out in just 20.
SPEAKER_00Damn.
SPEAKER_02Anti-foot binders took a three-pronged approach to stamping out the practice. First, an educational campaign that focused on two main messages other countries did not bind the feet of their women by practice in footbinding. China was losing face, as they would say. That's something that like people don't really say. Yeah. It was a lot more common at that time.
SPEAKER_00I I I get it. I get it because of, you know.
SPEAKER_02This is like Confucian, Confucian China. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like I I I I understand the phrasing there.
SPEAKER_02Because the guy that's doing this is that is that missionary we're talking about. Like so, this is like way back, right? This isn't in the early 1900s.
SPEAKER_00This isn't like for anyone that can't context clues that out, to to lose face is to shame your family or to be don't don't rephrase it like that. Um, is is basically to kind of be without pride.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like you are, you have you you have you've shamed your family.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you've been caught with your pants down in the Confucian-based society. It's not just you, it embarrasses you and everyone else. And you're like employer, and yeah, yeah, like losing face is a big deal. Yeah, you're you're you're not meant to like stand out poorly, you're meant to to stand out in very specific ways or not stand out at all. And so these kind of cliff notes in here are from S. Rajjali. He wrote a paper about um foot binding uh in the early period all the way to 1917, and specifically he tried to write it from the perspective of not erasing Chinese women, because all of these are almost entirely written from like what men say about it. And that's why I wanted to mention like the some of the pride that's in some of these women's voices when they talk to people about this, because when you ask the women, it's a little more complicated. Yeah, some of them have like fond memories of their grandmothers rapping their feet, and like their grandmother had rap feet, so it's like I imagine that it would be a a cultural point of contact, especially from like you know, various generations of women within one family, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like I and I and I get that there could be some some positive association with like drawing comfort from that time spent with other females within the family.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But like I wouldn't know because I've never I like I did ballet for like two years and then quit because my feet hurt.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Imagine like the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00I don't I don't have the arches for that, or the ankles for that matter. Uh, but like I can only imagine how painful it was. And then to bond with what is essentially like a matriarchal sub-society within your family, yeah. To have that support, I imagine that would be a point of comfort andor pride for these people.
SPEAKER_02And it's like a double-sided, it's a little bit like a double-edged sword, because when people talk about it, sometimes they say, like, well, this is this is a a clear and obvious thing of like keeping women down and and and male oppression and all that stuff. And I would agree, like, that's where I fall with all this. I'm like, that's too much. This is not like jewelry, you know, like some people might think well, what about things like you know, piercing ears, or or we brought up circumcision? I was like, circumcision doesn't cost you pain for the rest of your life. Yeah. And that's an extreme case, right? Like, and the the cultural equivalent for most people in the modern world and in China, uh, currently, is like you might get your kids' ears pierced when they're little kids, especially little girls.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So that like, once again, like at a glance, you could differ differentiate the gender of the infant.
SPEAKER_02So it's like it there's nothing that's is this impactful. Um, the most extreme thing that I can really think of is sometimes in um this is true of America, and it's true of South Korea, and it's true of some places in Japan and China as well, but like the cosmetic surgery industry, you know, having perfect children, as they might say, and you know, like that this has been a thing in in in wealthier families in Korea for a little while, um, and definitely is a Hollywood thing, you know, like if you're like rich in California, but like that's I I sometimes compare those two things to foot binding because I'm like that that that's pain. You know, like you're you're gonna go through, it's gonna hurt.
SPEAKER_00Um and permanently altering your body.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and for the exact same reasons of societal beauty standards. And so, like, yeah, back to um what S. Rajalias wrote in 1875, Reverend McGowan uh of the London Missionary Society founded the first anti-foot binding association, the Heavenly Foot Society and the Southern uh, and that that is meant to be very much an opposite of the Lotus, because the Lotus is often uh an image associated with like Buddhism or or Confucianism cult. Like when you look at artwork, right? Uh the Buddha is standing on a lotus. So, or or Quan Yin is standing on a lotus or something like that, right? So he's this is uh the introjection of Christianity into society.
SPEAKER_00I cannot sit still today and I don't know why. I'm just restless, apparently.
SPEAKER_02Caffeine.
SPEAKER_00Not that much, like a energy drink, yeah. And a cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_02Honestly, though, it's probably just because you were you were having frustration with writing earlier. You were like, but and you you can't move a lot with that frustration.
SPEAKER_00So I also goblet in every chair I sit in. So anyway, continue, please.
SPEAKER_02The Heavenly Foot Society and the Southern Treaty Port of Amoy, uh shimen, I think is how you said it. Um Vigawan, who coined the first term uh Tianzu or natural feet, or heavenly feet, depending on probably the character that you use to write it. Um secondly, there were many advantages of natural feet, like the ones um above. They would organize this is worded a little weird, the advantages of natural feet of of like what they're saying to people, right?
SPEAKER_00Of not binding your feet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Organize large events where people can see raw photos and x-rays of bound feet. The very name Tian Zhu Hui Hui. God damn, I really H-U-I-Hui?
SPEAKER_00Hui.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I need to brush up on my ca I read too many things that are that are in Chinese characters. Like I don't read Chinese characters, but that are in Chinese pronunciation to not know how to say these things. Um, means heavenly foot society implies that natural feet are from heaven and are better because you're born with them. Yeah. Right? So the things that you are born with. Third, the movement established and spun off hundreds of grassroots natural foot societies. Society members promised that they would not practice foot binding and also not allow their sons to marry women with bound feet. This is a direct tactic to upset the cultural side of it. Yeah. Because without doing that, it's not going to change. Yeah. This is this is a true like grassroots from the ground movement. It's also said that this isn't just by this point Christian missionaries. By this point, it is largely transitioned to Chinese elites who want to see China modernize. Because now we're moving into the end of the 1800s. They have lost, like heavily lost a lot of conflicts with foreigners. The Japanese are coming up. And uh and China is looking to modernize. Um, even to the point of where like the Chinese government has imported. People from all over the world to help them do so. Their major, their first revolution, which is their like republic, it's like a democratic nationalist movement. All of this triggers because of a train. Like somebody's building a train and it gets taken over, and then they try to use some of the funds to pay and pay someone else off, but they don't have enough. So the train doesn't get made. And basically the railroad tracks don't get laid. And so basically the people who read up on the finances of the country, the elites, right? They all look down and go, Well, this shit doesn't fucking work. Right? Like we're gonna have to do something about this. And then there's a series of rebellions that happen to try to take down the imperial government because it's just ineffective. You're your your Three Kingdoms dramas were like the general is a super badass and all this kind of stuff. By this point, he's just like an overweight 40s paper pusher. Yeah. Who who has never really led a battle to fight anyone.
SPEAKER_00The the the occasional drama that I've read during this or read, watched during this particular time period is just bizarre to me because it it kind of feels a bit like a costuming mishmash.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Like they're all in traditional clothes, and then like a British guy walks in in like a 1920s suit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. With like a saber and a firearm. It's freaking weird. And and the saber's ornamental. It's the yeah, he's got a repeating firearm and the other guy's got a fucking sword. Yeah. You know, like or or a bolt action that barely works.
SPEAKER_00But it's it's it's interesting that like there was an actual movement within the the culture itself to yeek this out.
SPEAKER_02Right, because it it just did not work. And then because it's gonna it's largely gonna get taken over by like industrialists, it's going to form an upper class society very rapidly, and then you have communism.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_02Once because the Japanese come in and they fucking wreck these guys. Um, and then you there's a brief period where the nationalist armies are fighting the communist armies. Uh Mao Zedong does this giant tactical retreat where he like circles the whole country around the farm, around the all the out provinces, right? Not around the big cities. He goes way around.
SPEAKER_00This sounds familiar.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And what he's doing is he's picking up pissed-off farm workers the whole time that are all been given the shaft. Yeah. Uh, while dragging out this guy's logistics across the country, who is um Chiang Hai Shek. And it's called the March to the Patriots. It's still a big part of Chinese culture, it's literally in their national anthem at times. And uh, yeah. So it's but it's it was a tactical bit of acumen that really did fucking pay off. They lost millions doing this because they're also fighting the Japanese at the time. Um, but it it worked and they won. It was outlawed. Foot binding was outlawed when the nationalists come in. Uh they tried to, but they're they weren't quite as organized, they couldn't upset the culture as much. It was on its way out. By the time uh the Communist Party comes in, they outright outlaw it. They don't they'll go around. If you have foot bindings on you, they will fine you.
SPEAKER_00And so uh there's this shouldn't they have so shouldn't they should have had someone within like that sphere of lawmaking that said, uh unbinding their feet will be even more painful.
SPEAKER_02So that was kind of a thing. Because like but the problem with like early communist movements is that often the guys that wound up in power were just like guys that fought in the war. Yeah. This is an issue with Russia too, right? The first generation of guys that's like, who runs that factory now? Uh John the farmer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right?
SPEAKER_00Like it's I I would think that that would be like kind of a logistics thing, or at least at the at the very least, like you know, you you would look at something and realize that those those ties, those the the binding themselves are offering support structure so this person can walk.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And it it's acting like the sole of your shoe, bro. There is a a funny story that I read where the inspector comes around and this lady um they wrapped her feet like extra thick and put like socks on and they put big shoes on her. Cute. So that the so the guy, yeah, morbid. Yeah, the guy thought she just had big feet and then left. Because the other thing is too, the feet were like a sensual thing. So the guys weren't looking at their feet. Yeah. So most of them just put shoes on, and then that was the end of the story. I think probably a lot of them knew and just turned an eye. For the reasons that you just stated. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because like I don't, I don't the closest thing that I can equate this to, like, to having a limb bound and then forced un into an un unbound position. You gotta stutter today, I can't think of words, we're a mess. Would be like when you're coming out of a cast or a um a brace, where like say your arm or your wrist or your hand has been held in one position for so long.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And you are essentially like having to force muscles and tendons and in some cases, even the bones, to move again. Now imagine like having worn that cast or brace your entire adult life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, maybe, maybe like 40 years.
SPEAKER_00As opposed to a couple of months while your bones reset.
SPEAKER_02And some of these ladies get around. Like there was a photo that I uh a story that I read and a photo that kind of accompanied the story, where this lady was carrying around her 20-pound, like 20-pound grandkid and had like bound feet, very, very small bound feet. And she was like, Yeah, it hurts sometimes. Like some of them, some of them don't feel like tremendous amount of pain, and then some of them they're like so there are some days that I can't put my feet on the ground.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it it really, it's it's kind of horrendous. Um, so I do have some good news. Um, as they stated, as as uh uh the the writer from Asian Asianometry stated earlier, it took like 20 years to dismantle. The people who are alive now who have bound feet um had them back then. So they're all like 90 plus. They're uh kind of a disappearing generation, um, which is why the writer uh was going around doing all these interviews. And in 1999, the last shoe factory making lotus shoes and Shequan Shoe Factory uh in Harbin closed. And some women are still alive, although much older, as I just stated, or 90 or above. And this practice is pretty much done. You heard about this first in Pearl S. Buck. I heard about it as an urban legend because people used to say that they still did it when I was a kid that like Chinese people bound their kids' feet because people knew nothing about the Chinese, I guess, in 1980. They should have. They were there's plenty of Chinese Americans. And then there was this horrid rumor about people growing cats like this. Do you remember this was a thing in the 90s? Growing cats. There was a thing about Chinese and Japanese people where people the rumor was that they grew cats in little boxes and that you fed them through a hole, and then like like essentially the cat's body was bound into a cube. I have never found any evidence that this is real.
SPEAKER_00I've never even heard that.
SPEAKER_02And I I think it was just a racist rumor.
SPEAKER_00I think so too. Uh, because I I had neighbors that were both military spouses. Yeah, that that were like that I uh we lived beside one who was also my like caretaker as a child. Her name was Miss Connie, and she was one of the sweetest people I've ever met, and she's the only reason that I have any kind of core knowledge, I guess I would say, about Chinese culture. Yeah, I learned it from her.
SPEAKER_02I was lucky and had a a dad that that worked in in uh air supply. So he worked um he worked selling like air traffic um um air start units, which is when you when you're on a tarmac and you see that that little truck that comes up that winds up the turbines of your of your plane before it takes off. That he sold those and he sold big uh tractors that move the plane around and all that stuff and and some military equipment. And we had a friend whose name was Joe Chen, and Joe Chen was like a colonel or something in the Chinese military, and she was a procurement officer, right? Like she would come and talk to salesmen and stuff. Draw did gorgeous. Of course. I was in love with her. My god, I really was like she was so she was just so damn classy looking every time I saw her, and was so nice. And so it always struck me whenever I heard these kind of like myths. I'm like, nah.
SPEAKER_00No, yeah, I I I never heard any of that.
SPEAKER_02It it was stupid stuff that people said, and like, you know, yeah, and I never in South Georgia and the it fucking yeah.
SPEAKER_00When I moved down here and people started making jokes about like, you know, dogs being used as food.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there are some countries where people do eat dogs. They are not talking about your dog, by the way. They're talking about wild dogs.
SPEAKER_00Also, that is that is not exactly common.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Take your racist shit out of here.
SPEAKER_02You might find people eating, like, for instance, there's Africa has wild dogs, big dangerous wild dogs. They are not domesticated. Yeah. Yeah. So fuck. Yeah, it's uh it's racist bullshit. I've met some people who've tried who were in Vietnam in like the 80s, right? You talked about like some of the way out villages, right? Yeah. Might have some places that serve dog.
SPEAKER_00And um, but it's like you would you would more commonly find people that served horse.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Horse is like a pretty commonly eaten thing around the world.
SPEAKER_00Why, why, why are we not freaking out about that?
SPEAKER_02Right. Nobody freaked, like the the you could still in in many parts of the Middle East, Mongolia, a lot of places still get a horse, and I'm sure it's great.
SPEAKER_00I want to try it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I'm also an adventurous eater, let's be honest. Yeah, if someone if I occasionally to my detriment.
SPEAKER_02If I went to a restaurant and they sold dog, I'd be like, how how is it obtained? Is what I would care about. Yeah. Right? A hunted wild dog, or or like because if you live in a farming village, like a wild dog's a fucking problem. Right? Like they like that's not only your pigs, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, your livestock occasionally, your children, yeah. You could be in danger. Like, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It's it's one of those like Australian dingo situations. Yeah, it's like you better pop that fucking dog. It's it's real dangerous. You better come get that fucking dog. Yeah. But uh, but yeah, I don't know how I got off on that tangent, but but square cats binding square like that's how we got there. I don't know where that but but to wrap that weird tangent up, nobody's binding their feet anymore. That's not a thing. Yeah. Um, that has not been a thing since 1949. Even if like in one of the way out farming villages, you might have a couple of people. Super rare. And and they're gonna be like in their eighties now. Because they were very serious about stomping this out. They were like, this is an old world practice, especially by the sixties, the cultural revolution tried to do away with a lot of like um imperial cultural stuff, right? So like even down to like the religious.
SPEAKER_00Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02And and they really they tried they tried to get rid of a lot of stuff, some of which to the detriment of Chinese culture, right? And but all that stuff kind of bounced back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02From all accounts and that I'm seeing around China today, they all seem to be pretty happy. So well, that's good. Yeah, unless you're you don't want to be like side note, you know, if you're if you're one of the uh minority ethnicities, like the the Muslim Uyghur population of China, you're probably not doing so great. But com communism doesn't do well with people that don't conform well. So like Jewish people, for instance, wouldn't do great in China, like in general, because but like like that here in America, like we have Hasidic populations, right? Um that as a religious practice don't conform. That would be an issue in in especially in 1960s China. They'd be like, no, conform immediately. They like all things, they're calming down. But that's so that's my thing about foot binding. But I wanted to open up the end uh to a conversation about um what you think the things of today are. Like we talked about like plastic, the plastic surgery culture, the perfect kid culture.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um I ironically, I was I was doom scrolling as as one does, and I God help me, I don't know why I doom scroll on Reddit. I need to stop.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's a dangerous place.
SPEAKER_00I know, I know, I know, but like I'm also like members of subreddit, uh, subreddits called like saucy Victorians, so that's fun. Um I love the picture of the lady. She's she's a larger figure. I'm I'm a plus size bitch, I can say that. And she's got a pair of teacups on her tits.
SPEAKER_02A BTV. Big titty Victorian.
SPEAKER_00And she's just grinning at the camera. Uh I love it because they're still real people. I don't give a fuck what all these historical pictures that we're all so familiar with, them all grim-faced and very serious. Nah, nah, nah.
SPEAKER_02There's a great Victorian era picture, uh, or maybe a little bit later, but of a guy uh posing with his dog.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And his dogs and a tux.
SPEAKER_00Yes, they were goofy too. Anyway, so as I was saying, I I ran across um one of those like rage bait, clickbait, like you you know what I mean. Like the the the splash pictures of like, you know, woman gets uh woman gets plastic surgery so that her children won't inherit her ugly nose. And I was like, mm-mm, mm-mm.
SPEAKER_01Mm-mm.
SPEAKER_00First of all, I see what you did there. I'm not gonna click and rant at you because that's just gonna feed into this. No, no. But I I I agree that I think I think that plastic surgery is has kind of become the modern footbinding. Now, granted, that said, in I say that because it is so socially acceptable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now, like, like in in today's society, like I speaking as someone that that went to school that was very, very, very self-conscious about their nose, I have a very Czech nose. Like, I I say that because I take after my father's side of the family. Like, we all have a very specific nose, and I can see it on my father's face, on my grandmother's face, on my uncle's face, in my cousin's face. We all have the same goddamn nose. And I was always very, very, very self-conscious about it because it is, it is an I have a large nose, and it does have like this little bump in the middle of it. And I was always very subcons very, very self-conscious about it. And I wanted a nose job for the longest time. And it was, it would have been it would have been socially unacceptable for me at the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because that was, you know, the 90s and the early aughts, and I was a child.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But now it would be no big thing.
SPEAKER_02And it that was definitely the valley girl thing at the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's really what I mean by like, well, like, like with the footbinding thing, it starts with the elites.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And then it bleeds out everywhere else.
SPEAKER_00And like it's it's nothing now for you to take a lunch break and go get like thread lifts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Or or Botox. I I am let me tell you when I say when I say this, please don't take it the wrong way. I am so pro Botox, you don't even know.
SPEAKER_02It's it's way safer than it used to be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like I have no issue with any of these like procedures at all. None at all. I are you kidding me? Give me another 20 years, I'm gonna be the first in line for a breast lift. Are you kidding? I am a vain bitch. I really am. I wear so much makeup, like all the time, with the exception of today.
SPEAKER_02Um she says, as I'm looking at her face right now.
SPEAKER_00Winged eyeliner, that's it. Uh that's it. That's it. Literally, eyeliner and like, I think I'm wearing mascara. I can't remember. I think I am. But like it is so it's gone from being like, oh my God, she's had work done, to oh my god, you got work done.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know? Like it's it's it's the same words, but the inflection and the socially acceptableness of it has changed.
SPEAKER_02And I I think part of it is because A, they've gotten a lot better at it, so it's less it's less obstructive to you. Like, because the Botox back in the day it was like botulinum toxin. Yeah. Right? That's where the word comes from. Now they've got it down to such a science that it doesn't do that whole like stretched face thing if you go to the right place.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're it's it's three injections, and it just kind of paralyzes and fills in the muscles right there.
SPEAKER_02Like poop. What I do really worry about with Just yeet those 11s out the face. What I do really worry about with that though is is more like you can kind of see it in the BBL market. If you don't have the money and you try to keep up with these standards and you go to like somebody's fucking bathtub surgery room. I 100% agree.
SPEAKER_00I I I happen to know someone that that got a BBL. She got liposuction, BBL, she got all of the work done all at the same time. And let me tell you, I I I worked with her through her recovery after that. Like she took the initial like two weeks off that you know, because immediate trauma.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like, I'm I I'm not gonna go into in depth of what like gets done during either of those procedures, but they are I'm aware medically violent.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh it's not cold sculpting, I'll tell you that much.
SPEAKER_00No, yeah, it is it like first of all. I like when she came back to work, I was like, absolutely not. You you are you are going to lean, you are going to relax because you are still recovering from like literally having your body modified. No, she looked. She and she was and she seemed so happy with it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so, like, so long as you're happy, that's fine. So long as you're healthy, God, please be so careful. And I begged her to be careful before she left. Uh, but all of her work done once once she was healed and everything. But man, when she described like where she went and like the practices and like what she had to pay extra for, yeah, I was like, Yeah. Oh, you were like a step and a half away from like a hotel room and a bathtub. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you you right. I don't there was a scandal years ago where a lady was doing uh butt injections, like the the before they were called BBLs. Does anybody butt injections?
SPEAKER_00I think I know what you're talking about because I think she was on an episode of botched.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was not like fucking fix a flat or some shit. They were putting like rubber into people's buttons.
SPEAKER_00It was it was uh it was rubber cement.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And it was just like, oh, that's and people they found out because the chemicals were leaching into their bodies.
SPEAKER_00And they were getting like violently ill and like their skin was rotting off. Dude, yeah. So yeah, I I think I I honestly think in a way, plastic surgery, like just the social the the and the the the the not only the social acceptance, but the way that the social stigma around it has gone away. Because I I very, very distinctly remember a time when it was like hella fucking taboo to even like cons even admit that you had been considering getting plastic surgery done.
SPEAKER_02In a weird way, you know what I think one of the things is gonna be like when because some of these are only gonna touch on some of the cultural harm hallmarks of why foot binding was done. In a strange way, I think one of the things that's gonna come up is like from an elite down perspective and from like a quote unquote marriage ability, because I see it in the manosphere content, is if if you're if you have ever had an online presence. Oh because that is very much a like if the economy suddenly crashes, a lot more women will work in the sex industry because you just to survive, right?
SPEAKER_00Sex work is some of the oldest work in in culture in society in general.
SPEAKER_02There is literally only like is is as much as it is like it's the oldest profession. There are oldest professions, but probably only like five. One of them's like bow maker. It's yeah, shit. It's fletching weaver, yeah, yeah. It's super old.
SPEAKER_00So that's another thing that I I have I have legit beef with, and we we may have to cut that into like an entire other episode. But the the purity culture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Because I was raised on it.
SPEAKER_02And like how that came to be, and all it and and how much how much that's affected. I I also don't kind of in mirroring to that, I don't think that you would have half of the um social stigma or even practices that exist today if the purity culture was not as prevalent.
SPEAKER_00Well, and honestly, part of the purity culture, like part of part of the beginning of it, I guess I would I I could say was STIs and STDs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like what's the the surest fire way to protect your son, protect your daughter, protect your legacy? From these things that we don't understand, these illnesses that we know for a fact come from.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because you're talking about you're talking about like syphilis in the fourteen hundreds. Yeah. Yeah. Like how do you protect from that? And no one did.
SPEAKER_00I well, yeah, you they didn't have a way to. Like, you know, uh what was it sheepskin? Lamb skin? Lamb skin.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, lamb and lamb intestine condoms for the first real prophylactic.
SPEAKER_00Your real, your only like real barrier, and even that was sus.
SPEAKER_02Uh but the libertines loved the fuck out of them. They wrote whole poems.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And like I I maintain that a lot of our beauty bullshit stems from that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that to maintaining a certain ideal. And I think that's that's really starting to to change because now very much an opposite of purity culture, because now we have like porn.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, and like we have only fans. We have people that are extremely famous on all on across like the internet or like social media or even regular media that got their start on OnlyFans. Like I I happen to follow a couple of people, uh especially on Instagram, that that got their start on OnlyFans and now rake in millions that they donate like over half of their income to like various charities and stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Just because like they're yes, it's absurd, and I love them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But like, but because they they have pornographic content online or they have done like you know, sex work, they would be looked down upon, even though they have done these amazing things for various charities for things that people with money and power should be doing without having to be asked to do it.
SPEAKER_02Right. And the great irony is if if they did, most sex work wouldn't even exist.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean? Like, that's the good to me, that's the the craziest irony, is like if you don't have a like a trillionaire class, it becomes a lot less needed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I listen, it's strippers are some of the nicest people I have ever met. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_02I would love, I still maintain I I want if my my dream podcast, if I ever did like just a fun, weird, stupid thing, I would love to get like three, like four strippers and or burlesque dancers and just do a DD game. Oh because I feel like they would come up with the best characters ever. Oh, hell yeah. Because they're so used to embodying a character. It's like having like it's a professional actor, right?
SPEAKER_00The best improv. The best. Their ability to yes and yeah, fuck yes.
SPEAKER_02And also like to not get nervous about anything. Yeah, you're not gonna fluster somebody who's used to doing that kind of work.
SPEAKER_00Or if or if they do, they can roll with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I I feel like that would be the funnest shit ever.
SPEAKER_00I have so much love and respect for this. Like, I I am friends with several authors, right? And as an author myself, as someone that has recently like left the uh the the working all of the work, I just stepped away from the workforce. Mental breaks will do that to you. Uh, but like we we regularly joke um that that none of the three of us, because it is a three-person group chat, would have any issue. Like, shit, I'll get on a poll. Watch me get on that poll. I'm gonna ask for all the advice, I'm gonna listen to everything they tell me.
SPEAKER_02You know what the one of my favorite things in the world is because it's so fucking impressive to me. There are videos on YouTube where like they'll be like, we got a pole dancer, like a professional pole dancer who's really good at doing the art side of pole, like they can do all the moves to come rock climbing, and they fucking dominate these courses. Well, yeah, the sheer physicality of it with zero zero experience doing rock climbing, or just like, yeah, I can do that, and they just grunk grunk grunk grung. I was like, man, that's the dude.
SPEAKER_00I'm just saying like there is no need to look down on any anyone for their profession um at all, ever.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Like and and the bonus side, like why the reason why I got on the the the like uh because porn exists thing, yeah, is that it also and why I think it's gonna really affect people in the positive to get rid of things like culture beauty standards is that you can see what you like.
SPEAKER_00All right. We have wandered the fuck away from this. We didn't sign off at all on the initial anything. We just we just ran straight into the post show. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01I pee. Yeah, you go pee.
SPEAKER_02All right, goodbye, y'all.