My Heart Doesn't Look Like That

So, you have a sweetheart, woop-dee-doo good for you. Anyways, so you really love this girl, and you really want to show it.  You want her to know that you love her with your whole heart.  So what do you do? Well, if you’re like most dumbasses these days, you send them a text with a heart symbol, and maybe a kissy face to boot.  However, after you send the text you start really looking at that heart symbol, and you notice, your heart doesn't look anything like that. So, what the fuck is up with that?  Well, that's an interesting story my curious chum.

Now it's true, the heart symbol looks nothing like an actual heart, but it does look like a seed, and not just any seed, the seed of a plant called silphium.  What's that, you don't know what silphium is?  Well my friend, there's a pretty damn good reason for that.  You see, Silphium was a member of the fennel family. It grew wild on a small section of the coast of Libya, an area about 125 miles long and 30 miles wide.  Silphium was a prized commodity in the ancient world, so prized that the Greeks built the city of Cyrene in the 7th century BC in order to gain control over the limited growing area.  The Greeks of Cyrene guarded the plant jealously, exporting limited amounts throughout the Mediterranean.  The plant greatly was prized by the rich and powerful. In fact, it was so important to Cyrene's economy that it was placed on all of the city's money.

So what was this wonder plant?  Well, silphium was a very versatile plant.  Nearly every part of it was used for something, everything from its root like tubers, to its celery like stalks, to its oily resin.  It was often used in cooking, though this was secondary to its many purported medical uses, which included treating coughs, sore throats, fevers, indigestion, warts, leprosy, aches and pains, and pretty much anything else you can think of.  It was the ultimate go to medicine for ancient doctors, but this wasn't the reason it was so prized.  No, the reason that silphium was worth more than its weight in silver, was because the resin had a curious side effect in that when it was ingested by a woman, it could prevent a pregnancy, or safely terminate an existing pregnancy.  In a time when bleeding was still considered a valid treatment, silphium could give the rich and powerful the ability to have sex without worrying about the possible pooping and crying side effects.

So what happened?  Why aren't we enjoying the benefits of this miracle plant today?  Well, just like the people of today, ancient people were assholes.  The Romans conquered Cyrene and the surrounding territory in 96 BC.  With the source of the wonder plant secured, they went hog wild with its use.  The wealthy citizens of Rome, enriched by an economic boom brought on by their widespread conquests, were willing to pay any amount to get a hold of the natural birth control.  Not only did they harvest as much as possible, they even grazed cattle in the fields, swearing that it made the meat taste better.  Unfortunately, the Romans discovered too late that the plant, for whatever reason, could not be cultivated, it could only grow wild.  The Romans literally fucked silphium into extinction.  The last plant was presented to Emperor Nero around 64 AD as a curiosity.  Being an asshole, he promptly ate it.

Now though silphium is gone forever, its legacy is still with us today.  The heart symbol shaped seeds were often described in old Roman tomes and records, and over time the shape became a symbol for sex.  These records describing silphium were copied and re-copied throughout the Middle Ages, and over time, the symbol became more connected with the idea of love, or at least some people claim.  So, next time you send that heart symbol to somebody, give it a little thought.  Do you really love this person, or are you just looking to get your freak on?

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silphium.jpg

The Shores of Tripoli

The U.S. Marine Corp hymn begins with the lines: "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli..."  Now the halls of Montezuma of course refer to the capture of Mexico City during the Mexican War, a conflict that can be best described as a grown man beating up a ten year old boy to steal a dirt covered lollipop, but what the hell is the shores of Tripoli about?

The line concerning the shores of Tripoli harkens back to the days when America was a brand spanking new country, still in swaddling clothes.  At the time, the Barbary pirates were the scourge of the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic.  The Barbary pirates hailed from the, you guessed it, Barbary Coast, which was a series of kingdoms stretching from modern day Morocco to what is now Libya.  A significant portion of these kingdom's economies were based on piracy.  The pirates would seize goods and enslave crews, and many European nations paid them tribute to keep their ships safe.  The only nation that didn't take shit from the Barbary pirates was England, and that was because they had the world’s largest navy to back them up.  This arrangement worked great for the thirteen American colonies, up until the time they decided they didn't need England anymore.  With the protection of the Royal Navy gone, the Barbary pirates fell on American ships with a gusto.

The new American government was less than happy with this situation, and in 1786 sent envoys to the Barbary States.  These envoys managed to sign a treaty of friendship with Morocco, which is today America's oldest non-broken friendship treaty.  However, the other Barbary States of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli were less than amicable.  To protect its shipping, the U.S. was forced to pay an annual tribute which ballooned to one sixth of its national budget by 1795.  Finding this situation less than great, the U.S. began building a larger navy.  In 1800, Thomas Jefferson was elected president, partially thanks to his platform of: we aren't going to take this pirate shit anymore.  The moment he became president in 1801, the U.S. stopped paying tribute.

The Barbary War was about as exciting as one could expect.  It mostly involved American naval ships doing raids against the cities of the Barbary Coast, sinking a few fishing boats, blowing apart a few buildings, and skedaddling back to safe ports.  The highlight of the war was in 1804, when a large U.S. frigate ran aground near Tripoli and was captured, but was later blown up by a group of Marines.  In 1805, the war finally came to a conclusion after eight U.S. Marines, plus 500 or so Greek and Arab mercenaries, marched out of Egypt and captured the port city of Derna, which was owned by Tripoli.  This is the battle referenced in the Marine Corp hymn.  Tiring of being pestered all the time, the Barbary States signed a treaty with the U.S. in which they agreed to stop raiding ships flying the American flag.

Soon after the Barbary War ended, world attention shifted to the growing conflict between England and France, which for the U.S., culminated in the War of 1812.  As a result, the Barbary pirates renewed their raids on American shipping just two years after signing the treaty.  After years of putting up with this shit, the U.S. declared the Second Barbary War in 1815, in which the now much larger U.S. Navy heavily bombarded the cities of the Barbary Coast until they agreed to sign a new treaty, this time for keeps.     

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pyle_pirates_raidship_edited.jpg

Picking Up Good Vibrations

Victorian times, despite the fact they were named after a woman, were not a great time to be female. Women were treated like second class citizens, had no voice in government, and were often treated like property.  However, probably the worst crime done against women of the period, was the widely held belief that female orgasms didn't exist.

Now of course this idea is entirely nonsense, as any woman will tell you, and any man who doesn't want to get a black eye, even though he was just trying to make a joke, though granted one in poor taste.  However, an idea being nonsense rarely has any effect on how much it takes hold.  The general view of the period was that women were just receptacles for making babies, and that if the man was having a good time, they were probably having a good time too.  For men, sex was a necessity.  For women, it was a chore. This did not really work out as nature intended, and women soon found themselves dealing with feelings they were told they weren't supposed to have.  Old timey doctors, being mostly men, and probably rather uncomfortable with the whole thing given their own Victorian upbringing, decided that such complaints could only be caused by a disease, which they named hysteria.  Symptoms of hysteria included anxiety, sleeplessness, irritability, nervousness, erotic fantasies, feelings of heaviness in the lower abdomen, and wetness between the legs.

Now the idea of hysteria was nothing new. Doctors in the Middle Ages used to hand out dildos, and in the Renaissance, women were told to encourage their husband's lusts.  However, by Victorian times, both options were considered extremely improper.  This led to an epidemic of hysteria, forcing doctors to literally take matters into their own hands.  For a price, women could visit their local doctor, who would provide a pelvic massage until the woman received a hysterical paroxysm, which was viewed as similar to a seizure.  Now one might think that this was a pretty good turn of events for the doctors, but one would be mistaken, given they were providing many paroxysms per day.  Doctors quickly began to hate the procedure, which according to them, led to severe hand pain, and just plain took too damn long.

In 1869, an American doctor named George Taylor invented the first vibrator, a device he called the Manipulator.  It was the size of a dining room table and was powered by a steam engine kept in another room.  The thing was fucking scary as hell. Doctor's hated it because they couldn't take it on house calls, which was a significant portion of their business.  Plus, it killed a few people.  The harnessing of electricity led to vast improvements which culminated in the invention of the first electric vibrator by an English doctor named Joseph Granville in 1880.  The device was portable, or at least as portable as a device with a forty pound battery could be, and relatively safe, at least as safe as other electric appliances of the day.  The devices proved so popular that women began buying them for themselves.  It was the fifth electrical device available in the Sears catalog, only being beaten by the teakettle, sewing machine, fan, and toaster.

The vibrator was an instant success, quickly becoming widely available throughout the western world.  Doctors began suggesting their use for a myriad of diseases and conditions for both women and men.  Advertisements were widely distributed in popular magazines. However, it all came crashing down in the 1920's.  An increase in the understanding of female sexuality, combined with the appearance of vibrators in pornography, made it impossible to ignore the sexual connotations of the device.  What had once been touted as a miracle cure, suddenly became dirty and sexual.  The devices were renamed massagers, and generally disappeared from public view, not re-emerging until the sexual revolution of the late 1960’s.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Star_Vibrator_Ad_1921.jpg