The Filthy History of Being Normal follows the paper trail behind the things society taught us to feel weird about.

Sex. Relationships. Bodies. Pleasure. The products we use, the laws written around them, and the people who decided what was—or wasn’t—acceptable.

This isn’t a show built around hot takes. We dig into court cases, patents, newspaper archives, advertising, legislation and the real people behind the history to understand how yesterday’s moral panic became today’s idea of “normal.”

Episode 2: The Vibrator

Vibrators were openly advertised to American consumers more than a century ago. So how did they become something that had to be hidden, disguised and sometimes even outlawed?

We follow the story from the rise of Anthony Comstock and federal obscenity enforcement through the changing vibrator industry, a 2003 Texas arrest involving the sale of a vibrator, Dame Products’ 2019 fight with New York’s MTA over advertising, and the strange legacy behind phrases like “novelty item” that still appear on packaging today.

It’s the history of a sex toy—but it’s also a story about commerce, censorship, shame and who gets the power to define normal.

Hosted by Jason Class.

New episodes weekly.

See the video version on Youtube.

Sponsorship inquiries: TheAwkwardPillowTalkPodcat@Gmail.com

Two people had sex in an MRI machine in 1999. The paper became one of the most-viewed articles the British Medical Journal has ever published, out of everything, in a journal that goes back to 1840.

That's where this starts. It goes back 4,000 years from there.

Egyptian creation myths. A 2,300-year-old comedy sketch about where to buy a good sex toy. Two Renaissance anatomists in a screaming match over who "discovered" something women had known about the whole time. The most famous fun fact in this entire field, which turns out to be completely fabricated and fooled academia for nineteen years.

And the number at the end that explains why the orgasm gap exists, and why it isn't what you think.

Every claim in this episode was fact-checked, and the ones that didn't survive checking are named as such. Especially the fun ones.

Episode one of A Filthy History of Being Normal.

SOURCES

Lieberman & Schatzberg, "A Failure of Academic Quality Control" (2018)

Frederick et al., Archives of Sexual Behavior (2018), n=52,588

Komisaruk et al., Brain Research (2004)

Herbenick & Fortenberry, Sexual and Relationship Therapy (2012)

O'Connell et al. (1998, 2005)

The book is The Awkward Couple's Guide to Getting Weird. Same idea pointed at your actual relationship instead of at history. awkwardxxx.com

Next episode: virginity. There is no test, there has never been a test, and the thing everyone pictures is a rare birth defect.

My wife spent years quietly assuming she was the weird one. So I spent time looking for proof that she wasn't.

What I found instead was that most of the famous facts are made up.

The average measurement everybody quotes came from men measuring themselves at home and mailing the card back. Doctors spent sixty years hunting for a poison in menstrual blood that was never there. The most repeated fact about the vibrator fooled academia for nineteen years before anyone checked the footnotes.

This is Awkward Pillow Talk, and it's a different show than it was. Same subject, completely different approach. Every claim gets fact-checked, and the ones that don't survive get named out loud. Especially the fun ones.

Season one is A Filthy History of Being Normal: orgasms, virginity, sex toys, squirting, swallowing, sapphic attraction, anal, throuples, swinging, sex vacations, and whatever turns out to be next.

For anyone who needs to know why before they can relax.

First episode is the history of the orgasm. New episodes weekly.

The book is The Awkward Couple's Guide to Getting Weird. Same idea pointed at your actual relationship instead of at history. awkwardxxx.com

KindaIntoThat.com is a quiz that tells you what you're actually into and gives you an anonymous code to compare with somebody else. Nobody has to say anything out loud first.

Earlier episodes of this feed featured Jason and Stephanie Class in conversation and will be made available again at a future date.