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February 4, 2025 41 mins

The Victorian Era was, on the surface, a time of almost cartoonish sexual repression. Courtship was governed by rigid sets of rules and heirarchy, and even meeting a prospective partner outside of these codified steps could be considered a breach of cultural mores. So, what's a lover to do? In the first part of this two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max explore the conspiratorial, ridiculous ways people flirted in the Victorian Era.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to

(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Now I'm gonna slide into the d
MS here of our show. Uh and and hit up
our super producer, mister Max Williams with a slow blink.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Max tap bill fan, Max Tap tap the fan. Just
so pull that glove off slowly, one finger at a time, Yeah, inductively.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
I want you to really feel that one right.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
My name is Ben Bullen. Who are those dulcet tones?
Why that's mister Noel Brown, who's been sliding into my
dms for a number of years now.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
It's so so erotic when you say it like that.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
We mostly guys. We mostly text each other. Gosh, it's
weird how often we talk even when we're not working.
Fellow Ridiculous Historians, Noel and I have been flirting with
each other in a very supportive way.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
For lo these many you was gonna say, lo these men, wow,
oh my gosh, they were off to such a bang.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Oh my gosh, your mind reader. We should hang out.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
We did.

Speaker 4 (01:39):
To jump in here with a little funny count. I
just did we have sent twenty seven direct messages to
each other via our communication software this morning alone.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
It is not noon yet. Yeah, I'm cool with that.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
I love everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
They're consensual, by the way, no one's like blowing any Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yeah, yeah, we're we're actually Usually when Max and NOL
and I text each other guys, or talk to each
other when we're not on the air, it's weirdly supportive
stuff or a very niche thing that we want.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Each other to see. Yeah, it's quite a romance. For example,
just the other day or this morning, in fact, I
texted you both birds do it? Bees? Do it? Even educated?
Flease do it, guys, let's do it, let's fall in love. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, and I I super liked that. I believe on
that social platform.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
You even do that. Oh, Vix, I didn't know you
could super like via text.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah yeah, Remember when I figured out that was that?
Remember when I figured out it was on text with you, Nol.
I figured out that the newest iPhone update let you make.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
A bicker, yeah, or like makes them vibrates with ecstasy.
That's I'm sorry, guys, it's a horny episode today.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
This poor guy, this my Nol, this poor guy had
to witness me in real time on text figure out
from how you can make the words in biggin and
vibrate ooh to mess it.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Well, I have a little condition called fat finger syndrome,
so I'm constantly making words vibrate and dance around and
explode into confetti and all of that. But Ben, Yeah,
back to the that titillating text that I sent you, guys,
I really did do that. I didn't actually are our
incredible research associate Ren Fair put that Renfair, renfests, you

(03:39):
know Potato Patato put those lyrics at the top of
this incredible research brief that she wrote for us, which
are from the Broadway composer and songwriter Cole Porter in
his nineteen twenty eight musical Paris. I honestly didn't know
that I knew the line. I've heard it repeated in
cartoons and probably heard various covers of it, but no,

(04:00):
I've never even heard of.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Paris Ella Fitzgerald cover.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
That's the one I know the best. Beautiful. Uh.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
And as as Renfest points out, falling in love is
always nice, it takes a little work of fraud to
get the sparks flight. I'm I'm quoting you there, red.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
H And do you remember a latter Day Aerosmith song
was called falling in Love is So Hard on the knees? Yes? Yes,
What does that even mean? I guess it means you're
always begging? Or is it some sort of innuendo? Is
he's saying falling in love is hard? Is difficult? Going
to be great?

Speaker 1 (04:37):
I think it means Steven Tyler is bad at lyrics?

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Okay, that's fair. Yeah, maybe he has slumped a little bit.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
He had a country music album that came out as
a single called Her Name Is Love.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
But come on, dude, dude looks like a lady not
well at all in an elevator? Is there going in
an elevator? They're falling in love in an elevator.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
So with this in mind, we know that the course
of true love never did run smooth, right to quote
our buddy Willie Shakes. So we are a no judgment show.
You know, we usually back each other up, and we
usually back up everybody who tunes in with us.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
That's the thing though, and I think it's a great
entry point into today's story because a lot of it
is about the decorum of flirting and the way people
would often flout said decorum. You know, yeah, yeahkly doing
their best.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, and with help from our research associate Red and Fest,
we are exploring the idea of flirtation. Noel Max did
ether If you, guys, ever have a moment where you
got flirted upon and realized it after the fact.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
Oh God, too many in my life. I am a
I am sometimes painfully unaware. I have it with my
uh advanced age. Now I'm kind of happy about that.
I find I'm a little happier when I'm blissfully unaware
of about stuff but in love it. You realize after
the fact, like three months later, Oh, that person who

(06:29):
I who I find attractive used to hit on me
pretty aggressively, and now they don't because I didn't pick
up on the fact that they were hitting on me.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
You'll get that great dermatologist.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
One day, guys, Yeah, the Greek dermatologist.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
I think I'm so blissfully unaware of it that I
could probably even to this day, argue that No, that
has never happened. All right.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
For any fans of quantum leap, please realize that my
pal Nola and I often hang out. It is situation
where I'm kind of like your your sidekick in your
Scott Baculus spot, you know, and yeah, yeah, helping.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Me out here. What's the word, siran knowing me kind of? Yes?

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Oh, well done. Uh So today we are talking about
flirting in the Victorian era, specifically.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Ben, I did think you were gonna, you know, throw
me a bone there and say, and as your wingman,
I can, with one percent accuracy certainty say that you
have definitely been low key flirted with, but you didn't
go there. And I respect to check man, and I've
got a check with Ziggy. What Ziggy could check with
is psychology today for a pretty solid definition of the
concept of flirting. They describe it as nature's solution to

(07:47):
the problem every creature faces in a world full of
potential mates, how to choose the right one. We all
need a partner who is not merely fertile but genetically different,
as well as healthy enough to a viable offspring, provide
some kind of help in the hard job of parenting,
and offer some social compatibility.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
This sounds like a farrange.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Honestly, the walks of psychology today know how to turn
a phrase.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
So so yes, the walks, so psychology walks psychology walks sidewalks,
so some people and other animals are better at getting
a date than others.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
As the as the quote continues. In psychology today, however,
we see the prevalence across species of flirting, and it
shows us that this idea, this concept, I would argue,
of courtship is hardwired into our genes alongside basic survival

(08:49):
instincts fight or flight. Now, Noel, I know you're not
the biggest avian fan.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
I've been warming up to them. We've got a local
hawk and a local owl. I only I don't run
inside with my tail between my legs quite as quickly anymore.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
I just want to point out that avians birds are
amazing at the courtship.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Oh dude, I mean, I think I told you. One
of the reasons I've been warming up to birds is
I'm a big fan of the board game Wingspan, and
in that there's all these incredibly beautifully illustrated cards of
like every bird you can imagine. They're always adding new
birds to the deck, and they give you a little
helpful tidbit about each of these birds when you play
the card, and a very pleasant voice if you're playing

(09:33):
it on the switch or Mobile. We're not sponsored by
wing spam, but it's a great game. Or if you're
played on mobile Alabama hundred percent yeah Mobile, they say
it yonder. Yeah. I have definitely learned about, you know,
the courtship, the amazing rituals of birds by playing this game.
And the thing I think that maybe sets them apart

(09:54):
and makes them better at it is that they just
do it with such precision. There's no like styling on it.
I mean there sometimes there's certain dances that's right choreography.
But I guess what I'm getting at. Maybe this is
this is wrongheaded, but it just seems that it's a
little bit more laser focused, and it's like it's gonna happen.

(10:14):
It's gonna happen for you. If you just spin around
in circles and hop up and down enough and tweets
at the right rhythm, you're going to find a mate
because it is conducive to the betterment of bird kind.
But with humans, we get so in our heads about
it to your point that it just doesn't work out
that way every time. And maybe it's hard for the

(10:35):
birds too, but it just seems like they kind of
got it figured out, is all.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
I'm saying, yeah, they're scope did They're locked in on
like a very specific bird. To your point, You'll never
see an owl flirting with a corvid. You'll never see
a hawk flirting with a sparrow. They know what they're about,
They've got their demographics decided, and they are existing. I

(11:01):
love this novel because they are existing in a rigid hierarchy, right.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Which we exist in too. But because of things like
social media and you know, entertainment and different things that
we compare ourselves to and always kind of thinking about thinking,
it is a little less straightforward.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yeah, yeah, because of the metacognition getting in one's head. Uh.
It turns out, folks, this is a true story. Back
in the reign of Queen Victoria, a lot of human being, Yeah,
a lot of human beings had the same rigid hierarchy
of flirting that birds possessed today.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, the Victorian area with their mannered ways. I guess
I'm thinking about it from BBC dramas and.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Upstairs, downstairs everybody one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
And it was a response to the rapid industrialization of
British society and kind of another enlightenment, you know, with
knowledge and information and technology improving and spreading at exponential rates.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, think about it. We have all of a sudden
as a civilization arrived at the rest of the world.
There are printing presses, there are railroads. You can send
a letter to someone that you would ordinarily never be
able to meet in person, and then you can hop

(12:29):
a train and go see them. You can also learn
more about other cultures. At this point, literacy is still
not for everyone. But if you are a person who
can read, if you are literate, then you also read
a ton of books and you want to talk about
those books with other people. This is the age of

(12:54):
scientific progress.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Right right, the age of Darwin and his Origin of
the a on the origin of the species.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
He ate everyone, folks, Jack was right.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
He ate the tortoises, he ate the hares, he ate
whatever he made a note about. Apparently, Yeah, no, shout
out to Jack for sure. And that very important work
dropped in eighteen fifty nine, which also gave rise to
some more novel interpretations of Bible stories, non Anglican branches
of the Church, and a brand new thing on the scene,

(13:28):
still pretty popular today, atheism.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Go team anyway with a society of flux Queen Victoria
sought to sort of diminish or suppress this evolving tide
of scientific secular inquiry. Yeah, she was a web blanket
boo science, says the queen. She said, we need to

(13:55):
shore up our cultural definitions. We need traditional Christian values, purity, piety, duty.
To put that in modern terms, that means state virgin
until you're married.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Chased, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
And piety. Do you want to talk a little bit
about that all.

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah. Victoria really was trying to impose some very rigid
traditional kind of family values. I guess, let's say, casting
a woman as having the duty of being chased a
woman of God, to marry a man comparable compatible with
Victorian morals, and of course to produce as many heirs

(14:40):
as humanly possible. Pop just popping them out. That's a
lot of pops. And last, of course, she died during
childbirth or her husband committed her to some sort of
backwards psychiatric institution for hysteria. I'm doing really hard quotation
fingers right now. This was not a great time for

(15:02):
women's rights, which is ironically brought on by a woman,
the queen.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, yeah, and ren if you're hearing this, I know
we're both fans of the excellent short story The Yellow Wallpaper.
Piety to respond to this piety is the idea of
religious devotion. They wanted people to be fundamentalist in duty.

(15:28):
Of course, like you said, Noel, is just the idea
that one is born to a specific role in society.
Oh are you a female and you happen to be
an amazing scientist?

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Too bad? Yeah, yeah, right in the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah yeah, very very mean, short sighted stuff. However, as
our pal Jeff once famously said, life finds a way.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Jeff Goldblue not our research associate Cheff with it different Jeff, Yes, Jef, Yeah,
I remember that part from Jurassic Park three, The Road Home.
I love that.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Look the rigid public confines of Victorian society, the rules
of the road for public behavior. They could not stop
people from hanging out trying to circumvent these very narrow
scopes of society in which they were placed.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
As T's at the top. This is an episode about
the moral strictures and all of these hardline rules and
the ways people figured out to flout them and flout
each other.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yes, yes, oh my gosh, this is so fun because
it's conspiratorial, right, people are hitting on each other in code.
It's so nuts. Victorians would still find a way to

(17:06):
flirt with one another and even do a little you know,
outside of school.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
Stuff ifing yeah, right, yeah, have a little tryst, run
off for a little secret dalliance right in the countryside.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
If two young lovers were caught flirting with each other,
they could become outcast from the society of the day.
Usually yeah, usually. By the way, this is a pretty
misogynistic hierarchy at the time, So a dude would do

(17:45):
something bad and then it was the woman, the female partner,
who was punished. So it was very high stakes when
people were flirting, and you had to be very careful,
especially if you are a pressed member of the society
at the time, a woman, a female identifying person. You

(18:06):
would have to speak in code or convey your messages secretly.
And this is where we get to one of my
favorite parts of one of my favorite puns from your
research read Talk to the Fan, The Lost Art of
Victorian Fami language.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
Because the face ain't listening, or it definitely is listening
and looking out for signs that you read my code
and that you want to get busy. You know, Ben,
I think part of the reason that Victoria means this
is maybe stating the obvious, but the Victorian era is
so romanticized is because secret love is so much more sultry,

(18:45):
you know than like out in the open love, like
forbidden love. You know, I only guess you when it's dangerous. Well,
there's so many I mean, this isn't really my wheelhouse,
but if I'm not mistaken, there are definitely a lot
of pretty, you know, sultry novelizations of this era and
the types of little trysts that some of these very

(19:06):
mannered folks would have.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah, they're their entire novels about this that are in
the Western cannon. Uh, like Silas Martyr for instance.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
And what I love about it is the the idea
that something as simple as one person touching the top
of another person's hand, that's like skin amax. Oh Yeah,
that's super that's that's super racy. And it's because of
the oppression women, if we're being honest, in the Victorian era,

(19:37):
people living under this reign, women couldn't like you couldn't
blow out a candle around a dude because you might,
you know, you might be making the wrong face, your lips.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
A little too much. Yeah, man, I didn't I didn't
know this. But Wren pointed out that Victorians are who
kind of invented the idea of light and dark meat.
Lest they have to refer to a leg or a
breast and you know, get titillated or be titillated.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You also can't say that you're going
to bed at the end of the night because the
if a dude hears you, they might imagine certain things
your neglige perhaps Oh my gosh, I can picture the ankle,
your dressing gown.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
This is so gross, this is crazy.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
I wish he and Pearl did a sketch about this.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
They've definitely done some kind of mannered kind of you know, satires,
But I'm having a hard time thinking of one in particular,
and maybe I'm making it up. Maybe I'm Mandela affecting it.
But you know, think Romeo and Juliet. You know, the
idea of forbidden love. Society will not allow because you're
from different classes or different sides of town or different

(20:53):
you know, social groups.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Oh, do you hear the stakes escalating? You know, one
of the closest bonds be can have is the sharing
of a secret that is true. And so now we
have very high stakes conspiratorial communication because we don't want
to be repressed by Victorian society. This is where we

(21:16):
enter tactics like fan language. All right, let's lay it out.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Okay, So we talked about the kind of very strict
hierarchy which involves different classes, different income levels, and people
in the lower classes typically dressed a little bit more comfortably,
whereas women in high society had to take great pains,
suffer for fashion to the most extreme degrees to maintain

(21:43):
this kind of like you know, image of an hour
glass waste and you know, covering their faces with veils
sometimes and elaborate hats and umbrellas and fans.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yes, yeah, have you ever been hot? Have you ever
found yourself in like humid weather? Allow us to introduce
you to the concept of fan. It's a it's a
cool thing. You can wave with your hand on your
face or your body parts to generate wind, make your

(22:17):
own wind that will mitigate temperature. Yes, if you haven't
heard of fans before, oh my gosh, pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
We're big fans of fans and it can't allow it.
All right, all right, all right, all right, all right.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
So this this is a physical device, and the reason
we're giving it such a spotlight here is because it
points the observer towards the face and it needs the
hand to work. So there is this entire nonverbal nomenclature

(22:56):
or coded language that comes about with the use of
a fan, especially if you are a single, well to
do woman, an aristocratic person. If you want to attract
a husband of as Emily Bronte would say, quality, then

(23:16):
you are you are kind of bound again by your
social strictures of the day. I'm gonna say it. People
were wearing a lot of clothes.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Oh for sure, and it was pretty unpleasant for women
in particular. I mean, dudes definitely wore, like, you know,
multiple layers of like a suit and vest and all
the cumbers. But for some person, but was nothing compared
to what women of the age had to wear. That
included that tightly cinched corset to give that appearance of
a perfect kind of hourglass figure, not to mention layers

(23:54):
on top of that, petticoats and all of that, and
then uh, these hoop skirts, a crinoline, which is like
a essentially these wire frames that these skirts were draped
around the BBL. I don't think I know what that means.
Brazilian butt lift. Oh, for sure, that's right. I take
a little bit of of a hump back there, for sure.
And they also had to wear like lacy gloves, and

(24:16):
they would also carry these fans when it was hotter months,
and there is something kind of coy about peering over
and gently kind of batting your fan as you make
you know, cutias at a eligible bachelor. Hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
And these these people who are of this echelon in society,
they have to wear essentially uniforms and they're heavy. There
are so many layers, it's not cold all the time,
and it's restricting their mobility. For anybody who wants to
learn more about the history of fashion, please please check

(24:53):
out our good friend Holly Fry's work just on podcasts
and in general.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, there's a history of fashion podcast that she peed
for a long time called Dressed. I'm not sure if
it's publishing new episodes anymore, but they're all out there.
It was with two fashion historians whose names escaped me,
but it's it's really, really, really good, and they would
certainly talk about this stuff and depth.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
Yeah, so let's exercise empathy. You are a lady of means, right,
you are single, you are in the upper echelon of
Victorian society. You have to wear all this bruhaha. And
it's it's a paid in the keyster to you know,
sit down to sit up. It's hot, there's no air conditioning.

(25:39):
You have to go outside for a breath of fresh air.
How do you mitigate the temperature around you? Again, we
introduce you to fan. And fan was a practical and
still is a practical way to beat the heat, but
it also became a conspiratorial means of communicating whether or

(26:05):
not you thought someone was dapper for sure.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
And we'll just run through a handful of them because
they're so sneaky. It kind of runs the gamut that
they are literal gestures that mean very specific things. And
I gotta wonder kind of this kind of stuff had
to evolve organically, you know, where people just sort of
observed and picked up on these actions. But we've got
a list here from an eighteen sixty six right up

(26:31):
in Castle's magazine that decodes some of these mysterious actions.
Carrying the fan in your right hand in front of
your face, for example, meant follow me, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
Letting a fan folded rest on your left cheek meant
no to something. However, if you let it rest on
your right cheek, it meant yes.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
It's like Ouiji board rules. Drawing the fan across your
eye kind of like that gesture I mentioned earlier, sort
of peeking over the top of it meant you were sorry.
And closing the fan which meant that you would like
a word in private.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, we've all seen tealted abby. It's also one of
the weird ones is drawing the folded fan or I
guess unfolded across the cheek means I love you.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Oh wow, okay.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
But also we could do it. We could do an
entire sketch about this about fan language in the modern day,
because some of it gets so ridiculous. You put the
you put the handle of the fan to your lips.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Like kiss me. One of my favorites is signifying that
you're engaged by a quick fan blast across the Yeah,
if you drop the fan, you are friend zoning that
person intantly.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, we're done. Drop, We're done. I'll see you on Facebook.
And if you shut the fan, you have changed. You
know this is changed.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Does that mean I think it's.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
I think it's being diplomatic. I think I think maybe
shutting a fan was probably more often used to signify
the end of a conversation, is probably what was actually happening.
But let's say no, someone doesn't possess a fan.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Or they do and they want to just double down
and to have another avenue for their cheeky communic case.
They could do that with postage stamp flirtations. They were
like this was they would place this on a letter
when they sent it, so like the position of the

(28:55):
stamp would indicate why didn't they just write it in
the letter?

Speaker 1 (28:57):
Well, it's how you slide into the d Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
I still don't quite understand though, Like these are on letters,
for sure, I don't understand.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Yeah, it's a The placement of the postage stamp was
a way to bypass the fact that you are hitting
on someone who may already be part of a larger family, right.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Okay, And then and their letter might be intercepted. This
is sort of a between the lines kind of thing
in case somebody's suspicious or jealous wife got a hold
of this letter.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, so you leave a letter to your potential paramore,
and you know that the entire family, the entire estate,
may open the letter and read it and have a
good laugh. So you want to get past that by
positioning the stamp to reveal a secret message. So the

(29:54):
letter itself might sound innocuous, right, but the but the
place of the stamp is a conspiratorial code. It's kind
of like hobo code.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Sure, I was thinking the same thing, and a lot
of these hobo code By the way, there's an episode
to be done on stuff that I want you to
know about it. I actually have a hobo code tattoo
on my right wrist. But they were these symbols that
were left by traveler, traveling folk, you know, riding the
rails and all of that, and into modern times actually
at various locations to indicate either a hospitable environment or

(30:27):
you know, something negative, maybe a sheriff that has it
in for traveling folk, a place that will feed you perhaps,
et cetera. All these little symbols and that lexicon developed
over time as people kind of picked up on those meanings,
as did these fan gestures and this kind of postage
stamp flirtation. So let's run through a few of these

(30:48):
as well. Upside down stamp on the top left corner
I love you. Yeah, same corner, but crosswise means my
heart is another's.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Oh my gosh, drop the f right on that one.
If you put the stamp upside down on the right corner,
it's a bad sign. It says, get out of my DMS.
I don't don't, don't write.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
To me anymore. You're dead to me. On the flip
side in the middle at the right hand edge means
right immediately, I'm burning with desire.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Oh, people are so weird. People have been doing DMS
direct messaging way before social media. Uh, there's the friend
zone thing on the top corner at the right. That
placement of the postage stamp allegedly, according to Cassel's magazine,
meant I wish your.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Friendship yep, yep. Another friend zoning and the same but
upside down indicated that you were already engaged. So you'll
remember the quick brisk fanning. So these were, you know,
important details to be able to communicate. I guess maybe
kind of off trouble at the past.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Yeah, we're really vibing. I have a girlfriend though.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Sorry, but that doesn't mean the flirtation for its own
sake isn't also fun. I think it's important to remember that, like,
these are not always people that are searching for their
life mate. They are just trying to get a little
extra on the side, and sometimes the flirtation itself might
be giving them something that they weren't getting at home.

(32:26):
You know, it doesn't have to result in, you know,
sexual activity.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Right, it doesn't have to be consummation. It's a dance,
you know, it's it's a validation is acknowledgement? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
and don't forget to stop and smell the roses. It
turns out that Victorian society was so repressive that people
found multiple means of sort of passing notes in class

(32:55):
and whispering to each other. Victorians of a certain socioeconomic
status had a keen interest in botany. And I love
that we're pointing out one of my favorite sources on
the internet, the public domain review.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, it's a good one. At a time when many
feelings were discouraged and repressed, flowers, whether since singly or
incomplicated arrangements, communicated the incommunicable. I always think of, you know,
when you have these sort of maybe tales of intrigue
around this era. Leaving a single red rose, you know,
on a bench or something as like a sign of

(33:35):
your love or even just like the scarlet pimpernel or something.
It couldn't be a way to communicate with actual like
co conspirators who are trying to bring down the government.

Speaker 1 (33:45):
This is so nuts, man, because I actually have the
book public domain review as referencing the language of flowers.
I love obscure reference work totally, as the language of
flowers follows the Western symbolism of various types of flowers.

(34:06):
When to give a flower for what occasion? What does
it mean? It's just like fan language. I only have
this in full disclosure because I needed it for a
fantasy novel I was writing. I had to figure out
which flowers character gives at a pivotal moment. Anyway, I
love obscure reference works. Yeah, and this comes from a

(34:30):
real thing. I can't believe it, dude. For example, people
would send bluebells to mean kindness, and obviously roses represented love.
Have you ever given one of your lovers a dozen roses?

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Wow? Ben, that's very forwardive, you'd ask, Yeah, I'm blushing,
what's wrong with me? I'm forty one years old. I
don't know, man, I've never really been one for the
It's just a little cheesy kind of to me, it
feels it's a little you know, it's just kind of
dated for a reason. Some people really like roses. Some people,
I think, find them a little kloying. And I think
I might be one of those where we are just

(35:10):
not a romantic where we you're a very romantic guys?
Where are we.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
At with apple blossoms? This was a new one to me.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
The apple blossom jeans and the boots with the fur nail. No,
I didn't. Apple blossoms were meant to signify the object
of one's affection, and I like this one. Dahlia's. I
always think of the black Dahlia murders symbolized instability, which
tracks for that story. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
And if you are a young guy again, this is
very scope to in. This is something the upper crust
is doing at this time in the Victorian age. If
you're a young guy of means and you're you know,
you're looking to get married, start your family, et cetera,
continue your age, you will send an apple blossom, which

(36:05):
says I like you more than the other people.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Ibicon, So more than just an object of your affection.
You are sort of making a soft commitment, right, but
there's a there's a tear up from that where you
really lock in. Yeah, that is of course the red rose. Yes, yes,
you nailed it.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
If you are super liking the object of your affection,
as you said, Noel, you send a rose or you
send get this, a purple violet to communicate. This is
from Smithsonian Gardens. The giver's thoughts are occupied with love

(36:49):
about the recipient. So a step down from a rose,
you send a purple violet, and you're just going, mmm,
I like.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
You exactly, shrinking violet. That's the thing, right, isn't that
someone that's sort of timid?

Speaker 1 (37:03):
I've heard the phrase? Yeah? The big thing is flower
language for flirting was just like the postage stamp language.
It could be used to convey unfortunate messages as well.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Right right. For example, if you got a yellow carnation
and you are a young man after sending an apple
bossom or one of these other you know, roses signifying
your commitment to your would be beloved. If you got
a yellow carnation back, it was you were being rejected.
That would be yeah, that would be devastating. And if

(37:41):
a dude in return received an ivy leaf I got,
so there's a little difference. He was considered friend zones. Maybe,
so you're saying there's a chance.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
You're saying there's a chance. However, if you get straw
in return in this flower code or this I guess
we should just call it this botany code, then it
means the person you are seeking to marry is interested
in going a step further.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
It's so procedural, it's also business like, Yeah, here's it
is a little weird, and that step further would be
like marriage. Uh huh, Yeah, I guess that means there
probably could be opposite situations where a dude got the
strawbag was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm not ready for
all that. I was hoping for a purple violet or whatever. Yeah,

(38:32):
I just in the middle of the road. Response might be.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
This is all moving too fast. Let me check where
I should put and.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Chase this flower cut. Yes, my documents check it. Did
you know? Well, these are just a few. I mean,
it gets pretty elaborate, and RN points out, like, where
are they getting all of these different varieties of flowers.
It's so elaborate, but this was a time of great wealth,
and it also seems like these type of flowers would
often be, you know, baby expensive to cultivate and to

(39:01):
have just for these these messages, So you know, you
couldn't really communicate in flower coat if you were in
the lower class. You know what, I bet these weeds
or something.

Speaker 1 (39:10):
You know what I bet was a crazy flex sending
someone a pineapple, because this is back of the day
when people would just rent pineapples.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Oh, of course, Well, I guess this was roughly in
that during that time. Yeah. I don't know if you've
been watching Severance, but there's a really funny moment in
one of the most recent episodes involving pineapples. So let's
leave it at that. But Ben, I mean, you've got
so much more to cover. We're going to get into
calling cards, you know, and that's the history of that.
But what do you say that we take a pause
here and and and jump to us a second part

(39:41):
of this series for some more awesome history of flirting.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Oh my gosh, are you asking me for a second date?

Speaker 2 (39:48):
No, I am, I forget what kind of flowers mused
to send you, but it's the twenty first century. We
can just talk about it. It's cool. We're on a podcast.
Most Secrets here, my friend.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
We can't wait for you to join us, folks in
our ongoing exploration of flirting and flirtation in the Victorian era.
Big big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams.
We slide in his DMS all the time.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Both of us.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Big big thanks to our research associate Red and Fest
Red and Fair. Big thanks of course to aj Bahama's
Jacobs the Puzzler. And I stumbled while we were recording
because I remembered a guy who's very close to my heart.
What kind of flowers do you think Jonathan Strickland aka

(40:39):
the Quister would send us.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
A black rose? Something very sinister? Why is he like that? Why?
Just who he is? Hughes Thanks to Chris Frasciotis and
Eves Jeff Cotes here a spirit Alex Williams who composed
our theme, Max Williams, the best, Maximilian Williams. And of
course you've been my number one crush podcast crush.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Oh shucks, you say that to everyone. Thanks to you man.
Check your mail. There are some flowers for you, but
look at the stamp first.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
I hope it's an edible arrangement. We'll see you next time, folks.
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Ben Bowlin

Ben Bowlin

Noel Brown

Noel Brown

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