For centuries, the story has endured: medieval knights departing for war, locking their wives into iron chastity belts and riding off with the only key. It’s one of history’s most lurid and enduring legends — and almost certainly fiction. The familiar image of the chastity belt was largely manufactured centuries later through satire, hoaxes, dubious museum artifacts, and Victorian anxieties about sex and morality. But the real story is no less unsettling, involving anti-masturbation devices, fears of female sexuality, and a myth so compelling it embedded itself permanently in popular culture. In this episode, we separate historical fact from one of history’s most persistent sexual myths.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/chastity-belt

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