6 Gross Things Victorian Girls Had to Do to Seem Hot
Nothing is more annoying than that girl who lusts to live in another era.
She rants about how things were so much more “romantic” back in the day and how she wishes she could’ve lived in the 50s and been taken on dates to drive-in movies. Well, aside from the fact that going back in time means that women had way fewer rights, the “olden days” were a lot less glamorous then they seemed.
Take the Victorian era, for example. Author Therese Oneill once dreamed about living in the Victorian Era… that is, until she did some research. In her latest book, “Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners,” she details the reality of living in the “glamorous” era and shows us that it was anything but.
We chose to highlight some of our favorite disgusting things, as featured in the New York Post, so you can forward this on to your BFF who swears she was meant to be “born in another decade.”
1. Wiping Your Junk With Corncobs
It’s easy to forget that toilet paper is a modern invention, but crotchless underwear is not. In fact, almost all Victorian women wore crotchless undergarments. But it wasn’t to be sexy. It was so that they could squat over the bedpan in their intricate ballgowns. For wiping purposes, they used corncobs, leaves, or old newspapers. Lovely!
2. Bathing Naked Meant You Were a Hoe
Shit was dirty as fuck in these days, and it was super easy to get sick. The problem is, male doctors just weren’t so sure if they were ready to have women bathing in the nude. I mean, what harlots, right? Men decided that women should stay dirty and potentially contract a life-threatening disease rather than do anything deemed slutty or “loose.”
3. Perfume Was Made From Whale Shit
Because bathing was still a rare and questionable activity, women instead turned to perfume to mask the fact that they smelled like ass. In fact, even with their perfume they probs still smelled like ass, because the most popular scent of the time was ambergris, a concoction made from a dead sperm whale’s intestines. Sounds delicious.
4. Raw Meat Was The OG Anti-Wrinkle Cream
Maybe Lady Gaga didn’t wear that meat dress to make a statement, maybe she was just trying to give some TLC to her skin. After all, in the old days Victorian women would sleep with thin slices of raw beef on their faces in hopes of restoring youthful skin. Who needs anti-wrinkle cream when you have sheep’s fat and veal lard?
5. The Weight Loss Cure Was Tapeworms and Coke
A lot of things have changed since the Victorian age, but one thing that has not was society deciding that all women should be on the smaller side. But instead of being coaxed to hit the gym or try Weight Watchers, the larger lady of yore was given “weight-loss drugs.” These weight-loss drugs involved arsenic, strychnine, cocaine, and tapeworm larvae. Normal.
6. Your Whole Life Revolved Around Getting Preggers
Sure, this whole beauty routine may sound intense, but it’s all good. Women didn’t have to try to be cute all that long before finding their real purpose in life – having babies.
“Try to imagine your uterus as a highly strung, frantic woman . . . she can’t stand being bored. She wants challenges! She wants work to do,” writes Oneill.
Um… ew. We’ll take Snapchat fuckboys and wireless headphones over bedpans any day. Sure, 2016 has been kind of shitty. But just remember, it could always be worse.
