This month, we’re doing things a little differently. We’re going to tell you a tale: the ancient (often racy) origins of Hot Vax Summer. What winding road did humanity take to get all the way from primeval explanations of summer weather to shooting giant dicks into space? Welcome to the fertility issue (PG-13) of thesupercurious! As the Leos might say… RAWR!
🌶 SOME LIKE IT HOT
On the left: This month’s supermissive was delayed in part due to a family wedding. According to The Knot, wedding season peaks from now until October in the South, West, Midwest and Mideast. What is it about people wanting to commit their lives to one another in untenable humidity? Read on, dear reader!
In the center: Since ancient times, the constellation Leo has marked the height of hot rainy seasons, rising rivers, monsoons, and hurricanes. Associations between Suns, Lions and Kings (oh my!) are equally ancient (think the Sphinx) - and bawdy.
Across Indo-European mythologies, sky gods flood the fields with… uh… “seed” so that the earth, always female, bears enough fruit for the nearest metropolis to survive winter. Methods of conceiving crops include many, many variations of good ol’ fashioned shagging and rumpy-pumpy. They all boil down to a ritual coupling of earth with rain - birthing the literal lifeline for civilization as we know it. Sexy summer, indeed!
On the right: Coupling is at the root of the word “matrimony”, which literally means the act of making someone a “mother”. The ceremony once signified the transfer of lands from the groom’s family to the bride’s. But as untilled motherlands gave way to agriculture, the matriarchy yielded to patriarchy; and then we see the rise of the city, industry and... billionaires in space! (More on that later.)
🌅 NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN
On the left: As cities grew, the role of the King became synonymous with shining light (a steady source of power). One day, an enterprising Pharaoh named Akhenaten declared Aten-Ra, the Sun God, as the sole supreme deity, and chose to represent him as a single circular disc.
Needless to say, he didn’t consult rival god Amun-Re, who had various human/animal manifestations. Pharaoh made the move largely to piss off Amun-Re’s very rich and corrupt priests. To really turn the screw, he made himself the sole valid interpreter of this sole valid “Chief God”. It was a little too much change at once, and Akhenaten’s efforts eventually failed in Egypt. But not elsewhere!
In fact, Freud thinks Moses was introduced to monotheism by being at Akhenaten’s court. But after the Pharaoh died, his son King Tut - née Tutankhaten - fell back under the influence of Amun’s priests and changed his name to... Tutankhamun!
In the center: Resistance to change and innovation is hardly a new story. Just ask Professor Calestous Juma about the 250 years it took for Europe to adopt coffee as a legitimate beverage. Echoing today’s GMO debates, tea and winemakers were so concerned about their profits that they sought Papal intervention against “Satan’s drink.” Pope Clement’s response to his first espresso is one for the ages.
Still curious? Here’s Throughline’s interview with Professor Juma about coffee’s early European adventures as recounted in his excellent book, Innovation and its Enemies. Q: Why do we resist things that are good for us - or at least as harmless as purple tomatoes? A: Fear of loss.
On the right: In talking about the shift from agriculture to industry, we gotta talk breakfast cereal and the Brothers Kellogg. As deeply religious 7th Day Adventists, the two brothers kickstarted the entire wellness industry based on the connection between your gut and godliness. (FWIW, the Adventists community in Loma Linda, California are the longest lived Americans.)
The cornflake’s humble 1906 beginnings? A belief that a bland, plant-based diet can cure most ailments including Onanism, more commonly known as... the urge to masturbate. Regular cornflake eaters - can we get a witness??
Ok. Hold it right there. Now we’re really supercurious... Why is masturbation considered so unholy?
It’s easy to speculate, but we wanted better answers. Starting with Wikipedia’s article on the history of masturbation, here’s a smidgeon of what we found:
The Church preaches that every seed holds the sacred potential for life and so is sacred. This just-so-happens to align with the need for more babies to grow up and work fields and crops.
For Catholic priests, masturbation was a “slippery slope” to sex. Which might beget sons a priest would want to pass his possessions to instead of the Church. The consolidation of wealth in the, ahem, hands of the few and mighty.
Would it surprise you to learn that the most commonly cited Bible story in the Christian argument against masturbation - Onan “spilling his seed” - amounts to an inheritance dispute?
Oddly enough, we think this helps explain the recent backlash to the holy trinity of space bazillionaires: Bezos, Branson and Musk.
What do a Pharaoh, a cereal mogul, the Catholic Church, and the mad proliferation of “dicks in space” comments on the internet all have in common?
A hatred of wasted seed.
👑 SHOOTING FOR THE STARS
On the left: MOMA Artifact 124.1993, in which Andy Warhol sends a ceramic dick pic into space at the behest of Bell Laboratories in 1969. But seriously now… beyond all the swagger about whose rocket was bigger, who shot higher, and whose ride was longer — we think democratization of space is a big effin’ deal.
And not just technologically.
For millennia, humans have pointed their most sacred objects (think henges and pyramids, cathedrals, and skyscrapers) towards the sky, worshipping the celestial in thousands of ways. Now for the first time, the lens is reversed. The rockets of the world’s most powerful individuals are pointing from the sky toward our most sacred vessel of all: Mother Earth.
On the right: While you may not be able to afford a space ride any time soon, a stay at the Idaho Potato Hotel is totally doable. Especially if you land this cool job as Director of Taco Relations for McCormick’s spices. For which you will totally need this.
Was it as good for you as it was for us?
Your curators,
Lisa and Jordan
What kind of newsletter is this anyway??
Every day we see things in the media that make us wonder why things are the way they are, aka WTF. We google a lot. We talk to friends like you. We read other people’s quirky newsletters. Then we argue about it. Like, in a fun way. No doom-scrolling, no sh*t-posting.
We want you to try it too. So once a month, we share some of what we find in order to tempt you into reinterpreting the world too. Join us?