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Ugh. Puritans. I mean, religion is known for its fuckery, but if you ever wondered why Americans are so damn hung up about sex, these folks had a lot to do with it. Don’t wax poetic about the Mayflower traveling to America, because that was the Puritan invasion.
--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: August 5, 1620--
History now refers to the Puritans arriving in America—AKA The New World that was just the regular world to all these other people for multiple millennia, but it’s new to us and we’re gonna fucking steal it—as “Pilgrims” who began the Plymouth Rock colony. But before they began with the land stealing, they were being assholes back home in England, although I guess that depends on your perspective.
In the 16th century the English Reformation happened, which was the Church of England saying fuck you and adios to the Roman Catholic Church. The Puritans saw that and said, “Not fucking good enough” and broke away even further. They wanted to be even more “pure” in their worship and doctrine of a book that was compiled and edited by a bunch of dudes in funny hats 13 centuries previous.
Anyway, the Puritans weren’t real popular in England, so many decided to fuck off to Holland first, and then to America, because who wouldn’t want a bunch of colorless cocks taking over their continent? It was on August 5, 1620, that the Mayflower departed for America. But then, well, fuck. That stupid other boat with them, Speedwell, sprang a leak and they had to turn back almost immediately. They sailed again, another leak, and finally a fuck this and the Mayflower left them behind, departing with 102 passengers and 30 crew. They spent a grueling 10 weeks at sea before making landfall at the tip of Cape Cod.
They considered this their “Promised Land,” but the land was all “Fuck you, have some winter.” And half of them died before spring arrived. The local Native peoples taught the colonists food gathering and other survival skills, without which they all would have gone on to the Great Certainty the next winter. The following fall they celebrated the first harvest with the Native peoples and thanksgiving turkey coma football black Friday whatever.
As for the sex stuff, the Puritans loved and encouraged it, so long as it was within the confines of a heterosexual marriage. As colonization/genocide expanded, the Puritans were extremely influential on American culture and values, which is why so many see monogamous heterosexual intercourse solely between married couples as the only right and proper way to bump uglies.
You’ve heard of purity culture and purity balls and purity rings? Yeah, that kind of shit.
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