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The staff of Longreads.

How sexual freedom began to spread in the west, and how we moved away from a society that once executed adulterers and prostitutes:

Since the dawn of history, every civilisation had punished sexual immorality. The law codes of the Anglo-Saxon kings of England treated women as chattels, but they also forbade married men to fornicate with their slaves, and ordered that adulteresses be publicly disgraced, lose their goods and have their ears and noses cut off. Such severity reflected the Christian church’s view of sex as a dangerously polluting force, as well as the patriarchal commonplace that women were more lustful than men and liable to lead them astray. By the later middle ages, it was common in places such as London, Bristol and Gloucester for convicted prostitutes, bawds, fornicators and adulterers to be subjected to elaborate ritual punishments: to have their hair shaved off or to be dressed in especially degrading outfits, severely whipped, displayed in a pillory or public cage, paraded around for public humiliation and expelled for ever from the community.

“The First Sexual Revolution: Lust and Liberty in the 18th Century.” — Faramerz Dabhoiwala, Guardian

See also: “The Women’s Crusade.” — Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times Magazine, Aug. 17, 2009

Our Top 5 Longreads of the Week: Outside Magazine, The New Republic, Esquire, Grantland, The New York Times Magazine, a fiction pick, plus a guest pick from Prospect Magazine’s David Wolf.

Photo: moriza/Flickr

[Fiction] A marriage and its outside interferences:

When she told her husband that David Cannon had arranged for her a series of recitals in South America, she looked to him for swift response. She was confident that anything touching on her professional life would kindle his eye and warm his voice. It was, in fact, that professional life as she interpreted it with the mind of an artist, the heart of a child, which had first drawn him to her; he had often admitted as much. During one year of rare comradeship he had never failed in his consideration for her work. He would know, she felt sure, that to go on a concert tour with David Cannon, to sing David Cannon’s songs under such conditions, presented good fortune in more than one way. He would rejoice accordingly.

But his “Why, my dear, South America!” came flatly upon her announcement. It lacked the upward ring, and his eye did not kindle, his voice did not warm. He himself felt the fictitious inflection, for he added hastily, with happier effect: “It’s a wonderful chance, dearest, isn’t it?”

“The Thing They Loved.” — Marice Rutledge, The Century Magazine, 1920

See more Pen/O. Henry Award Winning #Fiction Longreads

Photo: thejourney1972/Flickr

Featured Longreader: Ron Nurwisah, news editor for The Huffington Post Canada. See his story picks from The Dependent Magazine, Maisonneuve Magazine, plus more on his #longreads page.

The long road to reform the government’s Minerals Management Service, three years after its “sex, drugs and oil” scandal:

One thing that the agency hasn’t done is put to rest the skepticism of its whistleblowers. They claim that schemes similar to the royalty-avoidance techniques at issue in the False Claim Act lawsuits are still being used by major oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in tens of millions in lost revenues.

“I don’t think a lot has changed,” says Little. “Shell isn’t the only company doing this. We turned in several other companies to the inspector general. We gave them our files. We had to force them to take them. And they still have not done one thing. They have not pursued any of those companies.”

“Drilled, Baby, Drilled.” — Alan Prendergast, Westword

See also: “The Fracturing of Pennsylvania.” Eliza Griswold, The New York Times, Nov. 17, 2011

Reading List for 'Behind the Longreads' with New York Magazine

Reminder: This is next Wednesday! “Behind the Longreads” at Housing Works in NYC with New York magazine’s Dan P. Lee, Jessica Pressler, Wesley Yang and Editor-in-Chief Adam Moss. 

It’s a free event, and you can now RSVP on the Longreads Facebook page

Because this night is going to be about the stories themselves, we’ve prepared a reading list for the big event:

• “Travis the Menace,” by Dan P. Lee (also featured in our new Longreads: Best of 2011 ebook)

• “A Holly Golightly for the Stripper-Embezzlement Age,” by Jessica Pressler 

• “Paper Tigers,” by Wesley Yang


A trip to John Madden’s man cave, and whether sports video games can ever be described as “art”:

Clearly, the way sports games are played, and the way Madden in particular is played, is ripe for some massive paradigm shift. Why doesn’t the quarterback position feel as visceral and pinpointy as firing a rifle in a first-person shooter? Could you make the experience of being an offensive lineman as interesting as anything on the ball? Why, for that matter, is running the ball such an isometric experience? When I put these and other questions to the Madden team in Florida, many of them smiled.

“Kickoff: ‘Madden NFL’ and the Future of Video Game Sports.” — Tom Bissell, Grantland

See also: “Hey, Wait a Minute! I Want to Talk.” — Sarah Pileggi, Sports Illustrated, Sept. 1, 1983

Featured Longreader: Caitlin Dewey, producer for Kiplinger. See her story picks from Malcolm Gladwell, Vanity Fair, plus more on her #longreads page.

[Not single-page] The case of the “Waffle House terrorists,” which included 73-year-old Fred Thomas and three other 60-something men charged with plotting to commit acts of terror—and an FBI informant previously arrested on charges of molestation: 

It is the central mystery of the case, one even more perplexing than the mystery of whether the old conspirators would ever have been capable of doing what they were talking about doing, or whether, if they weren’t capable, they could be guilty of any crimes. By all accounts, Fred Thomas had lived an exemplary life of loyalty and leadership, with a devoted wife, a son nearby, a secure pension income, and a dream home to show for it. Joe Sims, by all accounts, had lived a slippery and slovenly life that made him the equivalent of his cell-phone stamp — unknown. He was a man of unsavory associations and catastrophic divorces, a man who when he tells the truth, tells it slant, a man who stands accused of raping his stepdaughter in a house with her old swing set still planted in the backyard.

And yet Fred Thomas called him and still has his phone number on his speed dial. When Sims called Thomas, Thomas picked up the phone, and even when Charlotte took an icy message, Thomas always called Sims back.

“Counter-Terrorism Is Getting Complicated.” — Tom Junod, Esquire

See also: “Homegrown Terror.” — Garrett M. Graff, 5280 Magazine, Nov. 1, 2011

Thirty-two-year-old Luis Mijangos hacked into his victims’ computers, accessing their hard drives and even turning on their webcams:

Mijangos was an unlikely candidate for the world’s creepiest hacker. He lived at home with his mother, half brother, two sisters—one a schoolgirl, the other a housekeeper—and a perky gray poodle named Petra. It was a lively place, busy with family who gathered to watch soccer and to barbecue on the marigold-lined patio. Mijangos had a small bedroom in front, decorated in the red, white, and green of Mexican soccer souvenirs, along with a picture of Jesus. That’s where he spent most of his time, in front of his laptop—sitting in his wheelchair.

“The Hacker is Watching.” — David Kushner, GQ

See also: “Hacked!” — The Atlantic, Nov. 1, 2011