The First Sexual Revolution: Lust and Liberty in the 18th Century

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.”

Source: The Guardian
Published: Jan 20, 2012
Length: 16 minutes (4,132 words)

The Thing They Loved

[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?'”

Published: May 1, 1920
Length: 35 minutes (8,940 words)

Drilled, Baby, Drilled

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.'”

Source: Westword
Published: Jan 20, 2012
Length: 23 minutes (5,822 words)

Kickoff: ‘Madden NFL’ and the Future of Video Game Sports

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.”

Source: Grantland
Published: Jan 17, 2012
Length: 30 minutes (7,703 words)

Counter-Terrorism Is Getting Complicated

[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.”

Author: Tom Junod
Source: Esquire
Published: Jan 18, 2012
Length: 37 minutes (9,457 words)

Announcing the ‘Longreads: Best of 2011’ Ebook

Longreads: Best of 2011 includes seven of our favorite stories from the past year.

The ebook is a unique partnership with the writers and publishers—we want to help celebrate outstanding storytelling, and this is just another way for us to do it. Additionally, money from the ebook sales will be shared with the creators, and we’re excited to have them participating.

Publishers involved include: New York magazine, Lapham’s Quarterly, This Recording, Popular Mechanics, The New York Times, GQ, and The Awl.

Source: longreads.com
Published: Jan 18, 2012

The Hacker Is Watching

Thirty-two-year-old Luis Mijangos hacked into his victims’ computers, accessing their hard drives and 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.”

Source: GQ
Published: Jan 15, 2012
Length: 18 minutes (4,729 words)

The Architect, The ‘It’ Girl And The Toy Pistol That Wasn’t

Stanford White and Harry Thaw’s battle for the heart of model and chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit in 1906:

“One warm June night in 1906, Albert Payson Terhune could be found engaged in battle for a telephone booth in the old Madison Square Garden while wearing a tuxedo. He had forcibly removed a man mid-conversation, and now, as he shouted into the phone, he kicked out a leg and swung his free arm to fend off the displaced caller and another man wielding a chair. Moments before and one floor above, Terhune, filling in as a drama critic for the New York Evening World, had been a witness to the crime of the century, and he was calling in the scoop.

“The movie version of his half of the conversation would go something like this: ‘Right, yes, that Stanford White. It’s about Evelyn Nesbit!'”

Source: The Awl
Published: Jan 18, 2012
Length: 6 minutes (1,701 words)

George Lucas Is Ready to Roll the Credits

The next phase of George Lucas’s career, the making (and studios’ rejection) of his new Tuskegee Airmen film Red Tails, and who’s really to blame for the “nuking the fridge” idea in the last Indiana Jones film:

“When I told Lucas that Spielberg had accepted the blame for nuking the fridge, he looked stunned. ‘It’s not true,’ he said. ‘He’s trying to protect me.’

“In fact, it was Spielberg who ‘didn’t believe’ the scene. In response to Spielberg’s fears, Lucas put together a whole nuking-the-fridge dossier. It was about six inches thick, he indicated with his hands. Lucas said that if the refrigerator were lead-lined, and if Indy didn’t break his neck when the fridge crashed to earth, and if he were able to get the door open, he could, in fact, survive. ‘The odds of surviving that refrigerator — from a lot of scientists — are about 50-50,’ Lucas said.”

Published: Jan 17, 2012
Length: 19 minutes (4,934 words)

Letter from Detroit

Another perspective on the city’s struggles, and the attempts to revive it:

“A recent New York Times article lauded Detroit as a ‘Midwestern Tribeca’ of socially aware folk; but off of its bustling main drag, Corktown is surrounded by Detroit’s burned-out industrial structures and houses, weedy lots, and subsidized housing. For every white entrepreneur in an inner-city neighborhood, a score of young, college-educated kids live in dense, hip suburbs like Royal Oak and Ferndale. The Detroit perceived by artists like Catie and Marianne — often from privileged, suburban backgrounds — is radically different from the city visible to EMS workers. I have doubts about the city’s oft-vaunted creative scene, which I was part of for much of the year: to what extent were we dancing to electro-pop while Detroit burned?”

Published: Jan 17, 2012
Length: 13 minutes (3,401 words)