Over hundreds of years, chastity belts have become deeply ingrained in our knowledge of medieval history as a barbaric, almost comically absurd method of stopping a woman from sleeping around. Women, rest easy: The locked metal torture device your ancestors endured is likely the stuff of myths.
"As a medievalist, one day I thought: I cannot stand this anymore," University of Arizona German Studies Professor Albrecht Classen told Atlas Obscura. "It's a concise enough research topic that I could cover everything that was ever written about it... and in one swoop destroy this myth."
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