On 10 July 1057 (or 1040, depending), Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of Coventry. Two versions published around the same time tell us something about how men see, or don’t see, women.
In both, the pious wife implores her husband to relieve the town of Coventry of heavy taxation, he says he will if she rides naked through the town, she does, and the taxes go.
Version 1 is an 1849 translation of a history published around 1235. In it, two knights accompany Godiva on her ride through the market place. Her long tresses “covered the whole of her body like a veil”.
Version 2 is “Godiva”, a poem by Lord Tennyson penned in 1842 while he was waiting for the train in Coventry. In it, Godiva gives orders to the townsfolk:
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down…
Then she rides “clothed on[ly] with chastity”:
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth,
The fatal byword of all years to come,
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
Peep’d — but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivel’d into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him.
As for the fatal byword, Coventry had been getting tourist shillings from Godiva and Peeping Tom for at least seven decades before Tennyson wrote.
On 10 July 1985, Playboy published nude photos of Madonna. She had had great success with “Like a Virgin” the year before. About this time, Madonna released “Human Nature”, which debuted in the Canadian charts on 10 July. In it, she has a go at the press:
You punished me for telling you my fantasies
I’m breakin’ all the rules I didn’t make
Express yourself don’t repress yourself
