Firefighters are forced to deal with all kinds of oddities that fall outside their job descriptions.
When they’re not putting out fires, they’re rescuing cats, entertaining inebriated bachelorettes and working on their annual campaign to sell calendars to a generation of people whose phones can tell them the date in an instant.
And yet, as multi-skilled and, let’s face it, open minded as the fire brigade surely are, it’s perfectly understandable that a group of Italian firefighters were a little taken aback when they found themselves removing a chastity belt from a middle-aged woman.
The woman, who was reportedly in her sixties, went to the local fire station in Padua in need of some assistance.
“Hello, I lost the keys to a lock and I can’t open it,” she said, according to the local newspaper.
The firefighters apparently asked her for her address, assuming she’d locked herself out, but instead she lifted her jumper to reveal a chastity belt around her waist, complete with iron padlock.
Chastity belts, which you may remember from Robin Hood: Men in Tights and/or your nightmares, are a contraption designed to stop women from having sex or masturbating.
They were thought to be at their most popular during the 19th century, not the Middle Ages as is commonly thought.
ICYMI:
The firefighters (bless) were worried that the woman been a victim of violence or, but apparently, she was wearing the belt of her own accord to protect herself from potential sexual assault (there had been several reported in her area).
They quickly poured water on the crisis, freeing the lady and sending her on her way.
Bless those firefighters. Who knows when you might need them.
