Episode description

The first condoms were made of cloth and intended to be used after sex. Later they were replaced by hand stitched animal gut ones – designed to be washed and reused. We chart the bizzare, fraught and sexist history of attempts to deal with the prevention of sexually transmitted disease - where medical practice came into conflict with the morals of society.

Histories of Sexual Health in Britain 1918-1980 is a research project being led by Anne Hanley. She joins Bill Yarber from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and Kate Lister from the Leeds Centre for Victorian Studies who has looked at the experiences and depictions of sex work from the nineteenth century to today. Matthew Sweet hosts the discussion

Producer: Julian Siddle

Dr Kate Lister is a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Trinity University. She curates the online project www.thewhoresofyore.com and is the author the book A Curious History of Sex. You can hear more from her in a Free Thinking episode called How we talk about sex and women's bodies Dr Anne Hanley is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham whose research project is engaged in collecting oral histories with people who accessed and/or staffed sexual-health clinics between 1948 and 1980 in Britain. Professor Bill Yarber literally wrote the book or rather books for sex education in America, from some of the first guides to STDs, HIVAIDS and condom use to 'Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America' - the bestselling textbook on the subject.