Could You Survive Victorian Surgery?

Was Sappho queer? Or was this Ancient Greek poet just really really good friends with women?Today on Betwixt the Sheets, Kate is joined by Katherine Horgan to find out how Sappho's poetry has lasted through the centuries, what we can really know about her life, and why she is imp ...  Show more

Where the American War of Independence raged, the camp followers...followed.Among them were sex workers, for both the American and British troops. What was life like inside army camps where sex workers mixed with wives, soldiers and generals? How did race and slavery factor into ...  Show more

With six wives, Henry VIII must have had something going for him, right? Was he handsome? Charming? Intelligent? Just plain powerful? In this episode, the tables are turned on Professor Suzannah Lipscomb as she becomes the guest of Dr. Kate Lister on our sister podcast, Betwixt t ...  Show more

Warning: this episode contains explicit language.Medieval people weren’t prudish—far from it. Dan is joined by medieval historian Dr Eleanor Janega to explore sex, marriage, and desire in the Middle Ages. They delve into the beliefs around sodomy as “non-procreative sex”; pilgrim ...  Show more

In this enchanting episode, Dr. Eleanor Janega dissolves the boundaries between history, folklore, and music to explore the haunting world of medieval ballads. Joined by author Amy Jeffs, illustrator Gwen Burns and composer/singer Natalie Brice, Eleanor uncovers the timeless stor ...  Show more

Sex. It’s everyone’s favourite subject. But has it been that way since the Middle Ages? The repressive instincts of some medieval churchmen meant that the way that ordinary people experienced and enjoyed sex in medieval Europe was very different to how it is today. But despite ...