The History of Sex

Hey, did you catch the ultimate fighting match last week, you know the one where they gouged each other’s eyes out? Um, no, you probably didn’t, because that doesn’t happen today. But it did happen in the 19th century.

What did it mean to be a man in the era of the Civil War? To be a man – an American man – was to be independent, and this was displayed by control over your own body up to and including risking getting your eyes gouged out in a brawl. But that meant different things for different people. What did it mean for Southern as opposed to Northern men? Working class vs. middle class? Or White and Black?

Credit goes to Dig: A History Podcast for doing most of the research for this episode. Their episode "Patriarchs, Brawlers, and Gentleman: Manhood in the Civil War Era" was originally intended to air as a showcase episode on our feed, but the deal fell through due to book-industry politics out of both of our hands. This episode covers similar ground in a different fashion.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Animation by Maxeem Konrardy. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.

Ancient Greece – there’s hardly a more revered civilization in Western history, yet it’s also notorious, particularly for a little thing called pederasty: institutionalized love between an older man and a much younger man. But what was pederasty really like? Was it exploitative? Was it always even sexual? And was it really that different from the courtly love of later eras? In today’s showcase episode, Ryan Stitt of the podcast The History of Ancient Greece brings it all out of the closet.

This episode has been sponsored by LetsGetChecked. Go to www.trylgc.com/btnewberg and use code "history" to get 20% off your purchase.

What was life like for women in New Zealand before the arrival of Europeans? The Maori are the main indigenous people of Aotearoa, or what we now call New Zealand, and the experience of Maori women was in many ways strikingly different. Here to tell us all about it is Thomas of the podcast History of Aotearoa New Zealand.

This episode has been sponsored by LetsGetChecked. Go to www.trylgc.com/btnewberg and use code “history” to get 20% off your purchase.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Animation by Maxeem Konrardy. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.

In 1629, in colonial Virginia, there came before the courts one Thomas Hall. Or was it Thomasine Hall? That was the question. This was the first recorded intersex person in America - that is, apart from Native American traditions, of course (which we DO cover in this episode). The colonists didn't know what to do. Today, we're taking a look at perceptions of intersex in early colonial America, and all of the centuries of tradition that went into them, from ancient Greece up to the present.

To check out Hall's story for yourself, see The Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Animation by Maxeem Konrardy. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.

Why didn't the Nazis make an exception for bisexuals? They could have helped raise the birth rate as much as anyone else, yet they were persecuted alongside homosexuals without distinction. Was this an early form of bisexual erasure? And what is bisexual erasure anyway?

This episode has been sponsored by LetsGetChecked. Go to www.trylgc.com/btnewberg and use code "history" to get 20% off your purchase.

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/btnewberg. Research, writing, editing, and production by B. T. Newberg. Logo Design by Rachel Westhoff. Animation by Maxeem Konrardy. Additional credits, references, and more at www.historyofsexpod.com.