Incest

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Incest. It’s not the lightest topic of conversation, we wouldn’t recommend bringing it up as an icebreaker on a date, or when you’re trying to impress new people at a party - but it’s one which has fascinated many of us for centuries nonetheless.

But has it always been taboo? How have the necessary degrees of separation between partners grown and shrunk over the years? And why were so many royal families keen on familial relations in the past...Hapsburg chin anyone?

Kate is Betwixt the Sheets with Brian Connolly to discuss the history of incest, an episode suggested to us by a listener. You can read more of Brian's work here.

WARNING: There is adult content and explicit words in this episode.

Senior producer: Charlotte Long. Producer: Sophie Gee. Mixed by Siobhan Dale.

Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.

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This podcast includes music from Epidemic Sounds.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, my lovely betricksters, it's me, Kate Lister. I am here with your fair dues warning.
0:07.3	Are you ready? Are you steady? Well here it comes. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults
0:13.7	to other adults about adulty things and you should be an adult too. Today we're talking
0:18.4	about incest. I can't tiptoe around it any further than that. Do I even need to warn you
0:23.1	where this one is going to go? And if you just don't want to listen to this one today,
0:26.8	that is absolutely fine. Get out. Get out now while you still can. And for the rest of you,
0:33.3	well I am ready to do this if you are.
0:41.4	Hello and welcome back to the Twix the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me,
0:46.0	Kate Lister. Although today I am not here on my own. I have a listener with me. In fact this entire
0:52.8	episode is because Yasmin emailed us in with this request. Hello, my name is Yasmin and I've
1:01.7	listened to the Twix the Sheets right from the very beginning and never missed a show. I think
1:06.9	it's absolutely amazing. Thank you Kate for making it funny and interesting. My suggestion is maybe
1:13.6	a podcast on incest because you catch glimpses of it throughout history and I wondered what Kate
1:20.2	had said about it. Thank you for that Yasmin. So to find out more about incest, I am joined by
1:26.7	historian Brian Conley. If we're so squeamish about incest, if it puts so many of us often
1:32.9	freaks us out, then why have so many royal families throughout history and around the world
1:38.4	been really keen on family relations in the past? Habsburg chin anyone? And how have the
1:46.1	necessary degrees of separation between partners changed? Was it all right to marry your brother?
1:52.3	Was it all right to make your cousin? How about your second cousin once removed? At what point
1:56.6	do we say that this is okay? And what have Edipus Leviticus and Freud got to do with any of it?
2:03.5	Well today, the Twix the Tangled Sheets. We are going to try and find out.
2:16.3	Comments of whatever my boss needs. I just turning it up and pushing it up.
	...

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