Medieval Sex

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

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2022

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

*WARNING this episode includes explicit language and adult themes*

What were your medieval ancestors getting up to in the bedroom? Join sex historian Kate Lister, Betwixt the Sheets, to find out.

Medievalist and George Michael super-fan Dr Eleanor Janega is on the podcast to chat all things aphrodisiacs, sex diaries and religious rules.

Hear about bizarre fertility treatments involving actual fish in places they should never go, medieval chat up lines, and much, much more.

You can watch Kate and Eleanor on screen together in History Hit's documentary, Medieval Pleasures here.

Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee. Mixed by Annie Coloe.

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

This podcast includes music by Epidemic Sounds and archive clips from The Princess Bride 1987, Angela MacNamara's Sex Education for Girls 1980.

Transcript

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0:00.0	In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wits for the princess, to the death I accept.
0:09.4	Love making just means making each other feel loved.
0:14.1	Sex!
0:15.1	It's been a thing for a while.
0:17.6	In fact, one study found that the planet's first active sex happened around a whopping
0:21.8	that 385 million years ago in the Scottish lake between two prehistoric fish.
0:29.4	So yep, that means that many evil people were getting it on as well, and it wasn't all
0:34.1	chastity belts and damsels in distress either.
0:37.7	I'm Kate Lister, and thanks for joining me for Twix the Sheets, to find out what sex
0:42.0	was really like in the Middle Ages.
0:44.2	What do you have for a man?
0:47.4	Oh, money of course.
0:49.4	You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you.
0:51.6	I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs, I just turn him enough and push him
0:57.0	up.
0:58.0	I'm Kate Lister, sex historian and historical harlot, and thank you for joining me
1:20.1	the Twix the Sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society.
1:24.8	Before we begin, please know, perhaps unsurprisingly, there will be some adult themes and explicit
1:30.0	words in this episode, I think I'd disappoint you if there wasn't.
1:34.2	The poet Philip Larkin famously declared that sex was invented in Britain in 1963, but
1:39.7	I can exclusively reveal to you today that this is in fact not true.
1:44.8	People have been having it off for centuries.
	...

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