Sexing History

Sexing History episodes:

• 01.06.2023

  Season 4, Episode 2: Topless Roanoke

  In the 1960s, Papa Joe’s in Roanoke, Virginia, became the very first club in the state and among the earliest in the nation to feature topless dancing. While some heralded Papa Joe’s owner, George Christofis, as a sexual revolutionary, many...

  
• 12.20.2022

  Season 4, Episode 1: A Sacred Calling

  For nearly half a century, Curtis Boyd and Glenna Halverson Boyd have devoted their lives to providing safe and affirming abortion care. Curtis, a former Baptist minister, began providing abortions in Texas before the procedure was legal in the state....

  
• 12.22.2020

  Season 3, Episode 4: Come All Ye Faithful

  In this episode, we’ll be taking a cue from Santa Claus and sketching a naughty and nice history of festive sexual expressions. So, grab your eggnog, curl up by the fire and join us as we explore the ghosts of...

  
• 12.02.2020

  Season 3, Episode 3: The Stained Glass Closet

  How do you come out in a religious community that loves you conditionally? What do you tell yourself about your faith and your desires when your Church views your sexuality as disordered? In this episode of Sexing History, we...

  
• 07.25.2020

  Season 3, Episode 2: The Pickup Artist

  Straight white men’s sexuality is too often imagined as natural, timeless, and unchanging. In “The Pickup Artist,” we showcase the 1970 bestseller, How to Pick Up Girls, in order to explore the cultural forces that have shaped how white men...

  
• 05.21.2020

  Season 3, Episode 1: Love and Labor

  The story of African American midwifery is part of a larger history of Black women’s struggles to protect their own lives, as well as the lives of other Black women and their children. This episode explores the long history of...

  
• 11.21.2019

  Season 2, Bonus Episode 2: Marabel Morgan

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• 11.15.2019

  Season 2, Episode 6: Against Our Will

  In the 1960s and early 1970s many Americans believed that rape was a rare and violent act perpetrated by outsiders and sociopaths. Popular culture taught men that women needed to be tricked or coerced into sex, and psychiatrists accused rape...

  
• 10.10.2019

  Season 2, Episode 5: Let's Dance!

  In the 1960s and 1970s, a belly dancing craze swept the United States. Audiences could enjoy live belly dancing performances in Middle Eastern restaurants and clubs. Viewers could watch belly dancers in hit movies and on popular television shows. At...

  
• 06.24.2019

  Season 2, Episode 4: Canary

  For a short time in the 1970s, Canary Conn was everywhere. She was on television. On the radio. And on bookshelves. Her story, that of a Texas-born recording artist, husband and father who transitioned into a woman whom the media...

  
• 02.25.2019

  Season 2 Episode 3: Sherri

  In August of 1962, Sherri Chessen boarded a flight to Sweden in order to get an abortion after she was unable to obtain one in the United States. Sherri had accidentally taken medicine containing thalidomide, a drug that caused children...

  
• 11.12.2018

  Season 2, Bonus Episode 1: Mark S. King

  Welcome to a bonus track from Sexing History. This track features an extended version of Gillian Frank’s interview with Mark S. King from our most recent episode “Sex Over the Phone.” That episode explores how phone sex lines and dial-a-porn...

  
• 11.07.2018

  Season 2, Episode 2: Sex Over the Phone

  If you enjoyed this episode, please review us on iTunes or Soundcloud and share us on social media. Visit us at www.sexinghistory.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

  
• 09.16.2018

  Season 2, Episode 1: Bandstand and the Closet

  If you enjoyed this episode, please review us on iTunes or Soundcloud and share us on social media. Visit us at www.sexinghistory.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

  
• 04.21.2018

  Episode 8: Mama Was a Star

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• 03.13.2018

  Episode 7: A Church With AIDS

  In the 1980s and 1990s, the San Francisco Metropolitan Community Church wrestled with profound questions: What does it mean to minister a gay church when so many in the congregation are dying from AIDS-related complications and grieving the recently dead?...

  
• 02.13.2018

  Episode 6: Sexism Takes Flight

  In the 1960s, the airline industry ramped up its sexualization of stewardesses in order to increase revenues. Decades before the #MeToo movement, flight attendants navigated a workplace in which their employers required them to stay thin, remain unmarried, and squeeze...

  
• 12.11.2017

  Episode 5: Touch Me, I'm Yours!

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• 11.16.2017

  Episode 4: Mixed Blessings

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• 10.26.2017

  Episode 3: I Must Increase My Bust!

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• 10.04.2017

  Episode 2: Abortion on Trial

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• 09.15.2017

  Episode 1: Prom Night

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• 07.26.2017

  Sexing History is coming!

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