We explode gender norms by exploring their incredible variety across time.
Episodes
Saturday May 30, 2020
Saturday May 30, 2020
My city is on fire today. This is day four of the riots in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police. And everyone around me is saying, “I’m angry too, but why destroy your own community? It doesn’t make sense.”
But is there another way to look at it? In this episode, I share first-hand reports of the riots as well as experiences of income disparity in local schools. By looking behind the violence to the roots of disadvantage, can we turn confusion into empathy?
For references, credits, and more, visit our website at www.historyofsex.com.
Monday May 25, 2020
Monday May 25, 2020
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.
Monday May 18, 2020
Monday May 18, 2020
Pages upon pages of photos of Nazi soldiers... in drag - that's what's in Martin Dammann's book Soldier Studies: Cross-dressing in der Wermacht. Were the Nazis more diverse than we ever thought? Or is there something more insidious lurking here? Today we take a look at the situation in which cross-dressers found themselves in the Third Reich.
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.
Monday May 11, 2020
Monday May 11, 2020
Of course lesbian sex is "real" sex! Why wouldn't it be? Yet the rabidly homophobic Nazis declined to prosecute lesbian sodomy charges, apparently on the grounds that it wasn't. Moreover, most of Western history agreed: without penetration, lesbian sex was not "real" sex. How could this be? Discover the history of views toward female-female sex from the ancient world to today.
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.
Monday May 04, 2020
Monday May 04, 2020
Were there really gays in the Nazi party, even though they sent thousands of homosexuals to concentration camps or worse? Yes. In fact, Ernst Röhm, the second most powerful man in the party in the early years, was gay - and a close friend of Hitler's. How could this be?
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.
Monday Apr 27, 2020
Monday Apr 27, 2020
What if you got the birds and the bees talk from Aztec parents? How different would it be? Answer: quite different indeed. Among the other things needed to make a baby besides "loving each other very much", are ritual, sacrifice, and sweeping. How does that work?
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.
Monday Apr 20, 2020
Monday Apr 20, 2020
What can we really learn about a culture from its artistic depictions of sex? To look at the pottery of the Moche from the north coast of Peru, you would think that these people must have been obsessed with blowjobs. And backdoor stuff. And, well, a whole lot else too. But does this tell us how they got their rocks off? Or is it more complicated than that?
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.
Monday Apr 13, 2020
Monday Apr 13, 2020
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.
Monday Apr 06, 2020
Monday Apr 06, 2020
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.
Friday Mar 27, 2020
Friday Mar 27, 2020
This episode goes out to all of you at home out there during this pandemic, but we want to dedicate it especially to listener Owyn in Toronto, Canada. He’s faced a string of tough challenges recently, and now there’s the covid challenge on top of it all, but on the bright side, Owyn: it’s your 19th birthday today! Happy Covid 19th, Owyn!
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.