WARNING: this episode uses explicit language almost from the start. In 1918, the year that the First World War ended, a slim little book was published. Its title was Married Love, and it was going to change the course of Western sexuality forever. Its author was Marie Stopes. She believed that mutual orgasm was an essential component of a successful marriage. This was a radical, progressive view, at a time when many doctors and scientists ignored or denied altogether the existence of the female orgasm. And yet much of Stopes’ motivation was decidedly reactionary: orgasms made women healthy, and healthy women conceived healthy babies…. and healthy babies were needed to defend and administer the British Empire. The very social fabric of the Empire itself depended on what happened between the sheets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
