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

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

We live in a hyper-sexualised world. But what if you don't take a sexual interest in anyone?Asexuality makes up roughly 1% of the population, and even though it will have been around as an identity since humans have been around, the language for it has a relatively recent history.Joining Kate today is Tony Bogaert, author of Understanding Asexuality. Do people who are asexual enjoy romance still? Do they masturbate? And what role did the internet have in establishing it?Let's go Betwixt the Sheets to find out.This podcast was edited by Tom Delargy and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Discover the past on History Hit with ad-free original podcasts and documentaries released weekly presented by world renowned historians like Kate Lister, Dan Snow, Suzannah Lipscomb, Lucy Worsley, Mary Beard and more.Get 50% off your first 3 months with code BETWIXT. Download the app on your smart TV or in the app store or sign up at historyhit.com/subscribe.You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. I am here, as I always will be, to protect you from me, to protect me from you, and to protect us all from each other. How are you going to do that, Kate?

Well, I'm going to do it with the cunning use of a fair do's warning. Here it is. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults in an adulty way about a range of adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. And after that little lot, if you want to hang around and if you're of a sensitive sort,

then I really don't know what the fuck you're doing. But the rest of you, let's crack on. If one thing's for sure, here on betwixt, we are a broad church. Whatever you fancy on the smorgasbord of sexuality, as long as it's within the rules of the law and everyone's happy and consenting, then you are welcome to indulge it here.

Equally, as we will explore today, if you don't have an appetite for the delicious things on the smorgasbord of sexuality, then you are also welcome. To some, asexuality is completely unfathomable. To others, it's not just fathomable, but it's fantastic. Asexuality, as a term, is relatively new, but of course, like all sexual identities, it has existed for as long as there have been people to have sex, or in this case, not have sex. So what are its origins? Why does some people call it the first internet orientation? And does asexuality also exclude masturbation? I am ready to get betwixta sheets by myself.

If you are lovely betwixters, let's do this. What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning it up and pushing the button. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, dearie.

Welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, with me, Kate Lister. Going by recent research, somewhere between 0.5 and 1% of the people in the UK define themselves as as asexual. To be clear, that's someone

who doesn't experience sexual attraction towards individuals of any gender. 1% of any population is going to add up to a fair old number of people and I was thrilled to hear another listener's suggestion that led us to do this episode. Over to you, Kyla. Hi Kate and everyone over at the Betwixt team. My name is Kyla and I absolutely adore the show.

It's helped me through many long days at the office. I was just popping by to suggest that you do an episode on asexuality. You talk about how so much human behavior and so many actions are driven by sexuality, and I was just wondering how asexuality plays into all of that. A fantastic point, and what a brilliant request, and we are thrilled to explore it today with today's guest, Tony Bogart, author of Understanding Asexuality. Which historical figures do we think might have been asexual? When did the modern idea first emerge? And can you be asexual and still enjoy romance? I am ready to find out if you are.

and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Tony Bogart. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you for inviting me, Kate. I appreciate that. I am, of course I invited you because you research such a fascinating part of the human sexuality spectrum, asexuality. This is a big question. So maybe I should start with a smaller one and work up, but I'm going to start with the big one. What brought you to this research? What was it that made you think, I want to research this community, this is what I want to know more about. What's your origin story? Well, I think it's an interesting origin story, actually.

I was studying human sexuality, a number of different areas, including traditional sexual orientation, including, for example, the origins of what makes the person gay, what makes the person straight, so on and so forth. and primarily from a biological perspective, but not exclusively. And I was doing some research on the fraternal birth order effect or the older brother effect, which has been linked to sexual orientation of gay men. Well, that's that on average, gay men have more older brothers than do heterosexual men. I didn't know that.

I know. It's interesting, isn't it? And there's no effect in women that we found. a consistent way, although there are new studies coming out that may suggest maybe some kind of biodemographic relationship to women's sexual orientation too. But over the years, we haven't found any relationship. But anyway, I was studying that. And I wanted to actually do some pre-existing or look at a pre-existing database that was actually a national sample in Britain. So what I did was I went in to this national sample in Britain. It's called the Natsal Survey. And I ended up looking at a question related to sexual orientation. And it was basically

a traditional seven-point scale where one you're attracted to men, seven-year attracted to women. And I also noticed they gave an option. And the option was, I have never felt sexual attraction to anyone at all. And I was perplexed by that because at that time, I thought, well, maybe these people are just non-responders and don't have any kind of, I guess, connection to that particular question, but it's not really revealing anything meaningful.

And then I started thinking, wait a minute, this is meaningful. This is actually an indication that someone doesn't have attraction to anyone at all, meaning that they're asexual. And so I actually published a paper, and that was in 2004. And that basically started the process off in terms of me being interested in this unique group of individuals who don't have sexual attraction to people. And so I continue to do work on that, including a number of years later,

publishing a book on asexuality and how it, for example, also informs or allows us to make interesting sort of suggestions and conclusions about sex. And so the contrast is also interesting. So that's basically how it all started. Just for anyone who's listening that's thinking, a what, asexuality, who's, what? How do you define asexuality? Because it's one of, well, you can explain this better than I was going to say it's one of the newer sexual identities that people have started exploring. but that might not be true.

But what is it? What is asexuality? Well, the way I define it is that asexuality refers to if you do not have a lustful lure or sexual attraction for other people. So just like, for example, other traditional sexual orientations, you can be sexually attracted to the other sex,

heterosexuality, you can be attracted to the same sex, homosexuality, you can be attracted to both sex. bisexuality, well, you can also have kind of a fourth quadrant there, and that fourth quadrant is actually not being sexually attracted to either men or women. So it's kind of an interesting fourth category that fits within a sexual orientation framework. So again, it's a lack of lustful lure or a lack of sexual attraction for other people. oftentimes people who are asexual also don't have any sexual desire so no sexual interest but some people who are asexual still have some kind of sexual with desire and they may still for example masturbate but they just don't connect that sexual desire to other people so that's the way I define it that's interesting

isn't it that you can experience desire and pleasure yourself masturbate but you might not be attracted to anyone else. What about like romance, which is a really interested, like, how does that even link to sex? But is someone who is asexual? Can they still experience romantic love? Yeah. Generally speaking, there's evidence that most people who are asexual also experience still some level of romantic attraction. So they may still have a love bond with a partner or partners. But it's also the case that some asexual people are also a-romantic. So they also don't have any kind of romantic attachment to other people. But generally speaking, asexual people still have some level of romantic attraction to other people.

And that's one of the interesting things about studying asexuality. It helps us to understand some of the distinctions that exist between sexuality and romanticism and some of the connections that exist. and so for even sexual people, for example, we can actually make a distinction and actually separate out at least to some degree our romantic attractions from our sexual attractions. Sometimes they're melded together very strongly, but sometimes they can be decoupled. And therefore, we have to think about them as sort of separate processes and separate sort of psychological mechanisms, if you will. That is true, is it? because I know the Greeks wrote about this a lot,

but we have lots of different types of love. Yeah, sure. You love people very much. It's different types. Like you love your friend, you love your family. And I suppose is sexual desire a component of romance? Or can it exist completely free from it? That's a really interesting question.

I think it is a very interesting question. And I think, you know, studying asexuality helps us to kind of understand that in a deeper way. I think it is often connected. but not necessarily completely connected. And so people, average sexual people, can have very strong, lustful feelings independent of a romantic attachment.

But it's also the case that our romantic attachments sometimes drive or actually stimulate our sexual interests as well, right? But they can be decoupled as well. So that's an interesting kind of phenomenon that we have to be thoughtful about. Or you can be like me and make the mistake of thinking the person that you are, lusting after is a good romantic partner when they are not.

Oftentimes that can be the case indeed. What kind of percentage of the population are we talking about here, of people that experience or identify as as asexual in your research? What are your kind of data sets on that? Well, the original study, this national sample in Britain, I actually found 1% of the sample said that they had never felt any sexual attraction to anyone at all. And then there's been, you know, lots of other studies since that time. But generally speaking, I would say on average, most of the samples have indicated

somewhere around 1%, sometimes higher, sometimes lower. So I would suggest that probably, yeah, people who have never felt sexual attraction for anyone at all, probably is it around 1%. When it comes to sexual identity, words and language are so important. how do people that identify now as being asexual, how have they understood their sexuality in the past? Because we live in a world that's drenched in sexuality. It's just like it's everywhere. It's all around us.

It's not movies, our films, it's our songs, it's everywhere. How does somebody who doesn't experience sexual desire understand that about themselves? Is it a source of upset and trauma and confusion for them? You know, I think it is at times. That's certainly the case. as you suggest, Kate, there's certainly, you know, an inundation of norms to be sexual. So what ends up happening is we, you know, in the media, our friends, people all around us,

you know, you're reminded of just how sexual the world is and how hyper-sexualized the world is at times. And therefore, you know, that contrast can probably be a source of stress for some asexual people. That's probably the case. I think there's also, you know, a subgroup of asexual people that probably, you know, are very, very comfortable with who they are and probably have not felt too much pressure to be sexual. It's probably something that, you know, goes up and down in terms of their lives as well. And it's probably the case that, you know, we end up creating our own environments to some degree. So if we're an asexual person, we may end up, for example, seeking out. media and seeking out friends, seeking out experiences that don't constantly remind us of

how hypersexualized the world is. And that can probably be, you know, a source of comfort at times. And I think also what ends up happening is in the modern context, even though the media is so saturated with sex, it's also providing a lot of interesting and important information on sexual diversity as well. And that additional information is probably a source of comfort and provides additional kinds of knowledge that an asexual person can actually go to and then end up, for example, feeling like, you know what, there are other people like me and I can actually identify and actually use words like I am asexual. So they may end up actually receiving a certain amount of comfort from the amount of information

that's available providing some source of sort of mind. knowledge about how they're different than other people and so on. I've heard asexuality being referred to as the first online orientation, meaning that it was, and I don't know if that's fair, but like, I'm going to take a guess that asexuality has been around as long as humans have. It's just that we didn't have the vocabulary for it. But is that fair to say that it was a sexual orientation that was born on the internet? You know, I think partially. I think that's partially true. I think there is some evidence that these words were actually used by people prior to, for example, when the internet became this huge thing. But it was also the case, you know, around the late 1990s, 2000, when, for example, David Jay, who was a founder of the Avan network, the sexuality, disability network, actually started to provide information. on the web and allowing people, for example, to end up getting knowledge about this unique and different sort of orientation.

So I think, you know, it has provided a kind of a modern context for a new identification. But it's probably also been the case, you know, that people throughout the ages have tried to identify themselves as somewhat different if they were asexual or maybe throughout the ages they have, in fact. use different words to describe themselves. But I think, yes, that particular identification as asexual is also connected very strongly in recent years to the internet. Speaking of history, I don't know how you'd go about researching the history of this, what kind of words would be used to describe what we'd now call asexuality. I'm just, I'm mentally scanning famous historical figures now, and I can think of a few

that you might think, oh, they quite, like Isaac Newton quite famously, it didn't seem to have any interest whatsoever at all in sex. Yeah, and, you know, I expect if Isaac Newton was in fact asexual, and there's evidence that, you know, he didn't form any kind of romantic sexual relationships with anyone who was really concentrating only on his work and so on and so forth. It'd be interesting to know in that time period whether he actually had an identification for himself in terms of his romantic sexual inclinations.

It's also the case, you know, in many countries throughout the past, you know, same-sex attraction has been looked on in a very negative way. And so it may be the case that Isaac Newton and other people who didn't form any kind of sexual relations with others, presumably didn't form any sexual relations with others, may have been gay. And, you know, they may just not have been out, you know. So that's something to consider as well. But it's possible that Isaac Newton and others throughout history that we know,

or at least believe, didn't form romantic sexual relations with others. They may have been asexual. It's very possible. I'll be back with Tony after this short break. Hans Christian Anderson of the fairy tale fame. He has a very, I don't want to say odd, because that sounds quite shaming, but an unusual romantic inclination. He writes about it in his diaries.

He doesn't seem to have sex with anybody, but he does form incredibly strong attachments to people. And then he masturbates a lot. And he writes about it in his diary with an ex. And he gets very upset with himself. And he goes to brothels and doesn't have sex. He just pays the women to sit there and chat with him. And then he goes home and says, what a good boy he was. And I've heard someone argue that that might have been asexuality.

It might have been some level of disconnect between himself and other people, which certainly is in the realm of asexuality. Certainly, for example, semi-sexual people when they masturbate, they don't think of themselves and they don't think of specific other people, although there might be, for example, some level of connection to, for example,

porn or some kind of fantasizing, but they don't necessarily connect their own identity with other people. And so there's still a disconnect. Now, that's probably a minority of age. people, many of the asexual people may not masturbate at all, may not have any kind of connection whatsoever to sexuality. But for some asexual people, there's still, for example, a kind of connection to sexuality, even if there's a disconnect between themselves and other people in terms of their sexual attractions. So it's interesting. Yeah, Hans Christian Anderson may be

in that realm, although I would have to learn a little bit more about him to actually, actually make a distinction and say, you know what? Yeah, I would say he fits within the realm of asexuality. It's an interesting example. Yeah. Is there any link between asexuality and neurodiversity? Is this just occurred to me that I have heard people argue that Hans Christian Amson and Isaac Newton both might have had been on the autism spectrum disorder. Emily Bronte is another one. Yeah. Is there a little bit? Oh, there is? there is there is a link on average yeah asexual people tend to be more neurodiverse but that also is you know a generalization so yeah there's lots of asexual people that aren't neurodiverse don't

fall within the autistic spectrum but certainly some do and it's elevated relative to other sexual orientations yes wow i i have ADHD and we have been, there's been a lot of research about sexuality and ADHD and it turns out we're actually quite a horny bunch. I don't know if we're, we're, we're part of the asexuality crew. No, generally speaking. Well, I'm obsessed with golf, so I have that kind of strange sort of paracly cliquity, so keep that in mind as well. I learn that golfing sexuality. Yeah.

When was asexuality, like even in its nascentiality, like even in its nascentia, but proclivity? stages starting to be discussed. So it owes a lot to online discussions and to who is it saying Jay. David Jay, yes. David Jay. Thank you. As sort of one of the pioneers. But did someone like Kinsey have anything to say about this with his famous sexuality index? Yes, he did. Yes, he did. So again, Kinsey used that famous seven-point scale and very traditional way of describing people's sexual interests and sexual behaviors. But he actually couldn't categorize asexual people on that seven-point scale because there was, again, you know, people's sexual interest in behavior towards women, sexual behavior and interest towards men, and it was just that one scale. So he actually

called asexual people X's to designate them as different from what you can find on, for example, that seven-point scale. So they don't belong with a number. They belong with their own category. They just get a number and off a letter. They get a letter. Just the original X-Men. Yes. That's right. That's true. That's true. So yes, Kinsey did talk about it actually. Did he do any research on it? Did he talk about it? Or did he just go X? I'm not talking about them anymore. I know he did talk about it and did do some level of research on, you know,

so many people who are different in terms of their sexualities, right? I mean, he was very fascinated by sexual minorities, so he did end up doing some research on people with different sexual proclivities, including asexual people, but didn't talk about them that much.

And what was the medical community's reaction to the idea that there could be X-Men wandering amongst us? Well, it's interesting. I think, you know, one of the interesting histories associated with asexuality is that, you know, throughout much of human history, particularly cultural history that we can talk about, certainly, you know, people being celibate or having lack of sexual interest is actually associated with sort of spirituality and being positive and so on and so forth.

And so throughout history, particularly in certain religions, it's been discussed and talked about, at least in a broad way, as being associated with something positive. Well, that's probably changed and changed in the 1970s, 80s, when, for example, a medicalization of sexuality occurred, at least to some degree, or any kind of sexuality that's different was perhaps seen or potentially seen as a disorder. And so, for example, David Jay, one of the founders, again, of the asexuality movement, was concerned about, for example, how the medicalization of sexuality may end up stigmatizing asexual people, ending up, for example, suggesting that they have a disorder that needs fixing.

And he rebelled against that, and other asexual people rebelled against that, suggesting that, you know, if you're comfortable with who you are, and you don't necessarily have to be a sexual being to live a full life, therefore shouldn't necessarily be designated as a disorder. So there was a bit of a rebellion against the medicalization of sexuality, including, for example, incorporating asexuality in some form within some kind of pathological kinds of frameworks. Now, that's changed to some degree in the last 20 years or so. Partly my own work, but also David J. and others in the human sexuality community doing research have suggested that, well, if someone is not under distress, and if they identify as this particular unique sexual orientation,

they don't have to be necessarily designated as having a disorder where you have to have a pill or some kind of clinical intervention to change these people. and so it's kind of gone up and down in terms of recent history but also past history in terms of how for example asexual people have been viewed because we do pathologize low libido hyposexual disorder um i there was hypoactive sexual disorder yeah and there was controversially a couple years ago the quote unquote female viagra and i think there were actually it was just a bit of a disaster it wasn't good. But there is, like, you can go and get pills and testosterone patches and things if your libido isn't where you think it should be. So I suppose like, where does it stop being

hyposexual disorder where you just not horny and start being asexuality? Or maybe it's not as clean cut as that. Well, again, if someone is under distress, that's right, yes. And that can actually be a really important criterion, you know, that people incorporate. And if someone really identifies, this way and is comfortable with who they are, then I don't think it should be pathologized. And I've written on that, you know, throughout the last, you know, 25 years myself on that as well. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Yeah. Tell us a bit about who David J. is.

We've mentioned his name a couple of times. Who is this trailblazer? Well, yeah, he was in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Again, he was trying to figure out himself as an individual. He was an asexual man and really wanted to find out about himself, but also help people who were like him in terms of lacking sexual attraction for other people, lacking perhaps a sexual desire. So what he did was he ended up going on TV, talking to reporters, starting a website, and ended up providing a lot of information about asexuality to people, potentially. asexual people, but also the broader community. So trying to educate and inform people about this unique sexual orientation. So yeah, he was very much a, you know, a trailblazer in the late

1990s and early 2000s. Was it Jay who coined the term asexuality or was it somebody else? That's a good question. I think he ended up incorporating that word to describe himself. But even in the scientific literature, for example, in the 1980s, for example, early 1980s, there were psychologists and other researchers who were using the word asexual to describe sexual orientation as well. So it wasn't like that particular word was unique to, for example, David J. And of course, the word asexual, you know, from a biological standpoint, also talks about or refers to certain species that actually replacements. their genes without going through sex, right? They're asexual, right?

They just end up dividing themselves, and they have the same copy of themselves, and therefore they don't use sexual reproduction where there's this diversity of genes that come from a mother and from a father, right? So that word was used, you know, for many years, of course, within the biological community as well. But yeah, the word asexual in a sexual orientation way,

way was also, in fact, talked about in the 1980s, a researcher, for example, by the name Michael Storms, but he didn't do any research on asexual people per se. He actually presented, for example, a theoretical framework that incorporated it within. I guess it was... It seems like there was some discussion just beginning around that even before these trailblazers. One thing you've been ever to kind and sent over a photograph from 1970. 73. Yeah, I saw that photograph. Interesting. Fascinating. Can you just, obviously, no one can see the photograph, but could you just describe it to us, describe what it is that we're looking at, and why it's so significant? Okay, yeah, it's interesting because this photograph was sent to me as well

by your people, actually, and so I was fascinated by it too. It's clearly something that emerged in the 1970s, and a bulletin board where an individual had put all the various kinds of identifications associated with sexual orientation and it was, I guess, some kind of community-oriented event and people were allowed to, for example, talk about their sexuality and potentially identify. And in fact, yeah, in that particular picture, it shows that asexuality or asexual is an identification. So it certainly predates, for example, you know, the night. 1990s or 2000s. So it probably was the case that some people had figured it out that I could use

that word to describe myself. And that is a word that, in fact, you know, reflects what I am or what I'm unattracted to and so on. So it is a word that's been co-opted within, for example, I guess, parlance and not just, for example, in the 80s and 90s and 2000s. And it probably does make some sense that people would have understood that that word probably does capture, at least to some degree, you know, the lack of sexual attraction or the lack of sexual interests that I might have as an individual. And what I like about this pictures as well from 1973 is it's written in very 1970s young student vocabulary. It says, yeah, it's a heavy trip, but it's a chance.

It's how it opens. It's a heavy trip, man. He says, but it's a chance to choose your own label instead of having someone else do it for you. And then it lists straight, asexual, lesbian, bisexual, anti-label, separatist, question mark, lesbian feminist. And then I think it says, antisexual or whatever. Yeah, so quite a diversity, eh? So that's great. Maybe even some that we've lost. I like the question mark sexuality.

Yes, yes. Or I'm a whatever sexual. It's still questioning, right? Yes, sure, sure. We've got pansexual now, haven't we? I think that's one that's been added to the list. Yeah. So there's a diversity of identifications that exists right now,

but if you actually go back to that time period, there's that diversity as well, which is great. What do you think is the future of asexuality? You have to be so careful with this stuff, because I don't want to say it's a new sexual identity, because that's not true. I'm sure if we could have a time machine and we went back, you'd find people who would identify very strongly with this.

But it's new in the sense of that we're talking about it openly. It has a name. Research is emerging. What do you think is the future for the asexual community? And what kind of research would you like to do in the future? I think there's going to be a continuation of people understanding their lack of sexual attractions. And I think people are going to continue to identify as as asexual. So I think that's going to be something that goes into the future as well.

I think there's probably going to be at least to some degree of rebellion against some of the forces of medicalization, suggesting that there's a disorder here. I think the clinical community and medical community are much more sensitive, but there's probably still going to be, to some degree, a rebellion against that by some asexual people. Within my context of my own research, we've done some interesting research on people's sexual arousal mechanisms recently. So we've actually brought asexual people into the lab and see how they respond physically to average heterosexual-oriented material, average gay-oriented material and so on. and found evidence that the patterns that we're finding seem to actually indicate that, yeah, this actually gives some sort of support and validity to the notion that people are actually

responding in different ways that conform to, for example, their identities. So that makes some sense to us. So we've done some work like that. I'm also continuing to do some writing related to what I considered to be the madness of sex. That's a kind of interesting phrase. And it emerged to some degree for me when I started to write about asexuality and how, for example, asexuality shouldn't necessarily be construed as a disorder. And I started thinking about, well, should it be a disorder? Should it not be a disorder? And I came to the conclusion it shouldn't necessarily be a disorder. And I started thinking, you know what? Sex, even though it's part of the great story of life and it's a wonderful form of bonding and provides a lot of pleasure for people.

It also drives us absolutely bad even up the wall sometimes. Doesn't it just? You know? Doesn't it just? So, you know, in some sense, some of the work that I've done and some of the writing that I've done is related to talking about and maybe deconstructing, if you will, some of the strangeness and weirdness associated with sex. So I've written, for example, or almost finished a book related to just talking. about some of the strangeness and oddness associated with sex, and it's called the madness of

sex, and so I'm going to continue to do that as well. Was it Aristotle who said when he got older and his libido dropped? It was like being unchanged from a maniac. You know what? I hadn't heard that, but that really makes a lot of sense. I'm going to steal a bit. Thank you. Oh, yeah, please.

It's either attributed to him, and it was sent by someone else, but that's definitely a thing that it was. And it does. It gets you into it. all kinds of trouble, doesn't it? It does. Again, I don't want to completely sort of make it a negative thing. Of course, it's not.

It's, again, a great source of passion and pleasure for people and a great source of bonding at times. But, yeah, it does drive us up the wall. And you can have a number of different sort of areas that actually does drive us up the wall because of sex. And things like, for example, just how craze we can be about our own sexual attractiveness and beauty, how we can be just absolutely crazed about jealousy, you know, how adolescents go through a crazy turmoil period of time when hormones kick in and that just drives them nuts, you know, those kinds of things, right? So I think the interesting contrast to some of the wonderful story

and beauty and fascination with sex is it's kind of darker, crazier side, which we should also kind of put forward at times as well. And I think it makes for an interesting story in and of itself. Tony, you have been wonderful to talk to today. And if people want to know more about you and your research, where can they find you? Well, again, I'm a professor of psychology and health sciences at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, which is in the Niagara region where Niagara Falls is. and you can definitely email me if you want to find out some more about some of the work that I'm doing. So I'd be happy to discuss things that are coming up or things that are going to be happening in the future. And give us the full title of your book that's coming out.

It's not published yet, so I'm about to presumably publish it in the next maybe six months or so, and it's called The Madness of Science. Thank you so much for talking to me today. You have been wonderful. Thank you, Kate. Great to meet you. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much to Tony for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and follow wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject or maybe you just fancy saying hello, then you can email us at betwixt at history hit.com. We have got episodes on everything from the history of the witch to Victorian

sex, all careering your way. This podcast was edited by Shvonne Dale and produced by Stuart Beckwith, The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again, Betwixt the Sheets, The History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.