Fin vs History - When Britannia Kink-Shamed The Waves | The History of Sex Work (Part 1)

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

For as long as there have been fat ugly men, there have been women who charge to have sex with them. But who knew it was us free-loving, sexually liberated brits who invented all the stigma and shame? The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened.  For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon ⁠patreon.com/fintaylor Chapters; 00:00 - Happy ending?  02:40 - Cockallation   06:42 - oldest profession  08:21 - The epic of Gilgamesh  10:01 - Gay sheep  12:30 - Shamhat the harlot  15:29 - Cumscription  20:57 - Ancient Greece  25:39 - When in Rome  28:57 - Lupanar  36:52 - Medieval brothels 39:18 - Cunny for your thoughts   41:44 - Gropecunt lane  45:01 - Cucks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to Finn versus History with me as Horatio Goulds. Looking for a good time, sunshine. Today we're talking about the history of good times. Yes. It's the history of sex work, the complete anorac of brasses. Yes, a long venerable history, venereal history. An almanac of venereal history. history, this series.

Sex work has been around as long as there's been a guy too ugly to get laid. Yes. So this is one for our fans, one that will hit home for our truces. The first ever fat guy to walk around, didn't want to take

a t-shirt off. I imagine it's the first guy ever paid for it. And that's the oldest profession, you know? That's the oldest profession. Is having sex with ugly men. Yes. Have you ever... Have you ever... I've never procured sex work. I've never procured sex work, but

the um i did get offered sex work by the masseuse down the road remember this i got offered a happy happy ending no i didn't get offered to be a positive sorry that sounded like she was no you know what my my masseuse didn't make absolutely great my masseuse wasn't just massage my back saying you got to get into you've got my god people pay such good money around here no it was um my back was killing me i was doing an edit session here went down to get it sort out quite seriously needed my back sort out of sport, blown out. And then she goes, happy ending? Yeah.

I go, no, she goes, okay. Where was she from? She was from China. Oh, right. Because if she was English, that'd be like, but then can you say, you can't really say, Happy ending. It doesn't sound quite,

it sounds good. You want a happy ending. Yeah, they get away with it. Yeah. It's kind of, you know. Happy ending. It's not quite the same as, Happy ending blood.

Who's that? The German one, right. The German happy ending. Yeah. Not quite the same. No, I've never, I've never partaken in the devil's Cup. There's still time, no?

I'm Presbyterian. I think the whole thing's sin, personally. Yeah, but you'd, I mean, bad, like a bad divorce, bad relationship with the kids, you're the wrong side of 50, and you just go, fuck it. I mean, there's something,

there is something for a white man just going, ah, fuck it. In the same way that... Thailand. Yes, but in the same way... 17-year-old prostitutes, fuck it. You mean, in the same way

that it's like a Wednesday night and you haven't got anything in the fridge, you think I'm just going to throw money at the problem. Fuck it. Get a Chinese in. Yeah. It's the same thing.

I'm going to go to Thailand. Get a Thai in. Tie to like, fuck it. Roses, is it? I don't give a fuck anymore. What anyone thinks. I've lost all my reputation anyway. Fuck it.

Fuck it. I once went to, I've been, well, do lap dancers count as sex work? That is a type of sex work, right? That's sex e work. It's sex e work. But I think, I think the... A stripper's sex workers.

It's very much not sex. Very much. Yes, because if you try and have sex with them, you get barred. Right. I think. Stripping is Yeah, yeah, it is

But it's titillation rather than Cock elation, really Yeah, yes, it is I mean, when they say titillation You're not really, you're not having your tits Elated, no, my cock is dilated Dilated Was that where it comes from?

I don't know if your cock's dilated. My tits are weeping. No, your ass dilates I don't your cock dilates It should be ars elation, shouldn't it? I've been to the strip club I think three times in my life no twice my life

I've had three lap no two lap dances both of them paid for by Sean Walsh I never knew Sean when he drank yeah he was very different it's very funny

to think he's now he's now hosting a sincere mental health podcast and I was like that's my abuser he bought me two lap dances I didn't want yeah and then the other one

was I went to Paris when I was 18 and I had a girlfriend at the time and the guy I was with he was like oh let's go and get lap dances and I was like

it was weird They've got a girlfriend, and I held his coat while he had a lap dance. You held it? I held his coat. Sometimes he'd just look after his coat because they were trying to clash cloak when we thought that's a rip-off.

So you just stand in there? I sat on the sofa holding his coat while he went and had a lap dance for someone. Did you watch the lap dance? No, it wasn't, no. It wasn't lap dance. It wasn't cut dancing. I mean, that really is cuckledry.

Watching someone else get a lap dance. But that's quite a lot. Oh, is lap dance private? Yes. So when you got your lap dance, what was she doing? Well, the main issue was a, she was telling me about her business that she was set up for toddler's clothing.

And I... So is there a lot of chatting going on with that, dance? Well, this one, there was. I didn't really know. It's like Uber when you said, don't talk to me. Yeah, I think it's a slightly different... Get jiggling. Shut up.

A slightly different power dynamic. So was she twerking in Pondocchi or... She was a black queen. Okay. To use the language at the time. Yeah. But yeah, she was telling me about her child's clothing business, which was somewhat of a de-stimulant.

Did she get her weapons out? No, weapons stayed holstered. Really? Yeah. I guess it's like It's a British strip club Yeah

It was in Bristol Yeah And I don't think we've We've ever done The strip clubs well Like I wouldn't mind Go into like An Atlanta one

Where it's like That's a proper strip club That's like part of the culture The culture Yeah You go there There's a massive buffet But it's more like

You know You'll have a kid's birthday There It's like You know It's like It's like going down The pub

The strip club It was just a very Normal thing It was more just My memory of it Yeah you know And just business rates These days

You're a fucking laugh I can't I was a woman men to set up and you're just going, Brits are not, we're not quite, it's not a stripper culture really.

But I mean, I can actually sort of understand how much I enjoyed going to the casino recently after a night on the pint. I can understand it's just like a way to end the night. Night on the tit.

I think it's good actually just to like, to have like a, don't touch any of the women, don't get involved, but to have like a DMC with your... Slot machines? Slot machines. Yeah,

it's good. It's good. You know, open up with your male friends. One-arm bandits. It's just, it's something cinematic about, you know,

having a lot of beautiful women dancing in the background. It makes whatever you're talking about feel like, I don't know, there's a sort of glamour to it. Do you know what I mean? Whatever conversation you're having. Yeah, we made it. We've made it.

Yeah, we've made it, bro. There is a bit of that. There is a bit of a kind of finality. Yeah. It's not, which is ironic because you only really go there

when you've got nothing else going on your life. Yeah, it's true. But you want to be told, you know, we're like pitched a mad business idea. You're all in suits. Yeah. We're going to make it. And then maybe chuck a cup.

You can't chuck pennies. It has to be... No, that's salt. Yeah, it has to be... That's throwing coins at... Dollars. I mean, maybe that's why it's so much bigger in America because of how small their cash...

The denominations go down to... A dollar. ...a dollar paper, yeah. Yeah. Whereas a two-pound coin, you could kill a stripper. You could. Yeah. In 2006, a scientist introduced currency into a group of monkeys.

Mm-hmm. And what the monkeys did as soon as they got the currency was they immediately tried to swap them for sex. which implies how do they manage to how do they manage to teach monkeys about currency positive reinforcement

they taught them to buy grapes and apples with tokens and if they had those tokens that yeah all right so they understood that tokens could be swapped for things they liked

yeah and immediately they built a strip club yeah and they were climbing up poles you know looking for a good time but I guess the point is is that cavemen

the bridge between monkey and cavemen which we did in our prehistoric series, there must have been some prehistoric sex work. Yeah, of course. They were swapping pebbles for prehistoric tan. I guess it's any exchange of anything of value for sex is

sex work? Yes. Is it like being nice to someone? Is that an exchange of value? No. I'll sex you if you're nice to me. Because that's just normal. Yeah, I know, that's what I mean. What line is it? Holding your hand? What about like? No, but that's just flirting. Kissing on the cheek. There is a line. There's still an exchange of you know. It's intimate.

that's still a trade what are you exchanging you're exchanging not punching them for having sex with them well that's like a mafia protection that's what i mean well yeah you need to pay up for protection from who from me yeah exactly but it's with sex yeah so it's it the lines are blurred but the commodification of sex and the selling of sexual favors as a profession do me a favor love is firmly linked to the establishment of money so as long as there's been money yeah it's been someone who's thought i know what to do i'm going to do with that first thing uh so it's about the bronze age which we're talking about. But there was a guy

and this will float your boat. Sure. This is your sex work. Yeah, this will throw it my goat. The epic of Gilgamesh. The epic of Gimesh. 1800 BC, we're talking. And this is a British guy called

George Smith in the 19th century discovered, I think this is the oldest book or the oldest written thing that they found. And it's, it's, Uruk, that shit. Was it written in 1,800 BC? I mean, there's pretty old a stuff.

It's dated, but is the oldest... The epic of Gilgamesh is an epic of Uruk. It is widely agreed this is the first piece of literature ever written. Damn.

And it's also the early surviving story of transactional sex. Right. The legend of Shamhat the Harlot. Shamhat the Harlot. That's why I shout to that masseuse that you went to.

Apparently when he found this story, the epic of Gilgamesh, this guy, George Smith reportedly whooped, shouted and stripped naked in the British Museum. Right.

But he refused to translate this one tablet. He's translated the epic of Gilgamesh and then has immediately ran into the foyer. I can understand the whooping part. I can even understand taking your tie off. But is he getting his cock and bulls out? He's shoving a flare up his ass on Lester Square. That's what he's doing. It's the original flare up the ass and Lester Square. I mean, it's a big discovery. I guess normally kind of scholarly academics don't normally celebrate that way. But this is how civilization has fallen, isn't it? Is that, you know, 200 years ago, we were uncovering epic poems from the prehistoric and shoving flair's up her ass.

And now the shoving flare up their ass when England get to the final of the euros? Is it even that? Or was it the semifinals? I think it was the finals. So Charlie's just Googled first instance of anal in a book. Do you read out where you found?

The earliest known literary reference that potentially describes anal sex is found in the ancient Egyptian tale of Horace and Seth where Seth gets her little kind of candle and... No, you're making it out... It's so clear when you stop reading.

Which day. to at least the middle kingdom 2,700 B.C.E with the later versions including the Chester Batty papyrus. It's beaty papyrus so yeah, there's anal back in Egyptian times. Yeah. I think

anal... Let's place this. I mean, I imagine monkeys do anal. I'm imagining I'm imagining some monkeys just do anal. Monkeys can be gay. I think all monkeys are by? Or do you know there's a monkey who's like just gay? Are monkeys gay? Are any monkeys fully gay? fully gay any monkey's fully gay

no they're mainly bisexual sheep have the highest homosexual rate amongst animals 10% of sheep which is about the same as people but they're not fully get they're all still they're still biased no there are some sheep that are benders no I don't know I don't buy it what do you mean you don't buy it I don't buy it show me one

there you go there's a pride that's got a pride flag in the middle of okay fine to be fair that AI image of a group of sheep with a pride flag that has proven it so you think the only known species to exhibit exclusive

homosexual orientation is sheep and humans so they're just they're just like a happy couple who you know sheep that's a slur yeah sheeple

sheeple yeah but like I'm always envious of like a gay couple where it's like they're dinks right double income no kids oh my god yeah I had a routine about this

yeah exactly but then do you have the sheep version of that where instead of having to These two kind of like well-trimmed adult sheep Who don't have to worry about kids They can just enjoy their lives I would say that I think you could probably tell a gay sheep

By how well it's trimmed And I've seen the back end Straight Sheets I've seen the back end of some straight sheep There's some fucking blokes The back end of some sheep You're like bloody hell, I can see you You were a 50-year-old man at the football called Darren

Who does not take care of his ass And has not discovered manscapes the back end of some sheep are it's about as bad as a back end It's one white, don't even check it No, that's it Done So sham happed the harlot

Yeah Is sent by King Gilgamesh To seduce and civilise Enkidu Who is a hairy Wildman Right Who's going to challenge King Gilgamesh

So sex work was seen as something To civilise someone I guess so But this is going to be a constant theme Throughout this episode Is what It's in the eye of the beholder Was it sort of like, you're not you when you're horny?

Well, I suppose a wanker's quite civilising, isn't it? You know, like the Snickers advert, but instead... You're not you when you're horny. Yeah, so he just needs to bust and then he becomes a gentleman in a through. Or, or more terrifyingly, are you you you when you're horny? And when you've just bust, you're someone else? You're someone else. Who's the true soul?

That's a philosophical. Interesting question. It's a very interesting question. I think you're not you when you're just come. So you're you're you when you're really, really horny. You're not quite you when you're really, really horny. but you're definitely not you when you just come. You're like, you're a husk.

My very thing, have I just bus, is reading really well-written football articles. Yeah, really. That's like the perfect thing for me. The athletic is perfect post-wank come down. It's unbelievable. Yeah. It's like really good journalism.

The brain rot stuff is too much. It's not overstimulating. It's just someone who, you know, probably is too smart to you write about football, writing really like interesting pieces about, you know. Anyway, King Gilgamesh ordered someone to fuck someone else. She does it. And they have continuous sex for six days and seven nights.

I don't buy it. And all these fucking epics, always making the show up. And through sex, she civilises him and he gains reason and understanding. Now, is this a story of someone who fucks an animal and through fucking them they become human? That seems to be what they're telling me. Or a homeless man. Maybe it's a homeless person. So they used to have, you know, you have those reels of people giving a free haircut to a homeless person.

Yeah, it's just shagging him. Just shagging him for seven days. Yeah. I mean, he'd love that. Well, yeah. You ought to be so horny if you're homeless person. They shagged each other a lot I spoke to homeless guy about

Do they? Yeah, there's a lot just alleyway shagging Yeah, they get, they bust a lot Good Because there's a lot of other homeless people as well Help for homeless

Yeah So the point is Is that in this epic poem From thousands of years ago The sex work is portrayed As an extremely important task On the orders of a king Right

It's a civilising thing Royal decree Sort of That must buzz. So in Mesopotamia, the word prostitute didn't really exist in our understanding of it. Right. They had words like Car Kid and Harimtu. Right.

And these are translated as prostitute, but those are, the pejority of the word prostitute has, that's on us. Yeah. That's a Christian understanding. It's a Christian British. Really, the word car kid should be translated as, quote, one who knows the penis. Really? Yeah. Do you know the penis?

I thought I did I've met the penis I've met my penis I'm an acquaintant I'm acquainted well acquainted I'm well acquainted with my penis Now Ishtar

Who's the goddess of sex It's called a loving Haram 2 And this is the Now the earliest mention Of sacred sex work Comes from Herodotus Yeah

And he describes a custom Where every woman Was required to engage In sex work once In her life At the temple of Aphrodite The woman would sit near the temple A man would throw a coin

At her feet After which they would have sex So everyone had to be a prozzi at some point. Yes. Like military service. Yeah, exactly. Conscription.

Conscription. Comscription. Comscription. Lovely stuff. And the exchange of money in the name of the goddess would means it was sacred, thus it would be a sin to refuse. Right. Now, historical accounts of sex work are shaped by cultural bias, which I refute.

I think my bias is not biased. I think that's just how people should think. But this is most interestingly seen in countries that are colonised by Britain and the West. Because in those countries, they have this mad idea that sex work is somehow fine. Right. And not to be ashamed of. Seems to be all over the world, they think that. It's like Britain driving on the left.

It turns out we're the outlier. You think sex work is stinky. Now, in India, they had this tradition called Devadasi. Right. And this is an 800-year-old Hindu tradition. The Devadasi means female servant of God and refers to women who are dedicated to the goddess yeah they looked after temples and they sang blah blah blah but they were also courtesans and uh so sex was part of what they did sort of similar to the japanese geisha right

where it's like sex is like an afterthought yes it's like a small part which is i guess maybe in the kind of british christian idea of it sex means so much there's so much there's so value put on it so with this it's like yeah whatever what's weird is that in you know in british christian sex is so dangerous. Yeah. You know, it could be weaponised. Yeah.

It's an awful force. Yeah, you're going into sin and, yeah. And you must be, you must repent. Yeah. Must be done in wedlock with the blinds down. Yeah, yeah. Put a sheet over her.

But this is like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Have some tea. There's just somebody works at a temple. It's like, yeah, we shagged, but I guess that's like. But then the British, when they colonise India, they see this only, they see them just as prostitutes.

Right. So they then shame them for decades. Right. And the missionaries teach India what a prostitute is. So yeah, British, Cornelists were like the ultimate kink shamers in a way? Yes, yes. They were going around it was they're going around in a boat. What are you doing?

That's disgusting. Stop doing that. Get that out of your mouth. Get that out of your mouth. What God, should be ashamed of yourself. I've got a lot of time for this. I find the idea very funny of uppity British men slapping dicks out of people's stuff. What the fuck?

What do you doing? Get a job for Christ's sakes. Filthy hippies. Um, the devadassi were socially shunned and stigmatized. cut off from their patrons they tried to make money by dancing at private events but eventually they were outlawed

throughout India as late as 1988 I mean we stopped being involved then so surely this is no longer our fault yeah you've had four but then I guess India was only a country for 40 years by it yeah still but yeah but this is what happens

in Japan as well which we did in our Geisha special it's like the you know the sex work is there's no stigma to it no and it's Britain that brings the stigma to it

It's Britain kink shames the world. But I guess the in-cell movement probably is like an anglo-sphere, sort of started in the anglo-sphere, America, Britain, not online. And probably because we haven't allowed these ugly men to bus, it's coming out in, you know, the busing bullets and school. Oh, fuck, I'm going to bust. Do you know what I mean? Like, there is something, like, there's a real,

the male loneliness epidemic, maybe the stigma of sex work. And you can check out our documentary Busting for Columbine where we deal with this further. Yeah, you're right, actually. Yeah, it does feel like there's a lot of repression and, like, there's not a lot of routes for men who want to bus. Social acceptable routes. So what are you saying?

I'm saying that maybe they had something right about this. Yes. That basically ugly guys could all bus. Because... And there was less sexual frustration. You're saying incels wouldn't have grown out of 18th century Japan or 15th century India? No, because they could bus. Yeah, so, are you saying that...

They could so successful bus and hold on to some respect and dignity. But are you saying that send me your bobs is the Brit's fault? Yeah, I am actually. Wow. I am actually. I didn't think of it like that.

But there is obviously a stereotype of horny Indian men on the internet. To be fair, to India, you have to remember how any Indians there are. Yep. And also the Chinese, who there's only... There's more Chinese than Indians, but they're not on our internet.

So you've got to think about the percentage of people on our internet. Yes, that is true. They're nearly all Indians. Half of them are Indian. But they are also all horny. Well, we don't know. Just because most of the horny people in the comments are Indian,

we don't know what percentage of that. There could be loads of non-horny Indians. We just don't know. We just don't see them. We just don't see them. Right. Because there's so many of them. But also, a lot of the reason for Indians' horniness is because of the arranged marriage culture, right?

You don't have to Riz anyone. You don't have to learn how to risk? Yes. So there's no... You just have to learn how to make a fire. For if it goes south. Yeah, that's afterwards. That's afterwards.

Sorry. So apparently a lot of the reason why this kind of quite blunt horniness is because they're, because of the collapse of arranged marriages. Oh, interesting. They haven't been taught game. So they're like a 12-year-old going out for the first time trying to pick up chicks. Yeah. So there's two slightly different points.

But anyway, we get to sex work in ancient Greece. Slang for boobs in ancient Greece is melons, which is nice to know. So melons was as old as, as old as the past. I guess you just don't really, when you think, of ancient Greece golden age Athens you don't think of them saying look at the fucking melons on earth no you don't but melons is a good one but once again I don't like slang for boobs that makes it like it feels like you're still trying to you're removing yourself from the the horniness of it or the eroticism the reason these sorts of slang exist is so that you can try and sexually objectify someone

in daylight in a non-threatening way that's why it's called a sentence please uh lovely melons on that excuse me I was just talking about the green grocers behind you you know what I mean it's deniable if you walk past someone

and say look at your you're in my living room if you walk someone and go God I'd love to smell your furry cunt it's not as deniable is it

you know when you put it like that your honor you know you've got to make things cute yeah I mean yeah so it's very well presented argument to be fair

thank you I rest my case on your melons um now one of the first one of the first one of the first The first life-sized nude female statues,

one of the first, this is the long road to page three, is Fern. Frim? This is ancient Greek. Am I saying that, Frin. This is Lucy Pinder in ancient Greece. Yeah, Lucy's Pindlerus.

Frime. Or Pinder-Opran. Fram. Fray. The statue calls such a sensation that one man broke into a temple at night to have sex with it. I mean, this before...

This is the history of horny guys. Franey, she's called. But as we... Sex with a statue. you, we were never meant to see this many tens in our life. You've got on the Instagram Discover page it's the most beautiful woman you've ever seen

from all around the world. You went to see one beautiful woman maybe going at high speeds through your village and have sex to the stature of her. That's what I meant to do? But then here, when you very rarely see any beautiful women, you see a statue, what are you going to do? Breaks in, when his passion stained the marble thighs

so he came on a marble, right, Christ. He was so ashamed he threw himself into the scene. that's quite Mediterranean isn't it what yes it is so beautiful oh oh I'm sorry what's so nice about that is that that is a story as old as time

yeah a man comes and gets so horny fucks an inanimate object is so ashamed he kills himself that's as long as humanity has been around

now friney's most famous story is that at her trial for impiety when conviction seemed inevitable her lover slash lawyer I love a lawyer I'm not sure I'm not sure I'd hire

a lover lawyer allegedly tore off her robe revealing her divinely white breasts and the judges acquitted her on the spot I thought it's an amazing painting of it wow look at that so anyway sex work in Greece in ancient Greece was legal regulated taxed and economically important

well that's an interesting argument for it isn't it yeah the argument for legalizing weed tax it I think we should be doing that now yeah I mean presumably only fans workers pay taxed don't they yeah definitely yeah because that's legal I guess you are taxing sex work then but is prostitution

that's not legal that's not legal is it in the UK prostitution itself is legal in the UK but soliciting soliciting

curb crawling pimping running brothels advertising sex worked paying for it or paying for sex with a mine oh you can't do anything

Star fucking Kear can't even pay for sex when did that law change can't pay to have sex I can't pay to have sex I can't do it I want me money

yeah my money care when was that was that in Reeve's last budget outrageous Outrageous So you can't be a brothel It can be

Do you want to come to come over to me house? I guess so So if you set out like a dentist surgery You know how they're always in like Houses in the suburbs Dentists? Yes. Yeah If you had like a place like that

Where men could come over And it was just you That would be legal In ancient Greece They had 200 different terms For sex workers Like Eskimos and Snow Yeah

So you had Hatara With like elite High Value brass And then you had Porn Pornay Pornis

referred to more economically vulnerable workers, brothels, streetcrawlers, sex slaves. So this is where the term pornography comes from. Pornagraphos, which is writing about prostitutes. Yeah, so they have 200 terms, but we have a lot of terms of sex workers, I guess. Brass, haws. Hors. Hors. Mollies. Yeah. Good time girls.

Yeah. Ladies and ladies at night. Hookers. Hooker, devil, devil. Some are getting quite pejorative, quite quickly. Slot. I mean, yeah, they're not all nice. But there's a lot of, when you think about it, it's actually quite a lot of time.

I mean, I could name 200 words. It's just, you might not like all of them. But now we get to one of the oldest preserved brothels. I've been to this. You've been to Pompeii? I have when I was nine. This is when I went on a classic trip to Italy. What shirt you're wearing?

Is this a Hawaiian thing? Extra, extra large, Juventus fake shirt that I bought in Rome. Do you have any name on the back? Del Piero. Del Piero. It has to be. I knew of me Del Piero. Del Piero 10.

It would have been a... Do you look like Del Piero? If Del Piero. Piero had accidentally been inflated. Fucking hell, tell Piero's. You've had a big off-season? This is where we went to Roman Sorrento on a classics trip. I spent most of my evenings watching Band of Brothers on Italian television.

It must be about 2001, 2002. And then we went to... What? You had it timed every night. Yeah, you get BBC. Right, right, right, right. And we went to, because it was obviously a fee-paying school. and we some guy

who ran a six-star hotel in Sorrento six-star yeah six-star hotel wanted to send yeah it does exist just you wait for it if someone's got a six-star hotel

it means it's worse than a five-star because it means someone it's like perfect fried chicken it's like a made-up thing number one best hotel ever it's not a Turkish guy's six-star hotel it's right so this guy wanted

to send his kid to the school and so when he heard that the school there was a school trip going to the area he invited us all for a massive Roman banquet and what I did was I ate so much pasta

that I then went to a toilet threw up and then came back and started eating pudding Oh which was Roman? Roman style Vomitorium The toilet was completely marble

I was wearing a 2003 del Piero shirt You've never been more Italian It's about Italian I've ever been When in Rome put on a UVA shirt eat so much pasta you vomit

and then crack into a tiramisu. You know? I was speaking the language. Yeah, more of that, please. Yeah, that's delicious. Anyway, but we did go to Pompeii and up, I climbed Mount Etna, which seemed Etna or Vesuvius,

which ones on, Vesuvius. Climb Vesuvius, which seemed like a terrible crime for a fat child to make me walk up Vesuvius. Anyway, we did go to Pompeii. I don't really remember this because I was 10, and I was probably suffering

from indigestion to say the least. Yeah. They're not big on Rennies over there, No, they're not. But there is a perfectly preserved brothel. Yes, it's amazing. When did you go there then? Maybe I went when I was like, not much later.

I was like maybe like 12, 13, but I do remember the brothel. Were they telling tale of the fat child Oxford? Del Piero came here. Del Piero. Diablo, del Piero. The tale of the fat Del Piero who ate his way through southern Italy. Causing havoc. But yes, no, it's very, and there's all these like,

mosaic images of sex so you go into the brothel and it's just all over the walls it's different options like a menu like a mechanics like green room but instead

instead it's your you get to pick what you want hmm oh is it it's like a Chinese menu I think oh what I'll have a number 33 and that's doing someone up the arse or whatever

so the the brothel of Pompeii is called the Lupinar wolf den and it's Pompey's only known purpose built brothels and what we don't know I think is whether they were purpose built we don't know how economically viable it was

to purposely build them Mount Vesuvius busted over Pompeii in 79 AD Maybe the sin of sex work Have we placed this at all yet? We haven't Should we place the eruption of Mount Vesuvius? Yeah 79 AD

So that is after Caligula Mm-hmm And it is before Caesar's Palace the casino Yeah

wide berth there But it's nice Now the excavations At Pompeii shocked The Victorians Who discovered it Yeah When we say Victorians

Do we mean Italian Victorians? No I think it's British Victorians Really? Yeah It's Brits do it on tour Because in the 1800s

Brits on tour's changed Quite a lot Yeah Excavating old brothels Going this is disgusting Yeah Going to Europe Saying you guys

disgusting. Instead, it's like Europeans going, you guys had the disgust thing, it's the other way around. So if it wasn't for us, the world would just be full of, it would be all just booting off all the time. Everyone would be having brothels. Is it a we the problem? Yeah, there's an argument for it. There's an argument that we're the problem,

yeah. I mean, we're one of the most sexually repressed nations. But what's amazing, we've managed to spread our sexual repression throughout a world. But do you think it'll get to a point where it's like, with like, weed dispensaries where you just got, eventually it'll just head in the direction where it's like everyone is fine with it and we have brothels everywhere.

Well, I mean, I guess now we live in a world. Cultural decay. We live in a world of like, you know, free porn and fucking pneumatic fleshlights that you can plug a VR headset into. It doesn't feel like a good thing, you know. No, but let's go analog and just get someone's bum. Well, you know, going analog.

Analog. Yeah. I mean, we talked about the podcast, me and Andrew when we were growing up, we go to friends' houses and that they would have, I mean, he used to have a Cheryl Cole poster, which I didn't have any sex woman in my war I thought was deeply.

I was too impressed. It's also, it's just like... This is what I had. Your mother cleans that room. We go to friends' house. It looked like a garage. He'd have Lucy Pinner with her tits out. It's like...

I had that hidden underneath a stack of PC game. Yeah, but it's just like, hang it on your wall. It's like, have a little bit of class. Did you? You're not wanking over that, ever. I think I did once, yeah. Over the Mona Lisa? With a hoax out, yeah.

Yeah, I got giving it. You're moaning over the Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa Anne Yeah I think we may as well Just like We're all heading that direction It's all like

Only fans and butt plugs But I think Only fans happening Being a British invention And Bonnie Blue Is partly because of sexual oppression Right That's a very good

It's very good case for that Do you know what I mean Like if it's not happening in Brazil Where they're all shagging all the time No Do you know what I mean No It's because

It's because it's such a There's no British carnival It's shoving a flare up You're asking It's so suburb Versive and transgressive to British culture. That's why it stands out. That's why it's...

But I don't know if we'll ever get to a place where it's like weed dispensaries because we've moved into a sort of digital bypass area where there's VR headsets, pneumatic, fleshlight, drills, automatic... Drills? Yeah, like pneumatic, the fleshlight... Like an oil rig. You've not seen it, that's what it's like.

You get a thing where it's like a automatic. I mean, I don't... Not to be naming my, reading out my Christmas list on the podcast, but that is what it is. It's like a... so there are people yeah it's that you hold onto these handles

and then it has a little is it Amazon Prime Yeah a flesh like quick shot launch Only three left in stock All right Well it's Christmas isn't it What's she doing?

Why is she in that? She's just the model for it It's called the Quickshot launch Now what I must say Is that You can sort of like no scope Quick shot Every Finn versus history

Patreon gets a free Quickshot with their members. So, yeah, it's got speed control. So it can go, do it as much. The post-nut clarity is bad enough when you're wanky, but if you have, like, a quick-shot launch plaid,

you know, it must be even worse. You'd throw it off you as if you were just, oh, horrible, go to get away. What am I doing? What's that? Go away, your horrible thing. They'll be looking at you. You'd go,

oh, disgusting, get rid of it. What is that? Horrible. Do, um, guerrilla, um, uh, passed out on floor. Go past out in hospital. Garn this, this is what, this is what Paddy's,

said Dan, Dan's fleshlight would be. He said, when he only got an arm's fleshlight, he said, there's going to be tin's ars flashlight after the weekend. God, that's good. Christ. So anyway, the brothel in Pompeii had these stone beds, tiny rooms, explicit frescoes, vulgar graffiti all over the walls. But it didn't really catch on, we think,

because it was a failed economic experiment in that sex was so widely available in Rome that the brothel couldn't charge. Yeah, custom built. Yeah. So the builders knew what they were making, brick by brick. The frescoes were only male,

female, missionary style couplings on the wall. Okay. Which is quite vanilla. Romans were anti-gay? More anti-gay than the Greeks? No, they were more anti-gay than the Greeks, but they were still by our standards, very, very gay.

Yeah. But there was no oral or no group sex pictured, although graffiti confirms that all this stuff was happening. Yeah. I love the idea of, like, you know, you look, on, when I'm in a service station and I'm having a poo or whatever

and I look on the inside of the wall and there's some horrible filth written there or call this number for a good time. I'm like, that is, I pull at that thread and I end up at Pompeii. Yeah, you know? People have always been writing filth on toilet door walls.

Now, speaking of this crude graffiti, someone called Mooler, which translates as the grindstone. She sounds gorgeous. Nose to the grindstone. It's probably a I'm not doing the grindstone tonight, am I?

No, she's the only one on shift. She was described as a footer tricks or a woman who fucks. Probably like a, I guess, her drag name or a stage name. In the graffiti, someone misspels her name as mule and brags, I fuck the mule here. Felix, who's likely a male prostitute. There's glowing reviews all over the wall,

saying Felix fucks well. So is that fellas fucking it? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, we're going to get more into male prostitutes next episode. There's another. rave with you saying Mr. Garlic Farta fucks well here.

Do we know... Is that his YouTube name? Mr. Garlic Farter. That's not someone who commented on this. Yeah, that is a... But garlic was supposedly an aphrodisiac. But also, Pompey is covered in

dick drawings all over the walls. So much so that if they're using it for like a film shoot... That's a blur. No, someone has to... Someone has to go on... In the credits, there'll be someone

whose job it is to go and make sure... I'll do it His job is to make sure That there are no dicks in shot Yeah Isn't that crazy Yeah

Yes that's a good point Charlie actually Who's the fattest ever sex worker We haven't we haven't But then yeah obviously At this point It goes into fetish work right Yes This says to my head

So that I genuinely could die This lady's this is star And she's 800 pounds And she is a star I think In terms of Now do you have to go to her house Or does she come to yours I think you probably go to hers

Yeah, I think she's more of a remote worker. Like Jupiter. Yeah, you go meet her. She's sort of like an oracle that you have to go visit. Consult. So in terms of what the brothel tells us about Roman attitudes to prostitution, buying sex is legal and respectable for men unless you bank up your family with it. That's not respectful.

Not respectful. Well, that's like going to the casino. I guess so. Yeah. So we now need to get to medieval British brothels. Right. Grim. Probably quite grim.

Yeah, there's a few brothels that. less term me on than the idea of a British medieval British. I know, mate. Current. You are darling. My liege. Well, no wonder we're so sexually oppressed.

And you know what it'd be so annoying is that the people who's now speak like, my liege and the flag and a veil, the idea of them in a broth, ugh, just, you know. Oh, my lord. Oh, my liege. Yeah.

It's like British porn. British porn is so bad. Don't ever go local with porn. No. No. You should never go local with porn. We've said this. Shop abroad.

Shop abroad. It's mainly the British men, though. Yeah. The women, the lady women. No, no. It's the accent. I'll tell you what, for British porn, the women seem to be the most up for a good time. Do you know what I mean?

Like I feel they're the most like, go on here, let's have a laugh. Do you know what I mean? It's just, they sound so angry. Yeah, they try and do American porn voice and they sound angry. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, right in there. Oh, you dirty, cunt.

It's so horrible like a soap opera. It's like Jack the Ripper. Isn't it? Because with America, there's kind of a Californian, like, vocal fry. Yeah. They've sort of got to a porn of franca America. Yeah, that's what I mean.

There's everyone in porn in the way that like, you know how? You little can. Come in here. It just, it sounds like. Have a gobble on this, you little cunt. And you're going to fucking enjoy it. It sounds like an advert for like beef.

I ate what's for four days. Have a gobble on this. You're going nowhere, sunshine. 100% British beef. shop British support our farmers I think Americans have affected

all sex noises right yeah there's been a pitch like I think imagine if you heard Roman having sex the no that's Italian

no I don't think it's so different I think the Americanisation of it would mean it would seem completely different to now the none of them are going ah

like that's that's a new noise. I think that's like a complete affectation from porn. Well, should we try and do a soundscape of a medieval British brothel then? Get your laughing gear around this, sunshine. What, medieval English or medieval English? Well, it'd be like, yeah.

Get now, knob, give me that right now. Let me double up your cock, you little cunt. So prostitution is not illegal in medieval London, but the city tried to control it through zoning, much like Amsterdam does now. And you can see this by the bluntly named streets such as grope cunt lane

Yeah Now what's up to Grope Cunt Lane Put that in me mumpers Sorry Medieval slang for bums Mumpus What are the medieval slain

Anus ass up bum Put it in my ass Wisp So the The bluntly named London Street Touch my cunt It's a medieval term Yes But they all sounded like

Dutch in middle English It's like cuntish. My cunny. Now I think Cunny should come back. Put it in my cunny. Yeah. The British porn is awful. Yeah.

Connie for your thoughts. Okay, what's worse? Southern British porn, like giza ladies or like northern... Northern twos. Shug it, me bastard twat. Wrap your minter on this, love. It's grim up north. Yeah, it's different.

Since Thatcher close to minds It's not been the same This pit's not been the same Since Thatcher Yeah I think Slap it in my cune To be honest Anything regional

To be honest The best British porn Is you want Is you want sort of Posh Totties It's what RP was invented for Yeah Porn

It's true No I think There needs to be one accent If we're going to have Submit British Porn You know how they do

Foreign Language films To the Oscars Yes Each country's submission submission. What you won, the most erotic would be a posh woman who you wouldn't expect to be doing porn and there's a classy

element to it. I think it's, yeah, something like that. Oh, I just touch my duckies. Yeah, something like that would be the most any other region Brummy, nightmare, Cornish, nightmare, Scottish Futch, Fucked, Welsh, fucked, Northern Irish, completely

Furn, Southern Irish. Northern Irish. I think it's a strong fetish for Northern Irish. Put your dick in my my thight die you know it's arrested stinky pussy i want it back i want them back now i think i think southern irish you could have some good point from there maybe no it's too it's too waffly anyway in our next episode geran macnally will be here um so let's just get through medieval london maybe medieval british brothels uh they tried to let's just go through some of the street

names, right? You had grope-cunt Lane, codpiece alley, Hors Nest, and Sluts Hole. Right. These names are later sanitised to Grape Lane, Coppice Alley, Horsley Down, etc. Where's Grape-Lane in London? Where is it?

Let's find out where Grope-Cunt Lane is. Now, in 1351, laws required common lewd women to identify themselves by wearing striped hoods. And the Liber Albus of 1419 lists punishment for people engaged in this. So this is where the whole the British shame starts that we

then export around the world. You've got, women have their head shaved, they're paraded publicly while minstrels mock them. So blacked up men are going that's not all right that. That's fucked. That's not all right. They get placed in the women's pillory

in cock lane. So is this just for being a prostitute? Three time offenders are banished. Yeah, three time of prozies. Once, twice, three times a prosy out. Yeah. Now, there are people called the Winchester geese

who are sex workers based in Southwark controlled by the Bishop of Winchester and if you get bitten by a Winchester goose that means you've got an STD which I'd love to bring back that's a great name for it so the Bishop of Winchester controls 90 acres of Southwark so in the around the 12th century

he collects rent from a number of brothels or stews as they're known and this is where bear baiting is and it's all like it's all areas for outcasts and quote exiled strumpets The bishop's ordinances listed 36 rules

governing the women who work there. So no keeping women against their will. Women could live where they wished. No wives or religious women were allowed to work there. Interesting that wives is a distinct category. Severe punishment for women supporting the pimps.

Paramours. Three weeks in prison fines a turn on the cucking stool. Interesting. Do you know what this is? No. I looked into this this morning. Right. In the mirror. No, a cucking stool in the medieval term was like a chair where people would...

Was it a ducking store? Yes. Originally it was called a cucking stool because the cucking stool was to do with shame. Right. And the word cuck comes from this, but it's not... You don't cuck for apples. Right. But originally, the ducking chair was a shame chair.

You all watch a get dunked in water for being a prostitute or for doing something else, sexual. But that becomes the cuck chair. Oh, that's interesting. So this is the long road of the cuck chair. But we should do an episode on the history of cucks. We should, arguably every episode is a history of cucks. It was a history by cucks if some of the comments go.

But this is where cuck chairs come from. Originally, they are women being dunked in water for being prostitutes. So is it just ducking because it's embarrassing to be dupting water or do they die? They don't die. It's like a shame thing. Right. But so I wonder if, because Halloween, which is, I wonder if cucking for apples is, is, oh, interesting, yeah. That's when you're watching someone else, um, Bob for apples and you're, you're wanking.

Yeah. I guess you can cut to anything, can't you? Yeah. If the mood's right. It's actually like, if the chair's comfy enough. What a blessing it is to be a cuck, though, because you, um. Count your blessings. Because you're never jealous.

You love it. You can never feel envy because you're loving it. But there's something else going on there, though. I don't think it's like above envy. I think it's like, so envious that it gives you a rock on. It's not an entirely, I quite like to be a cuck. I mean, Diddy was a Cuck. You watched the Diddy Dot?

Yeah. Yeah, he was absolutely, but then occasionally he'd like, he, it would be too much for him. He'd push the male posture out of the way and just go hell for that. And then beat his wife. Yeah. Which is not very cuckish. No, it's not. It's an interesting blend.

It's not that you get someone else to beat her. But he would do it, but he was doing it like a, he was Stanley Cuck Rick, right? He was like doing it. He was like a director. He sat there, but he sat there. was shathing out orders. It was like, do it like this. So it's a very like, I guess it's like a power.

It's a power cut. Anyway, we need to wrap up. Henry the 8th gets rid of these skews. But the crackdown does nothing to eliminate prostitution. The sex trade simply moves back inside London City walls. Now, in our next episode, we'll be joined by Joanne McNally. Yes. The phenomenon.

The Irish force of nature. We'll be dealing with Victorian prostitution. We'll be asking her if she's a prostitute. Probably will ask that. It's not above us. And we'll be talking about prostitution, sex work during the world wars in Nazi Germany. There's a lot to look forward to.

Our Patreon this week, which I hope Joe Anne will stick around for, is on the disputed hysteria. Or is it true or is it not? The female orgasm doesn't exist. Will we find it? Who knows? Find out.

For three bands a month, you get instant access to series and all that jazz, ad free, all that nonsense and extra episodes. But if not, we'll see you on Thursday. for more sex work. Oh! Bye!

Uh-huh.