Eighteenth-Century Sexual Politics

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Philip Dodd explores the sexual mores of eighteenth-century England talking to Faramerz Dabhoiwala of Exeter College, Oxford, Joanne Bailey of Oxford Brookes University, David Turner of Swansea University, author and broadcaster Hallie Rubenhold and Judith Hawley of Royal Holloway College. John Cleland's erotic novel Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure - otherwise known as Fanny Hill - was first published in 1748 but subsequently withdrawn. Pirated copies led to the first known obscenity case in the USA and a trial in England in 1964. In 1789 Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies - identifying the name, location and special charms of London prostitutes - sold for half a crown and 8,000 copies of the first edition were printed. What do these publications tell us about the way sex was seen in eighteenth-century London? Producer: Harry Parker.