Tweet

Wellcome Collection

26 Oct, 17 tweets, 6 min read

Brook Advisory Centres provided relatable sex-education information to young people, but their popular material sometimes resulted in criticism from politicians and the media. [THREAD]
#SexEd #HealthEd #SexualHealth

Information on contraception and sexuality for young people has always been a contentious topic in the UK. Even today, sex education and relationships at school are hotly debated, and new guidance remains desperately limited.

The first UK institution to tackle this lack of information for young people was Brook Advisory Service in 1964. Their aims were to “educate young persons in matters of sex and contraception and develop among them a sense of responsibility in regard to sexual behaviours”.

Until 1964, only married people were allowed into Family Planning and Marie Stopes clinics. Brook broke with this tradition and officially allowed young unmarried people to obtain advice and contraception for the first time.

In 1974, Brook designed its first informational leaflet. Combining detailed visual depictions of contraceptive methods with informative text explaining how they worked, it provided evidence-based information about the advantages and disadvantages of each, as well as failure rate.

It also offered a list of Brook branches where young people could obtain contraceptives. More than 30,000 copies circulated in 1974, and the leaflet was updated based on the latest scientific studies in 1977 and 1979.

The educative work done by Brook proved popular, and members were regularly invited to give sex-education talks in schools across Britain. Sex education was the responsibility of the Health Education Council from 1968 onwards.

In 1976 Brook Birmingham created a safe-sex kit for use by teachers, speakers and group leaders. The kit was made up of 48 slides, a cassette tape, some accompanying notes, the aforementioned ‘Safe Sex’ leaflet and a set of contraceptive samples.

In 1980 the first contraception teaching pack designed by the unit was produced. It offered advice and material for teachers to use when introducing the topic of contraception. Three main themes were covered: biology of sex, methods of contraception, and use of contraception.

Each of them was arranged around resource materials that featured visual graphics. For instance, the leaflet ‘A Look at Your Body’ combined a frontal depiction of the male and female genitals with an identification of the different anatomical parts.

However, one leaflet triggered widespread condemnation and Brook was told to remove it from teaching packs or lose government funding for the Education and Publications Unit. Entitled ‘A Look at Safe Sex’ (1978), the booklet was designed for people with learning impairments.

10,000 copies of the booklet were printed, 800 of which were distributed to officials and teachers in order to assess its acceptability and efficiency as a teaching aid for people with limited reading skills.

For the purpose of providing “simple and explicit” information, the leaflet depicted frontal nudes and erect penises alongside both Latin terminology and “back-room language”. It also showed graphic depictions of the different methods of birth control and how to use them.

‘A Look at Safe Sex’ proved popular, and another 7,000 copies were distributed the same year, but in 1980 the booklet attracted negative attention from politicians due to its straightforward approach to contraception.

The Tory MP James Pawsey stated that the pack “contained some of the most pornographic material I have ever seen”. Pawsey was outraged that the leaflet did not contextualise the sexual relationship in a broader moral framework but instead used the language of young people.

Despite the need to educate young people about contraception, explicit visual materials were censored, indicating the boundaries of what was acceptable in sex education at a time when the media was increasingly using explicit imagery of young people to attract consumers.

@carorusterholz

Read the full article by @carorusterholz on Wellcome Stories. wellcomecollection.org/articles/YT9od…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @ExploreWellcome

Wellcome Collection

@ExploreWellcome

24 Jul 20

Love them or loathe them, face coverings have been used to protect us from all sorts of harmful material in the air for a very long time. [Thread] #facecoverings #facemask

Face coverings as a way of protecting respiratory health go back at least 2,000 years. The Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder used animal-bladder skins as masks to filter dust from toxic minerals used at the time for pigmentation in decorations. #facecoverings

In his travelogue, Italian explorer Marco Polo (1254–1324) described the servants attending to the Chinese emperor and his entourage wearing silk scarves to cover their mouths and noses to prevent their breath from contaminating the food they prepared. #facecoverings

Read 11 tweets

Wellcome Collection

@ExploreWellcome

23 Apr 20

Happy birthday William Shakespeare, born #OTD in 1564! Despite being 456 years old, the Bard is still as relevant as ever because, like us, he too lived through an age of epidemics. #ShakespearesBirthday

Outbreaks of plague hit London repeatedly during Shakespeare’s professional life from between 1592-1609. Whenever more than 30 deaths were reported in a week, the London authorities closed the playhouses. #ShakespearesBirthday

In 1605-6, London was in lockdown, and Shakespeare’s acting company, the King’s Men, had to leave London and take to the road as an itinerant troupe, performing in rural, plague-free towns. #ShakespearesBirthday

Read 8 tweets

Wellcome Collection

@ExploreWellcome

24 Mar 20

Quarantine was once the only tool in the fight against infectious disease. As countries across the globe move towards isolation to stop the spread of Coronavirus, the role of quarantine, even in today’s world of vaccines and antibiotics, is once again proving highly effective.

To prevent the Black Death spreading in the 14th century, all ships thought to be infected were isolated for 40 days to prevent the spread of the disease. In fact, the word quarantine comes from the Italian quaranta giorni, meaning “40 days”.

Bubonic plague killed an estimated third of Europe’s population during the 14th century. Recurring outbreaks continued across the world until the 19th century, and ships’ crews were regularly inspected on arrival at ports and quarantined if necessary.

Read 13 tweets

Wellcome Collection

@ExploreWellcome

17 Sep 19

Meet six extraordinary figures in the history of medicine that you’ve probably never heard of, whose contributions range from discovering the causative agent of syphilis to advancing techniques for the study of living cells. Portraits by artist Sam Falconer. [THREAD]

Paira Mall (1874-1957) was a doctor and linguist. In 1911 he was financed by Henry Wellcome to travel throughout India and the Far East in search of a diverse range of artefacts relevant to the history of medicine. 1/6

Alice Stewart (1906-2002) was a doctor and epidemiologist who demonstrated the link between the x-rays of pregnant women and the subsequent higher risk of cancers in their children. In later life she studied radiation-induced illnesses in employees of a plutonium plant. 2/6

Read 8 tweets

Wellcome Collection

@ExploreWellcome

16 Sep 19

@WhoresofYore

Sex education and sexual enlightenment is good for everyone. But what happens when that discussion is censored on social media, where the word vagina is an ‘offensive’ term? @WhoresofYore looks at the battleground of sexual censorship on the internet. [THREAD] #SexualHealthWeek

The West has a very long history of censoring sex. In 1580 for example, politician William Lambarde drafted the first bill to ban “licentious” and “hurtful... books, pamphlets, ditties, songs, and other works that promote the art of “lascivious ungodly love”. 1/17

439 years later and the struggle between freedom of expression and government censorship shows no sign of letting up. The battleground is now the internet and the fight is on to purge the digital world of “lascivious ungodly love”. 2/17