Disability : a new history. Sex and marriage. 8/10.

Radio documentary presented by Peter White entitled 'Sex and marriage'. The episode discusses how the Victorian era saw sex between disabled people as taboo. A document from Buckingham Palace is used to illustrate how disabled women from the Girls Friendly Society, sewed nightgowns for wedding trousseau. This charity, founded in 1875, made a particular attempt to employ women with disabilities in its needlework depot. Vivienne Richmond of Goldsmiths, University of London, speaks about the contrast between the garments the women made and their own lack of sexuality. Annual reports for 19th century charity schools take pains to show donors no sex was allowed. Mike Mantin, of Swansea University has researched the Cambrian Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, in Swansea, and its strictures on sex, influenced by the idea that deaf people shouldn't intermarry because it would spread deafness. However, he thinks there was a difference between the public face of an institution and the fact that marriage was happening. Joanna Bourke, Professor of History, Birkbeck College, London, describes the panic in late Victorian England over sex and disability. She mentions that these were the early days of genetics and genetic understanding, leading to the idea of negative eugenics. In this, if someone in a family had a disability then they should not be able to reproduce. This in turn could taint the person's family and was expressed in the phrase 'bad blood', referring to morals as well, despite there being little scientific basis. Nevertheless, eugenics and fear of disability was prevalent in Europe and America.