Sculpture, sex, contraception, bookshops, post-mortems: the usual preoccupations
Happy 117th birthday, Barbara Hepworth - the video to go with today's celebratory Google Doodle.
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I was initially cynical about an interview with a sexual psychophysiologist and neuroscientist but it's wonderfully It's All More Complicated about simplistic views about sexuality, sexual arousal, ideas of the gendered brain and patterns of arousal/behaviour, and generally myth-busting: [T]he incredible over-identification of normal erectile variability as erectile “dysfunction” is staggering. While sex therapists fought for years to help the public understand that erections are commonly variable, such as when someone is tired, it feels like PDE-5 inhibitors (like Viagra) undid all our education progress. We are back to everyone thinking being nervous with a new partner is unacceptable, and that certainly benefits the pockets of pharmaceutical companies.
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The demise of the second-hand bookshop: I think it leans a bit too heavily on the 'Woe Upon Oxfam' line, although it does flag up that the trad secondhand bookshop was perhaps not all that, or at least not keeping up with the times (and we can remember some very cutting assessments of the trade in those classic works, Driff's Guide - scroll down this article for the best account I can find, the Wikipedia article is very slight).
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My dearios will doubtless agree that it is practically high praise for me not to register any major complaints or cavils over this: some of the dating is a bit odd, and I could do without ever seeing Casanova and his mates blowing up johnnies again, but it could be worse: A brief history of contraception.
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From servants to soldiers, from agriculture to administration: occupations in St George’s Hospital Post Mortem casebooks, 1841-1918 - St George's Hospital was formerly located at Hyde Park Corner (it's now in Tooting): [A] wealth of information about not just the deaths, but also the lives of the patients. The post mortem volumes held in the archives of St George’s, University of London provide a fascinating glimpse to the social structures of 19th and early 20th century central London.
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