CfP: Sexual Health: Past, Present and Future
In July 2025, the project team for Histories of Sexual Health in Britain are hosting a multidisciplinary workshop exploring the UK’s sexual health across different geographical regions and time periods.
The prevention, treatment and control of sexually transmissible infections, including HIV, has a complex history. It has been the catalyst for significant developments in medicine and public health. But it has also been an uncomfortable subject, existing on the margins of respectability and for many decades occupying a grey area between quackery and reputable medicine. Sexual health was bound up with fears of social disorder, at times seen as a ‘racial poison’ and a threat to colonial, state and military power. It was used as an excuse to experiment on vulnerable people, impose draconian legislation and persecute minoritised and marginalised communities.
Yet even with such a turbulent history, it is no exaggeration to say that sexual health now faces one of its greatest crises. Rates of syphilis are at their highest since 1948 and there are more cases of gonorrhoea than at any other point since records began. Barriers to PrEP uptake persist. While RSE has improved, significant shortcomings remain. The impact of mental health, poverty and domestic violence on sexual-health outcomes are not adequately addressed. Services decimated by disinvestment by successive governments are no longer accessible to many who desperately need them. And a lack of culturally competent, inclusive provision means that many service users feel alienated by the services that remain available. All of this is exacerbating deep inequalities in health outcomes and wellbeing.
Our workshop will be an opportunity for researchers, activists and health professionals to come together to explore the complex challenges facing sexual health today and in the future, as well as the ongoing historical legacies shaping those challenges.
We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers that address any historical, contemporary or future aspect of sexual health in the UK. This might include:
- Sexual health among different groups and communities
- How we interpret the experiences of service users
- The barriers to accessing sexual health services
- The barriers to recruiting graduates to work in sexual health
- What the experiences of service users might tell us about past, present and future interactions between health consumers and providers
- How sexual health provisions have developed in different regions and time periods
- How we might develop sexual health provisions that are accessible and culturally competent
- RSE provision
- Sexual health activism and promotion, both historically and today
- Future challenges facing sexual health
- The potential of cross-disciplinary collaborations to support and improve sexual health
Proposals should not exceed 250 words and should be accompanied by a short biography. Please submit proposals to Dr Anne Hanley and Dr Claire Martin by Friday 14 February 2025.