Cross-dressing convicts, effeminate bushrangers and women-shortage woes – The Sex Lives of Australians charts the changing sex lives of Australians. Tracing the story from Botany Bay to the present-day, Bongiorno shows how the quest for respectability always has another side to it, and how the contraceptive pill changed so much.

Along the way he raises some intriguing questions – What did it mean to be a ‘mate’? How did modern warfare affect soldiers’ attitudes to sex? Why did the law ignore lesbianism for so long? – and introduces some remarkable characters, both reformers and radicals.

Frank Bongiorno teaches at The Australian National University where he is Associate Professor of History, and has previously held teaching or research posts at the ANU, Griffith University, the University of Cambridge, the University of New England and King’s College London.

He is the author of The Sex Lives of Australians: A History, which was published in 2012, and is currently working on a history of Australia in the 1980s to be published by Black Inc. in 2015. He is the co-editor of History Australia, the journal of the Australian Historical Association

Part of the series Art Forum: Art & Sex

Art & Sex is a series of talks intended to provoke dialogue and debate around current modes of representation of the body, and in particular a deliberate awareness of sexuality rather than just stereotyped conformity to an ideal. The program features talks by artists and professionals whose practice exemplifies outstanding creativity and innovation, and whose work addresses various aspects of sex and sexuality.

Please note: the content in these talks may contain material explicit in nature and is not suitable for children.