or how Twitter learned to stop worrying and love @WhoresofYore

Twitter historian (#twitterstorian) Dr Kate Lister speaks to Roshni Nair about the very popular @WhoresofYore and her quest to chronicle the history of sex and sex work

Women are weak and susceptible to Satan's charms. Those who succumb are witches, indulging in cannibalism, infanticide and maleficent spells.

They also steal penises, which are then stored in birds' nests.

"A man reported that he had lost his member and approached a certain witch in order to restore his health. She told the sick man to climb a particular tree where there was a nest containing many members, and allowed him to take any one he liked. When he tried to take a big one, the witch said you may not take that one, adding, because it belonged to a parish priest [sic]."

(Of course the big schlong belonged to a priest. The Inquisition wouldn't have had it any other way).

This section from Malleus Maleficarum can, in the spirit of black humour, be a metaphor for boys who steal birds' eggs. But Heinrich Kramer's 15th century witch-hunt manual – like many of its kind – is a reminder of one of history's darkest eras.

Malleus Maleficarum is a pit stop in Dr Kate Lister's quest to chronicle the history of sex and sex work. In just seven months, her @WhoresofYore account has amassed 31,000 followers, and counting.

Her Twitter feed is a periscope into the forgotten depths of sexuality through the ages. Spanning the prehistoric to the Edwardian, it houses 19th century BDSM, golden showers and pornography (with taxidermy props), book recommendations and the #historicalhottie tag. There's also a 'word of the day' series ('Honey-fuggle', one learns, was code for 'sex' in 1889), bawdy Victorian poems and burlesque stars. And retweets on #rightsnotrescue, the support movement of and by sex workers.

"People have always had sex, paid for sex, enjoyed sex and made it as kinky as possible," the post-doctoral researcher from Leeds Trinity University says in an email interview. "What surprises me are the excesses that have been gone to in the past to prevent people from enjoying their sexuality."

One such blockhead was John Harvey Kellogg, founder of the Kellogg's cereal empire. That he was an anti-masturbation crusader is well-known. But he was also an advocate for…

"…for women to have acid applied to the clitoris if they also had sexual urges," reveals Lister.

Love handle

"I am a whore. Find something else to fight about."

–Nell Gwynn to her coachman, after he picked a fight with someone for calling her a whore.

Sex worker, actress, comedian. Nell Gwynn, the favourite mistress of King Charles II, was the badass of 17th century England. She's the face of @WhoresofYore for good reason.

Late 19th century hand-coloured photograph of a woman on a man’s back, holding a whip.
Images: Wellcome Library, London 

"As much as I endow some Victorian pornographic images with historical gravitas, some are undeniably funny. I resisted laughing in the beginning, but my followers started close captioning some images. They were so funny, I had to retweet them," Lister says.

Her engagement with followers is Dr Lister's strongest suit. Through her organic approach (no pre-decided topics or scheduled tweets), she lets them steer a theme of the day, if any. The result: freewheeling discussions and crowdsourced tidbits that add even more value to @WhoresofYore.

Not surprisingly, Leeds Trinity University is enthusiastic about @WhoresofYore. Lister is, after all, one of the few #twitterstorians (Twitter historians) with this degree of follower involvement. "They are thrilled that the research of one of their academics has drawn an audience," she admits.

Sharing research in 140 characters is never easy, and Lister is no exception. Being historically accurate and careful with words, not least on a profession as marginalised as sex work, is main priority. It can also be time-consuming.

Homophobes and anti-sex workers are chief trolls, but insignificant enough to not leech off the positives. "I get wonderful feedback, from students telling me the feed was useful in their research to sex workers sharing experiences or asking me to tweet about an important campaign," she says.

Then, as with so many women on Twitter:

"And dick pics. I get a lot of those."

Sex ways from Sunday

Game of Thrones fast-tracked the birth of @WhoresofYore. Its portrayal of medievalism, or as Lister puts it, "pseudo middle ages", made her dive deeper into her area of research. It was in October 2015 that she decided to give her findings – about a history inaccessible to many – a voice.

A large segment of her followers are sex workers, a demographic she feels particularly responsible towards. "I hope the account helps challenge the 'victim' narrative. Of course there are people being exploited, but to understand sex work only through that lens does nothing to reflect the complexity of experience," she points out. "You only have to ask my followers if they need 'rescuing' to find out damn quickly that they do not. If you keep telling them they do, you will soon be the one in need of rescue!"

In January, she tweeted a picture of a four-poster penis bed from Japan. "That was a thing to behold!" Lister says of the exhibit from Shinto Kanamara Matsuri, the country's annual penis festival. "Thousands carry phallic objects and statues and parade through the streets of Kawasaki. I'd like to focus more on Asia and Africa. Excluding the sexual history of other cultures is the last thing I want." There's also a book in the offing about the history of sex work.

She's been written about, but it was an April 29 headline that catapulted her into the 'viral' sphere. A day after Dr Kate Lister tweeted an image of a 19th century crossdresser who bore striking resemblance to former London mayor Boris Johnson, the Daily Mirror – in true Daily Mirror fashion – screamed:

Is Boris Johnson a time-travelling Tory transvestite?

It didn't take long for other tabloids to follow suit.

Another 19th century image, of a man in feminine attire. Tweeted by @WhoresofYore, it went viral as ‘the Boris Johnson’ picture. 
Images: Wellcome Library, London 

"I was more concerned about the trans community being offended than Boris Johnson," she laughs. "Still, an image of 'Boris' in Victorian ladies' bloomers is so funny, I went with it."

*****

A previously-pinned image on her page was that of a Victorian saloon girl balancing two teacups on her ample bosom. An uproarious visual made even better by resultant repartees, it best represents the ability of @WhoresofYore to juggle the serious with the playful.

From the earliest known gay adult film (Le ménage moderne du Madame Butterfly, 1920) to why ancient Roman and Greek statues had small penises, her timeline of the past week alone is a joy to behold. Not least a NSFW (not safe for work) image from April 13 of a man in the 1900s performing cunnilingus as the woman stares vacantly into the distance, bored as bored can be.

He probably couldn't find her clitoris.