Of all the myths we're busting, virginity is among the biggest, and most persistent. It’s a social construct with no biological or medical definitions, yet heavy religious, personal and social baggage. Historian Anke Bernau and sociologist Laura Carpenter help us unpack the millennia-old obsession with female–and rarely ever male, sexual–purity and its consequences.

What do cabbage and Stalin’s mustache have in common? How did the Mesopotamians view sex? Were the Victorians even more repressed than we think? Award-winning author, historian and podcaster Dr. Kate Lister answers these questions and more with crackling wit and insight, and an enviable Yorkshire brogue.

Witty and wise medieval historian Dr. Eleanor Janega shares how and why women were considered hypersexual through most of Western history. And why that myth is no less rooted in “science” than the modern belief that men are the uncontrollably sexual.