Story: Sexual health
Syphilis and gonorrhoea were a source of deep shame, embarrassment and denial in the 19th and 20th centuries. During the First World War Ettie Rout pioneered a safe-sex approach to minimise sexually transmitted infections among servicemen – but others opposed her and tried to promote abstinence instead. From the 1980s HIV/AIDS brought a new sense of urgency to sexual-health initiatives, and condoms became a symbol of safe sex.