Youth, gender and teenage sexual counselling in Britain: The making of the Brook Advisory Centre, 1964-2000 (360G-Wellcome-209726_Z_17_Z)

This research uses the history of Brook Advisory Centres (BAC) as a case study through which to reassess the history of teenage sexuality and of the anxieties it caused in postwar Britain. From the first Centre opened in 1964 in London to the present, BAC has been an important provider of contraceptive advice and sexual counselling for unmarried people and teenagers. Although the centres have provoked fierce opposition and triggered recurrent public debates on teenage sexuality, little is known of their history. As a non-governmental organisation which however had clear connections with the Family Planning Association and the National Health Service, BAC provides an insightful locus to explore the way teenage sexuality was handled and debated publicly. Using the newly catalogued archives of BAC together with other sources, this research is divided in three parts. Part I examines the relationship between sexual culture and sexual politics by exploring the conditions under which teenagers and unmarried people became target for contraceptive advice. Part II looks at the content of sexual counselling and the extent to which clients’ demands and experiences shaped them. Part III explores the cultural dimension of reproductive politics by uncovering the impact of mass media on BAC’s orientation.