When the Wolfenden Report was published 68 years ago this week, it pushed for decriminalising male homosexuality – but it also led to a crackdown on sex workers. Sir John Wolfenden was unprepared for the backlash that his dry, academic 155-page government report would provoke. “All sorts of people said all sorts of things, and all sorts of people wrote all sorts of things on the pavement outside our house,” he told BBC radio. “I have from one religious sect an official curse. Typed.” He was surprised by how “violent” the press reaction was: “I didn’t expect it to make as much splash as it did.”