Sex Education Between in the World War I Era
The very first sex education film appeared in 1914. Damaged Goods starred Richard Bennett as a man who slept with a sex worker on the eve of his wedding. The sex worker, in a profoundly negative portrayal, gave the man syphilis. He then passes syphilis on to his unsuspecting wife and newborn child, which is possible through placental transmission or contact with a sore during birth. The culmination of the film is Bennett’s character committing suicide. The film was quite popular and reissued several times. A critic positively reviewed it and noted, “American boy(s)… should be made to see it for they are to become the American manhood, and the cleaner physically, the better.”
In the early 1900s, birth control was illegal in the United States and deeply frowned upon culturally. Merely discussing birth control could lead to jail time due to the Comstock Act, which outlawed obscene literature. Margaret Sanger, the founder of organizations that evolved into Planned Parenthood, spent time in jail due to publishing a pamphlet encouraging the use of contraceptives such as vaginal suppositories, douches, and diaphragms.
In 1916, Sanger opened a family planning and birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. It was the first of its kind in the United States. Sanger was arrested within nine days of the clinic’s opening. She and her sister were guilty under a New York law that banned the distribution of contraceptives. In 1917, Sanger began publishing the monthly journal Birth Control Review. While Sanger is revered by many for fighting for women’s right to birth control, she is a deeply controversial figure due to her support of negative genetics. She believed that eugenics should be used to eliminate the “unfit” from humanity.
In 1922, the US government officially recognized the need for sex education by issuing guidance to schools for the creation of sex ed programs. The recommendations included separating girls from boys and ensuring students had a same-sex teacher for lessons. The US Public Health Service also advocated teaching students about sex in the adolescent years, believing the students were most receptive to the messages during that time.
A great deal of sex education at the time was aimed exclusively at men and boys, as theirs were the only impulses seen as virtuous and worth recognizing and refining. A 1925 Canadian public health poser referred to the male sex drive as “a noble gift of Nature if properly guided and controlled by Man’s higher powers. Only when it is allowed to run wild does it become a base passion and a dangerous thing.” If female sexuality was discussed at all, it was to warn boys of loose women, those failures of morality that spread disease.