Sex Education from World War II to the Present
The theme of loose women being dangerous to US men and boys continued in World War II and even featured heavily in the propaganda of the era. A 1942 propaganda poster features the “Juke Joint Sniper,” a smoking woman who is meant to represent “loose” women who frequently had sex with soldiers and spread disease among the ranks. The US National Library of Medicine reported that women were almost invariably depicted as the cause of sexually transmitted infection outbreaks.
Other posters of the era spelled the message out even more explicit. Another World War II era flyer stated “She may look clean – but” followed by a warning that “pick-ups, good time girls, and prostitutes” spread syphilis and gonorrhea, two of the most serious sexually transmitted infections of the era. It goes on to say that you “can’t fight the Axis if you get VD.” VD, or venereal disease, was the contemporary term for sexually transmitted infections. This message posited “loose” women as a threat to the very war effort itself and warned soldiers to be careful about the women whose company they kept.
It was the sexual revolution of the 1960s that brought about the most significant changes in sex education in the United States. The first oral contraceptive was approved in 1960. The Supreme Court decision of Griswold vs. Connecticut of 1965 decriminalized the use of contraceptives in marriage through the argument of the right to marital privacy. In addition to changes in the legal landscape, the free love movement of the hippies began to erode the shame associated with sex in the United States.
The AIDS epidemic and moral panic of the 1980s had a divisive impact on the curriculum of sex education in the United States. Progressive educators and public health workers saw AIDS and its associated deaths as a mandate for comprehensive sex education to encourage condom use and safe sex. Religious and conservative reformers and educators, on the other hand, saw AIDS as a moral scourge and a call to increase messages of abstinence. President Ronald Reagan encouraged abstinence-only education and was very slow to approve funding for AIDS-related research and education.
The debate between abstinence-only education and comprehensive sex education continues to rage today. In 2000, President George W. Bush committed funding to abstinence-only education at the expense of comprehensive programs, despite research showing that abstinence-only educated students are just as sexually active as their peers and less likely to use protection. President Barack Obama repealed many of these efforts and encouraged comprehensive education whereas President Donald Trump has returned to encouraging abstinence-only education. The constant shift from administration to administration implies that the research has little bearing on policy, and we will likely continue to see drastic changes depending on the political party in power. Given our long history of controversy and the current debate, it may well be a long time before we see a consistent encouraged standard of sex education in the United States.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Here’s How Sex Education Has Changed Over the Past 100 Years” Genevieve Carlton, Ranker. N.d.
“What Margaret Sanger Really Said About Eugenics and Race” Jennifer Latson, Time. October 2016.
“Reagan’s AIDS Legacy/Silence Equals Death” Allen White, SF Gate. June 2004.