The movement for sex education, also at times known as sexuality education, began in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dr. Prince Morrow developed the impetus for some of the first formal sex education curricula with an emphasis on the prevention of venereal disease, a focus that had its roots in the scientific social-hygiene and purity movements of the Progressive Era. In 1905, he established the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis, focusing on private agencies outside of schools, working with youth on sexually transmitted disease prevention. For the most part, Morrow's approach to sex education sought to discourage sexual activity and to emphasize the dangers of sex while also providing instruction about human anatomy and physiology. During this same time, Margaret Sanger began her pioneering work dispensing birth control information to young women in New York City.
In 1914, the National Educational Association began to endorse sex education, usually referred to as sex hygiene, in the schools. The NEA resolution stated that public school sex hygiene classes should be conducted by "persons qualified by scientific training and teaching experience in order to assure a safe moral point of view." By the second and third decades of the twentieth century, sex education in the public schools had become more institutionalized and had begun to shift from the earlier dis-ease prevention model to a focus on helping young people relate sex to love, marriage, and family life. There was a strong proscriptive bent to most of these programs—"worthwhile" sexual experiences were only those that led to mature love and marriage. Sex educators in this era generally viewed bodily pleasure unto itself as morally dangerous.
In the 1940s, sex education continued to be taught primarily as part of social-hygiene classes and often existed in classes called "homemaking," "character building," or "moral or spiritual values." These classes were frequently sex segregated, although sex education specialists debated this issue. The post–World War II era witnessed a major social movement in support of a more explicit, normative, and nonjudgmental approach to sexuality education. The development of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States in the early 1960s, followed by the American Association of Sex Educators and a number of other organizations, transformed the teaching of sex education in the schools. The pioneering work in the fields of human sexuality by Alfred Kinsey and William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson also had an enormous influence in promoting sex education. These organizations and individuals sought to develop programs that encouraged healthy sexuality to enhance individual growth and fulfillment. In addition, the women's movement challenged and transformed many previous assumptions about the teaching of female sexuality.
Nevertheless, sex education programs continued to be subject to considerable controversy. Some religious organizations voiced strenuous objections to teaching young people about issues such as contraception, abortion, or masturbation, or to framing homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle in sex education classes. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, local school boards waged protracted and divisive battles over the content of sex education curricula. In addition, political conservatives in the United States sought, at times successfully, to restrict the content of sex education programs and to limit explicit discussions of birth control in favor of an emphasis on abstinence. These controversies over the content of sex education curricula took on a more fevered pitch with the advent of the AIDS virus.
Bibliography
Hottois, James, and Neal A. Milner. The Sex Education Controversy. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1975.
Scales, Peter. "Historical Review of Sex Education Efforts and Barriers." In Facilitating Community Support for Sex Education, Centers for Disease Control Final Report. Bethesda, Md.: 1981.
Strong, Bryan. "Ideas of the Early Sex Education Movement in America, 1890–1920." History of Education Quarterly 12 (1972): 129–161.
Encyclopedia of American History Copyright © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
