Mary Ware DENNETT / Sex Side of Life An Explanation for Young People 1928

$500.00
A landmark sex education pamphlet by Mary Ware Dennett, an influential American women's rights advocate and suffragist who co-founded the National Birth Control League in 1915. The pamphlet was first published in 1915, after Dennett, unable to find satisfactory literature with which to educate her sons, decided to write her own. The result was this radical departure from the publications of the era, which stressed abstinence and the dangers of sex and masturbation. Instead, with this booklet, Dennett intended to use scientific information and “[G]ive them the facts.. but also give them some conception of sex life as a vivifying joy, as a vital art, as a thing to be studied and developed with reverence for its big meaning, with understanding of its far-reaching reactions, psychologically and spiritually.” Topics covered include masturbation, sexually transmitted diseases, prostitution, and the positives of using birth control, and the text is illustrated with several anatomical plates at the end.
A landmark sex education pamphlet by Mary Ware Dennett, an influential American women's rights advocate and suffragist who co-founded the National Birth Control League in 1915. The pamphlet was first published in 1915, after Dennett, unable to find satisfactory literature with which to educate her sons, decided to write her own. The result was this radical departure from the publications of the era, which stressed abstinence and the dangers of sex and masturbation. Instead, with this booklet, Dennett intended to use scientific information and “[G]ive them the facts.. but also give them some conception of sex life as a vivifying joy, as a vital art, as a thing to be studied and developed with reverence for its big meaning, with understanding of its far-reaching reactions, psychologically and spiritually.” Topics covered include masturbation, sexually transmitted diseases, prostitution, and the positives of using birth control, and the text is illustrated with several anatomical plates at the end.