cover image The Transformation of American Sex Education: Mary Calderone and the Fight for Sexual Health

The Transformation of American Sex Education: Mary Calderone and the Fight for Sexual Health

Ellen S. More. New York Univ., $39 (368p) ISBN 978-1-4798-1204-2

Medical historian More (Women Physicians and the Cultures of Medicine) anchors this evenhanded portrait of physician Mary Calderone (1904–1988) in a broader discussion of the history of sex education in the U.S. More notes that Calderone’s mother locked her hands in metal mitts at night to prevent her from masturbating (a tale central to Calderone’s rhetoric about children’s right to privacy and freedom from sexual shame), and credits her PTA lectures with helping to change attitudes about sex in the late 1940s. After serving as medical director of Planned Parenthood, in 1964 Calderone cofounded an organization to support sex education in public schools. Though conservatives attacked her work, More writes, the greatest damage came from Calderone’s “inability to come to grips with the profound change in sexual and cultural mores,” including the increasing acceptance of premarital sex and the feminist and gay rights movements. Interwoven with the biographical details are general trends in sex education, including the framing of sexual health as a component of “social hygiene” in the 1940s, and debates between advocates for comprehensive and abstinence-only programs. Though the balance between biography and social history sometimes falls out of whack, this is an accessible introduction to a pioneering public health advocate. (Jan.)