7 - Sex Education in the 1920s

Summary

Secretary of the Navy and evangelical Christian Josephus Daniels had spent the war years fearful of providing soldiers sex education and prophylactics. So much so that the Navy practically went behind his back, allowing Assistant Secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt to sign the order to supply condoms while Daniels was away from his office. With the military moving forward to support broad sex hygiene programs, would the civilian world be far behind? Sex education in the wake of World War I proved to be an odd mix of continued wartime necessity and a domesticated “normalcy.” While discussing sex became more acceptable in the media and the school curriculum, conservatives still feared female sexual agency and the perceived threat of nonwhite sexuality.

Immediately after the end of World War I, restricting sexuality presented a conundrum for military and civilian officials. In late 1918, the military recognized that sexual dangers for soldiers worsened immediately after combat ended. VD rates rose again among soldiers stationed abroad, possibly as a side effect of soldiers’ increased idle time. A pamphlet developed for civilians shortly after the Armistice noted:

The War is Over! The last gun has been fired, the last bomb dropped, the last torpedo shot. But there is one enemy which has done more damage than the Germans ever thought of. This enemy is called the Venereal Diseases [sic]. The Government has been fighting them openly and energetically and much has already been done, but the battle is not yet over. It is a battle of peace times just as much as of war times.

How would that battle be fought?

Demobilization

Military experts and policy makers suggested prophylaxis should expand into civilian life, to sustain the gains made under the American Plan. Colonel George Walker of the Medical Corps proposed that civilian society follow in the military's footsteps: “In all large cities, public stations should be run by the State Health Department… . They should not be called by any other name except their right name, ‘Prophylactic Stations,’ and distinctly they should not be a part of a hospital.”