Abstract
This podcast examines the construction of American sex education in the 1980s in the midst of the feminist sex wars, investigating how sex education in schools privileged some and marginalized others through three distinct structures: the government alongside the laws and policies implemented, the educational system, and dominant cultural norms of the 1980’s. We discuss whether people were implicitly or intentionally marginalized by the information provided to students and how the political climate of the time influenced students access to information. In order to do so, we examine policies implemented at a presidential and congressional level. Our podcast looks at the way the sex wars were a catalyst for these reactionary policies. Conservatives were displeased with the promotion of a liberal agenda and vehemently fought against it. Another cultural shift which helped contextualize the policies and laws implemented during the 1980s was the AIDS crisis. Culling together educational videos, pamphlets, and books inform how the education system dispelled information to its students. By interviewing Grinnell College faculty members who were in high school during the 1980s or several years before, their diverse experiences serve as examples of what sex education looked like during this time. Additionally, the cultural norms of the late 1970s through early 1990s to help contextualize and situate our argument for why these systems were implemented. Finally, the United States sex education system situates the understanding of sex education on a broader more global level. By looking at France and Sweden, we can interpret European approaches to sex education and how they align or contrast with the United States approach. The consolidation and perpetuation of heteronormativity throughout history remains and by investigating the construction of sex education in the 1980s helps us better understand how our current educational system works.
Biographies
Anna Billy is a 2nd year English major at Grinnell College with a passion for gender, women, and sexuality studies. Her interest in the subject stems from her all girls education from the time she was in 4th grade all the way through her senior year. When she is not engrossed in the massive amounts of readings she has for class, you can find Anna at the pool swimming, listening to her favorite bands through her waterproof speaker, eating insane amounts of raw cookie dough in her room, or watching her favorite shows on Netflix.
Annie Li is second-year at Grinnell College. She is a Mathematics and Gender, Women and Sexuality Study double major. She enjoys working with numbers and she is also very enthusiastic about social justice issues, especially those that are related to gender equality issues. She is very excited about this opportunity to present her work with her group members regarding sex education history in the U.S.
Leah Johnson is a third year Psychology and Gender, Women’s, Sexuality Studies double major. She is originally from Wayzata Minnesota and has one younger sister, as well as a dog Wrigley. She is interested in sex education because she is passionate about everyone having knowledge and understanding about the way their bodies work so they can make the choices that are right for them. She plans on going to graduate school to get her masters in Counseling and continue working in Residence Life/Student Affairs.
Ruby Lynn is a second year from San Diego, California. She is a Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies major. Ruby is extremely passionate about women’s health issues and reproductive rights. She was interested in researching the history of sex education in the American public school system because she believes the United States has been disadvantaging students for centuries. Ruby believes being well-educated about sex provides people with the tools to make safe, well-informed decisions. When Ruby is not studying she can be found dancing, watching Netflix, and making home-cooked meals.
Media File for Podcast
Credits/Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Professor Lewis for helping us in every step of the process for creating this podcast, as well as Gina Donovan for being our technical guru. Additionally, we would like to thank Celeste Miller, John Garrison, Carolyn Jacobson, and Ivy Schuster for agreeing to be interviewed for our podcast.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
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HuntleyFilmArchives. “Sex education, 1960’s – Film 3610.” Youtube. September 5, 2014. Accessed March 14, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJzEdCej0dk
Secondary Source
Advocates for Youth. “A Selective History of Sexuality Education in the United States.” Accessed March 14th, 2018. http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/serced/1859-history-of-sex-ed
Alagiri, Priya and Chris Collins and Todd Summe.. “Abstinence Only vs. Comprehensive Sex Education: What are the arguments? What is the evidence?” Policy Monograph Series. AIDS Policy Research Center & Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, AIDS Research Institute: University of California, San Francisco. 2002
Ashbee, Edward. The Bush Administration, Sex, and the Moral Agenda. Manchester University Press, 2007. See esp. Chapter entitled ‘Pet your dog…’: sex education, abstinence and contraception http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/j.ctt155j4s7.10.pdf?refreqid=search%3A06ebec71fd87d11f727dbd795bcb0562
“A SELECTIVE HISTORY OF SEXUALITY EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES.” Advocatesforyouth.org. Accessed March 14, 2018. http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/serced/1859-history-of-sex-ed.
Butler, Pamala. Queer Twin Cities. University Minnesota Press, 2010. See esp. Chapter entitled “Sex and the Cities Reevaluating 1980s Feminist Politics in Minneapolis and St. Paul” http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.5749/j.cttts9w9.12.pdf?refreqid=search%3A06ebec71fd87d11f727dbd795bcb0562
Cohen, Susan A. “The Global Gag Rule: Exporting Antiabortion Ideology at the Expense of American Values. Guttmacher Institute, June 2001.n https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/tgr/04/3/gr040301.pdf
Donna Drucker, “Through the Eyes of the Establishment: Student Sexuality and the Dean of Women’s Office at Purdue University” Notches (blog), January 14, 2016 http://notchesblog.com/2016/01/14/through-the-eyes-of-the-establishment-student-sexuality-and-the-dean-of-womens-office-at-purdue-university/
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Luker, Kristin. When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on Sex- and Sex Education- Since the Sixties. Norton Company & Inc., 2006. See esp. Chapter entitled “Chapter 8: Politics of Sex” https://books.google.com/books?id=cCU6cLD1cJAC&pg=PA220&dq=sex+education+1980s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_08CTp-XZAhXH34MKHUgIA0gQ6AEIRzAF#v=onepage&q=sex%20education%201980s&f=false
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Vitellone, Nicole. “Sex education and the condom.” Object Matters, 2008, 13-35. doi:10.7228/manchester/9780719075681.003.0002.
White, Patrick. “Sex Education; or, How the Blind Became Heterosexual” A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies, 9. No. 1-2 (2003). Project Muse.
Zimmerman, Jonathan. “A Right to Knowledge?” Too Hot to Handle: 115-43. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1djmhcf.8.
Transcript
Ruby: Were you nervous your first time having sex? Did you start to doubt everything you thought you knew? This week we will examine why this might be. Follow along as we explore the history of American Sex Education in schools. It is May 5th and we are recording from Grinnell College. I’m Ruby Lynn, I’m Leah Johnson, I’m Anna Billy, I’m Annie Li, and this is Schooled in Sex. In the next few minutes, we will walk you through the construction of 1980s American sex education. Examining the many social and political factors that contributed to its creation. Firstly, we will explore how the government attempted to control what was taught in school, looking more specifically at the policies established, laws enacted, and curriculum created. Secondly, we will place those policies and ideas in relation to the time discussing the source of such reactionary policy. The 1980s were a time of political upheaval and social fearfulness. The Sexual Revolution of the 1960/70s was being staled by reactionary politics and the reemergence of traditional family narratives. The Aids Crisis was upon the United States and uncertainty about the future was at the forefront of politicians and civilians minds alike, which contributed to misinformation surrounding sex and sex education. Thirdly, we will take a critical lens to what students were actually being taught, examining how Sex Education in schools privileged some groups and marginalized others, creating a white hetero-centric narrative. Sex Education is important not only because it provides people with the tools and agency to make safe, well-informed sexual decisions, but also because it shapes a generations relationship to themselves and their autonomy. Let’s get started!
Ruby: We are going to start off my talking about how the government attempted to control what was being taught in Sex Education classes, what policies did they enact? What laws did they create? Leah, Anna, how was this done?
Anna: Ronald Reagan who was the president 1981 signed into law a series of religiously motivated laws such as the Adolescent Family Act also knows the Chasity Act which promoted abstinence only sex education. Also on a more global scale he was the driving force behind the Global Gag Rule which was implemented in 1984 which Leah is going talk more about.
Leah: The Global Gag Rule prohibits U.S. money from being given or spent on international organizations that promote abortion in any way. This means organizations that provide abortions, that provide information about abortions, that provide post-abortion counseling, or in any way seem to provide abortion as an acceptable way to end a pregnancy. This line of thinking carried over in the 1990s under President Clinton. In the 1990s President Clinton’s administration expanded on what Reagan had built for them by enacting something called abstinence-plus sex education, which pushed abstinence as the only way to prevent a pregnancy, but still provided information on contraceptives. By 1995, more than four hundred junior or senior high schools offered condoms on campus. Of the states that required abstinence Sex Education fourteen also included the use of contraception within the curriculum, however, not everyone was on board with this. President Clinton’s first Surgeon General, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, put the issue in stark terms saying that her number one message to teens is to be abstinent because if they have a baby there’s an 80% likelihood that they’ll be poor, ignorant, and slaves for the rest of their lives.
Anna: In 1997 the department of Health and Human Services also started another act called the Girl Power Initiative this was a campaign that was aimed at nineteen to fourteen-year-old girls that proposed and really encouraged abstinence as a form of empowerment. The legislation enacted during the Clinton administration was built upon the foundation that Reagan had left for him. Ronald Reagan was creating reactionary policies to counteract what he saw as the downfall of dominant culture in the 1970s and early 80s.
Interview:
From what I know about legislation in terms of Sex Education in America, there are only a few states that actually have mandatory sex education, I live in one of them, however, from what I know it is heavily skewed towards the East Coast and Minnesota in terms of mandatory sex education, both coasts actually.
Okay so, I don’t have a ton of knowledge, but one thing I learned in my GWSS class last year was that in the early 2000s as women were attending college more often, college women were having greater access to contraception, like birth control and other methods. They become more against abortion.
Ruby: That was some Grinnell College students talking about Sex Education legislation. What exactly were these lawmakers reacting to? What was going on at this time?
Leah: The late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s are commonly referred to as the second wave of the feminist movement or the Sexual Revolution. During this time feminists were attempting to claim a place is society that was most often held by white men. They were attempting to comport themselves in a sexual manner related to men. They held events such as bra burnings and often formed lesbian only or women only collectives. At this time the statement the personal is the political came into being and social consciousness. The real main point was that women wanted to be able to have sex the way men could. This was also supported by revolutions in contraceptive use that allowed women to have sex without the fear of getting pregnant.
Anna: Conservative lawmakers feared these changes in the dominant social culture and believed they would lead to the dissolution of the nuclear heterosexual family. Women’s Liberation, Gay Rights, and adolescents increasingly engaging in sex, were all evidence that our society was falling apart. Conservative critics seized upon statistics of increasing abortion rates to argue that the availability of contraception in the 1970s was not having a positive impact on adolescent lives.
Leah: This lead to the formation of the Save Our Children Coalition formed in 1977 in Miami, Florida by celebrity singer Anita Bryant. She was fighting to teach her children Christian fundamental ideas about gay people and the damage they would do to our society.
Anna: The conservative backlash near the end of the Sexual Revolution encompassed Gay Rights, Women’s Liberation, the ability of anyone to have sex on their own terms, and Sex Education in junior and senior high schools. The policies enacted, because of this, hindered the ability of adolescents to learn about their bodies and how to have healthy and respectful sex lives.
Ruby: We asked some Grinnell College staff members and students about their Sex Education experience, here’s what they had to say.
Interviews:
Ok, so Sex Education in the U.S., my perception is its terrible it is nonexistent almost, but also there are places where it’s great, but I think for the most part it is left up to the parents or for people to find out on their own.
So, I had a pretty good Sex Ed teacher in high school and she was very big on inclusivity and she would talk a lot about about how sex does not mean one thing to everyone and how we all have our own pace learning about sex. Yeah, she was a great resource.
I learned some really basic minimal stuff in school but I learned nothing at home. I was really worried that on the night before my wedding at the age of thirty-two my mother might actually finally sit down with me and tell me something.
So, my experience with Sex Education has always been abstinence only. Our teacher was very conservative and very religious, she talked about her own personal experience and how she waited till marriage and she thinks everyone else should wait till marriage.
The only Sex Education I received in school was in fourth grade when the dad of a fellow student who was a doctor told us about sex. All the students giggled the entire way through and I felt terrible for the dad.
Ruby: What were children actually being taught in Sex Education?
Leah: Well, during the 80s and 90s and even through till today Sex Education primarily privileges a white heterosexual narrative. This marginalizes both people of color and people who do not identify heterosexually. This is done by overarchingly Sex Education ignores the experiences of gay, lesbian, and bisexual teenagers, and does not show representation of people of color in positive lights or positive sexual relationships. Abstinence only Sex Education also privileged a very Christian narrative of wait until marriage, which marginalized people of other religious backgrounds. Scare tactics were often used when discussing STDs or STIs, pictures of people with infections and stories about how pregnancy or STDs ruins people’s lives were used to scare adolescents into not having sex before marriage.
Anna: Sex, Drugs, and AIDS is an example of the type of video used in Sex Education courses in high schools. It represents a good depiction of common attitudes towards healthy sexual practices. This video was completed in April 1986 for the NYC school systems and was featured on the Phil Donahue Show. This was also one of the first government-funded A.I.D.S. awareness videos produced, so this was really heavily influential. Split into 4 segments: AIDS IS HARD TO GET, DRUGS, SEX, and AIDS, the video is a classroom-friendly tool to teach students about sex education. Opening with a montage of clips of people sharing everyday items to preface, Scott, the narrator’s, discussion of the transmittance of AIDS through blood. This was to stop the spread of misinformation that AIDS could be spread through casual contact, such as a handshake or sharing toiletries.
Leah: The inclusion of this section shows that Sex Education at this time was attempting to convey medically accurate facts about the disease which isn’t even something that all Sex Education in the United States today is required to do.
Anna: Right, and then the following section continues the theme of transmittance by explicitly showing images of young adults shooting up on the street. While all of the faces are blacked out, the explicit imagery displays the video’s implicit goal of increasing fear among students.
Leah: This is actually a hallmark of abstinence-only Sex Education, it’s to send messages of fear about sex to adolescents. Instead, of teaching kids how to value their bodies and have healthy mutually respectful sexual relationships, Sex Education teaches them to fear and distrust their bodies because at anytime they could get AIDS or a get an STD. This message was really really damaging to students both at the time and now.
Anna: Turning attention to sex itself, in the third section: SEX, three young white women sit in a circle discussing the pros and cons of using condoms with their boyfriends. One girl attempts to convince her resistant friend that contraceptives are a good thing and can still be “cool”. This scene is an excellent example of how abstinence-plus education began. Yet, it is still strictly heteronormative, ignoring any other type of relationship groupings. One of the friends says, “That’s why guys gotta wear condoms and girls gotta make sure they wear them.”
Leah: This is an example of how Sex Education at this time privileged heterosexual relationships and upheld heteronormativity. The narrative that men will always want sex and women must be the gatekeepers damages both genders. Men are told that their desires matter more and that to get what they want they need to keep pushing their partners until they acquiesce, and women are told that their worth lies in their virginity and that maintaining it in the face of men should be their goals in relationships. While the messaging here includes contraceptives, women are still held responsible for the actions of their male partners which is damaging to their self-esteem and sense of themselves as sexual agents with their own desires. Additionally, many Sex Education programs at this time did not even include discussion of contraceptives, women were told to simply say no.
Anna: One of the last clips of the video is a story of bike shop owner who was prejudiced against the LGBTQ+ community until his brother came out and discloses that he has AIDS. His attitude changes dramatically and he declares that he will “punch anyone who blames AIDS on gay people”.
Leah: This portion of the video does show a political and social evolution occurring. A recurring theme throughout the video is “there is nobody to blame except the virus.” Which places the blame on the virus, instead, of the person and their actions. However, it is important to note that while gay and lesbian people were discussed in regards to the AIDS crisis Sex Education still upheld a very heteronormative power structure. The only type of sex that was discussed was heterosexual sex. LGBTQ+ teens were not given the tools for understanding their sexual desires. Instead, they were only talked about in relation to the scary disease—which othered them and isolated them further. Additionally, representation in this video shows that Sex Education also upheld white power structures. The majority of the actors in this videos are white and when there are African-American actors they play the negative roles. People who are shooting up, getting AIDS, and women who are giving birth to babies who were also infected with AIDS. This tying of blackness to disease and a negative social regard was incredibly harmful to African-American teens at the time. They were only shown themselves when they were playing negative degenerate roles.
Ruby: To finish off our podcast we are going to discuss is Sex Education has changed in the United States. Leah, Anna, what was your experience like in sex education?
Leah: You know Ruby, I don’t really think that much has changed. My Sex Education experience was very similar to what we have been discussing today. While, we were given some information on contraceptives it was not very much and we were absolutely told it was the women’s responsibility to get and maintain contraceptives, men where not going to bring their own.
Anna: I think that is really interesting because I feel like my Sex Education experience was a little different. I attended an all-girls high school so my school was a little bit better about presenting information to us at a young age. I think we started having these conversations around fifth grade, but overall I agree there are always things to do better and Westridge was not stellar by any means.
Leah: Yeah Anna, one thing I really wish my Sex Education had done better was talking about people in the LGBTQIA+ community. We were never explicitly taught that there are only two genders or you can only be straight, but the fact that my school’s Sex Education left out the fact that transgender people exist and live their lives, and have sex lives, and people that are gay or lesbian or bi or queer have sex lives that are different, but still has fulfilling, and still has positive as the heterosexual sex that we also talked about was something I feel I was really missing out on. As a queer person it really would have helped me to hear that it was ok and that those people do have sex lives and that they are happy and they do have relationships, rather than completely leaving it out. Because I did feel very isolated and unable to ask questions about this.
Anna: Another very interesting thing, that I just remembered, is that my school, although we did have teachers and people come in and talk to us, we heavily relied on videos and informal ways of communicating these ideas. The media is not great at representing all inclusive identities so that became entirely problematic in itself. We watched a lot of Degrassi in my Sex Education classes and Friday Night Lights for a little bit. So, there could have been better ways of going about it through a direct way of communication instead of kinda bypassing it and letting media do the work for our teachers.
Leah: Also, the way I remember my sex ed being was this bunch of us giggling and we were awkward and, yeah know, I wish there was a way to just, I don’t want to say destigmatize sex because I feel like that has weird connotations, but make people more comfortable talking about the idea of having sex. I feel like if I was more comfortable both with my teacher and my classmates I would have been more empowered to ask questions and really understand and, like, ask about healthy relationships rather than these are the ten types of STD you can get. I feel like this needs to be a more holistic change, instead of just giving high schoolers more information.
Ruby: We would like to thank Gina Donovan and Professor Lewis for assisting us with this project. Thanks so much for listening, this was Schooled in Sex.
