Essay On Sexuality In The United States

A young woman would marry a man who was usually significantly older than she was. After marriage, women were stuck in a home where the male was the head of the household and made all of the decisions.11 Marital choice did not exist; at least not for women. Woman were forced to marry men that they barely knew, thus even the most intimate details of their lives were decided not by them, but by others. Love was usually not a factor in the marriage equation. Wife-beating was also allowed and men sometimes imprisoned, starved, and humiliated their wives.12

From birth, one's sexuality is shaped by society. Cultures institute behaviors that are to be seen as the societal norms, which work to constantly reinforce societal expectations of how genders should act in relation to one another. Although some may argue that one's sexuality is an innate characteristic resulting from genetic makeup, there is a large amount of evidence pointing to its social construction instead. Through the power differences between males and females, established gender roles, and drastic economic shifts, society establishes sexuality and reinforces the behaviors that are expected of its citizens.

During 1920s, U.S. schools began to incorporate sex education to their courses. A 2002 study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that “58% of secondary school principals describe their sex education curriculum as comprehensive programs provide factual information about birth control, sexual transmitted disease, and continue the message to children about waiting to have sex.” (Johannah)

The wartime jobs produced lasting careers and life-style changes for women. Some of the jobs they did were telephone operators, factory workers, seamstresses, and physicians. Most of the women that were hired for these jobs were young and unmarried because they had fewer obligations to attend. This meant, they could work long hours with little pay since they did not have a family to provide for. It was

Unlike sex, the history of sexuality is dependant upon society and limited by its language in order to be defined and understood.

The Progressive Era, from the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century (1898-1919), was a time when women were learning and adjusting to the differences in America. Women had different goals they wanted to achieve. Women from different classes had different targets that they strived for. Some women wanted to be equals with all people and have the rights that they deserved to have. Others just tried to make life better and happier for themselves and their family.

The women were expected to carry out the duties of the house without complaint and to remain diligent to her husband, as well as God. During this time, motherhood transformed from just being a child bearing figure to

In the 1910s, Margaret Sanger, a woman’s rights activist, began to publish articles about birth control, finding National Birth Control League (NBCL). She opened a birth control clinic in New York in the year of 1916. The

Public discussions of birth control were criminalized under the Comstock Act of 1873 because people believed it was immoral. Margaret Sanger, who had opened the first birth control clinic in 1916 despite the Comstock Act of 1873, was a feminist and advocate. After serving prison time, Sanger returned publicly and illegally with drive to present a strong argument that defended the moral use of birth control. Prior to her morally controversial 1921 speech, Sanger was arrested in New York for her intent to advocate public knowledge pertaining to birth control. Although the ethical nature of using birth control is still controversial in America, Margaret Sanger’s 1921 speech “A Moral Necessity for Birth Control” was undoubtedly a catalyst for

Margaret Sanger founded a movement in this country that would institute such a change in the course of our biological history that it is still debated today. Described by some as a "radiant rebel", Sanger pioneered the birth control movement in the United States at a time when Victorian hypocrisy and oppression through moral standards were at their highest. Working her way up from a nurse in New York's poor Lower East Side to the head of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Margaret Sanger was unwavering in her dedication to the movement that would eventually result in lower infant mortality rates and better living conditions for the impoverished. But, because of the way that her political

Premarital pregnancy rates were particularly high in rural and frontier areas, continuing throughout the nineteenth century. Courtship became much more popular in the nineteenth century as men and women began to leave their domestic spheres and interact with other members of their community. Southern people courted after church and western people courted after community events, such as holiday or harvest celebrations, and urban working class youth courted on the job as well. The act of courtship facilitated romantic love becoming a norm, as flirting became a norm wherever there was sexual integration. The idea of marrying for romance impacted sexuality, and having recreational sex. Many couples from the nineteenth century wrote in their diaries the intense urge they felt to have sex with their significant other, although not all of them acted on the urge. The idea that sex and reproduction didn’t have to go hand-in-hand was what caused people to actively control their sexuality with various methods of birth control. As these ideas spread throughout the country, different regions, races, and classes had different ways of controlling their sexuality. Fertility rates dropped throughout the country in rural and urban areas, but remained high in frontier communities. However, many southern states didn’t care for controlling sexuality, since there were many farmers making their living off the land. The larger the family was, the more land they could work on at a time,

Sanger’s movement to push for birth control caused her to be closely watched by the law enforcement. She repeatedly sent informative brochures about contraceptives out to the public and opened a birth control clinic in Brooklyn; it impudently went against Comstock Act and several other laws. In 1920 Sangers methods became less extensive and that same year she founded the American Birth Control League, now known as Planned Parenthood. This was one of the biggest milestones in her career as a feminist. In 1925 she gave her memorable speech “The Children’s Era” at the first birth control conference. When she delivered the speech she

Women were expected to basically be merely an object, even a trophy for their husbands. They were expected to stay home and clean, as well as cook. With all these expected tasks, women hardly had any time to branch out and figure out what they wanted to do with their life. They had no time for leisure activities of any kind because, of course, their activities involved taking care of the house. Women were also seen as the weaker sex, always submissive to their dominant male counterpart. Although the women were submissive, they were held to a higher moral standard. Adultery was twice shamed upon if committed by a woman rather than a man. (Hughes par.3) A woman could be stoned to death, but people would turn their cheek for a man while the woman still was expected to stay beside the man.

In the Antebellum time period, there were four voices that carefully discussed and showed their beliefs of sex to the society. One of the voices was known as Evangelical Christianity. Christian ministers and Lyman Beecher’s, strong ideas and passionate efforts were shown to try and get society to follow their ideas of sex. In their eyes, lust was known to be a deadly sin during the Nineteenth Century (Horowitz, 8). In order for them to control society members, they expressed and advocated that if one goes against the Christian view of sex and lacks morality, then he or she will be lead to the devil (Beecher, 45). Evangelical Christianity supporters such as Lyman Beecher believed in using the church, Bible, law and institutions to control how individuals acted upon sex as well as how sex was seen in society as

Sex education has been an ongoing debate for decades. In the early 1970’s, twenty states voted restricting sex education from the school curriculum, leaving the District of Columbia and only three states (Maryland, Kentucky, New Jersey), requiring schools to teach sex education. By the mid 1980’s, a deadly disease permitted through sexual intercourse was recognized; the fear of catching a disease sex education quickly became accepted. In 1986, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop felt sex education should start as early as third grade stating, ‘“There is now no doubt … that we need sex education in schools and that it [should] include information on heterosexual and homosexual relationships. The lives of our young people depend on our