This week we read chapter seven from Lynn Peril’s book College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Coeds, Then and Now, titled “Sex Ed and Husband Hunting”
Sex education has changed quite a bit since it first entered the university in the late nineteenth century.
Sex education has changed quite a bit since it first entered the university in the late nineteenth century.
When women first entered institutions of higher learning, sex was quite a taboo subject. Women students were expected to maintain actions of a “mannered lady” and virginity was the pinnacle of this job. Women students were only to attend class and be casual, not sexual, playmates to the male students; “She sells her birthright when she becomes a mere playmate, and forgets that God made her for man’s helpmeet.” (excerpt from The Freshman Girl, Peril, 279)
Most schools were extremely strict when it came to relations between the men and the women. Schools set up stern rules for the women to follow and much more relaxed rules for the male students to abide by. Some of the rules emplaced upon women were curfews, parameters of campus they could not leave without special permission, and certain public places – the only places – where they could interact with the opposite sex. The rules were stringent to follow and had severe consequences when broken. Peril explains, “In order to give girls a place to entertain, special, appropriately chaperoned parlors were set aside for receiving visitors”… “Women almost always had earlier and more restrictive curfews than men” (Peril, 282-283) These restrictions lead to awkward developmental patterns between the males and females. When trying to solve a problem, here being sexual relationships, banning the activity completely only exploits it more and makes the issue a bigger problem than initially. Restricting the students from interacting in a normal, adult, and natural manner and keeping sex as taboo kept college students as uninformed children instead of adults.
Most schools were extremely strict when it came to relations between the men and the women. Schools set up stern rules for the women to follow and much more relaxed rules for the male students to abide by. Some of the rules emplaced upon women were curfews, parameters of campus they could not leave without special permission, and certain public places – the only places – where they could interact with the opposite sex. The rules were stringent to follow and had severe consequences when broken. Peril explains, “In order to give girls a place to entertain, special, appropriately chaperoned parlors were set aside for receiving visitors”… “Women almost always had earlier and more restrictive curfews than men” (Peril, 282-283) These restrictions lead to awkward developmental patterns between the males and females. When trying to solve a problem, here being sexual relationships, banning the activity completely only exploits it more and makes the issue a bigger problem than initially. Restricting the students from interacting in a normal, adult, and natural manner and keeping sex as taboo kept college students as uninformed children instead of adults.
Students were extremely misinformed when it came to sex. The universities refused to address it, and when forced to due to student body interest, or demanding, the only answer to sex education was abstinence. “At the turn of the century, sex education was still largely a matter of providing what one writer called “just enough anatomical explanation to blunt the curiosity of the young…and to warn them away from any sexual thoughts, feelings, or actions” ” (Peril, 278) Students were told to ignore anything sexual and just focus on school work. After many demands, schools folded to its students and gave classes on ‘marriage’ that still did not address the issue of sex education, but was one step in the direction and became wildly popular among students.
“Students at Northwesten University complained that the ‘faculty was old and fogeyish, and that sex hygiene is not given enough prominence.” Finally, at the University of North Carolina in 1925, sociology professor Ernest R. Groves responded to the requests of male students with the first-ever elective college course in marriage. It included information on sexual fulfillment in wedlock, the psychology of family life, and child rearing. It even encroached on a staple of today’s self-help industry: how to meet the right girl.” (Peril, 280)
These classes were popular but often still did not explicitly address healthy sex education and contraception practices of the time on many college campuses. Some even told students wrong information! Sadly, sex education still remains like this today in parts of our society. While there are many campaigns to increase knowledge of safe sex and the use of contraceptive, many portions of our media still play on the innocent mind or fanciful stories to tell youth today about sex. Two examples seen are in popular movies today, “Knocked Up” and “Mean Girls”. These examples are funny to people who do already have a base knowledge of sex education, but what about those young adults who don’t? The media still leaves it a mystery to many, a large problem that we have in our society. Young adults have the right to knowledge about sexual education and denying it or keeping it a taboo only minimizes our society back into a mislead youth of the 1950s.
-Laura Condyles
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