Historian Helen Horowitz has long been struck by America's paradoxical attitudes toward sex in the 21st century the explicitness of popular culture vs. the refusal of many conservatives to endorse any sexual education beyond abstinence. So she decided to seek out the roots of this contradiction, returning to the 19th century, where she discovered that the United States in the Victorian era characterized by wide-ranging and often conflicting voices on sexual issues, from love and lust to masturbation, contraception, and abortion has much in common with today.
In her new book, Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century America, Horowitz discusses New York City, where 19th century conservatives fearing that male clerks, free from parental supervision, would succumb to temptation sought to prohibit the public dissemination of anything "obscene." Despite opposition from dissenters committed to free speech, an era of suppression followed, with self-appointed anti-obscenity crusader Anthony Comstock succeeding in banning all sexual subject matter from the U.S. postal system.
The OSI Forum "Rereading Sex: Have Sexual Politics Changed from the Victorian Era to Today?" focused on Horowitz's historical perspective in the context of contemporary culture wars. She was joined by Tamara Kreinin, president of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), who shed light on the legislative battles underway in Washington over reauthorization of the so-called welfare reform legislation of 1996 (officially known as the The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act), which authorizes $50 million a year in funding for abstinence-only sexual education, an amount conservatives now want to expand. Kreinin argued for the benefits of a more comprehensive approach, including the dissemination of practical information about contraception, which can prevent unwanted pregnancy and protect against HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.