Dirty words
Subtitle: the rhetoric of public sex education, 1870-1924
By: by Robin E. Jensen
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 201
ISBN-13: 9780252035739; 9780252077661
Subjects: Sex instruction; History
Description: Dirty Words: The Rhetoric of Public Sex Education, 1870-1924, details the approaches and outcomes of sex-education initiatives in the Progressive Era. In analyzing the rhetorical strategies of sex-education advocates, Robin E. Jensen engages with rich sources such as lectures, books, movies, and posters that were often shaped by female health advocates and instructors. Her narrative demonstrates how women were both leaders and innovators in early U.S. sex-education movements, striving to provide education to underserved populations of women, minorities, and the working class. Investigating the communicative and rhetorical practices surrounding the emergence of public sex education in the United States, Jensen shows how women in particular struggled for a platform to create and circulate arguments concerning this controversial issue.

The book also provides insight into overlooked discourses about public sex education by analyzing a previously understudied campaign targeted at African American men in the 1920's, offering theoretical categorizations of discursive strategies that citizens have used to discuss sex education over time, and laying out implications for health communicators and sexual educators in the present day. --Book Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Engaging ambiguous discourse; title: Championing the Chicago experiment; title: Propagating wartime sex education; title: Speaking for women at war's end; title: Campaigning for "separate but equal"; title: Conclusion : making the case in the twenty-first century.