How did you learn about sex? Were you like many children in the United States in the ’50s and ’60s who just sort of pieced it together aon your own? Nobody told you much– much that was useful, that is– and sometimes they even discouraged you from learning anything they considered shameful. Like masturbation. Or nudity.
Even if you’re a boomer, you may not remember this. There was a famous sex education documentary produced in 1947 called Human Growth. This short film was shown in many public schools for years. It was written by Dr. Lester F. Beck, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. He wanted to promote healthy sexuality and family life. The film was even issued in a revised version in 1962.
It has a narrative structure. It’s set in a middle school classroom where the class is discussing a movie about adolescent sexual growth. Sort of. But first, it begins in a family living room. The boy is reading his geography book, but something’s odd The native women have shrunken breasts. No nudity here, at least nothing real. It didn’t matter that most adolescents encountered their first nudes within the pages of National Geographic, and they were in sharp black and white. The magazine sometimes contained topless natives from the global south. It could get away with displaying nudity then because they weren’t white.
They rendered female anatomy sexless. This artistic decision was as intentional as the movie’s harmless title, Human Growth.
Despite these and other cautious editorial decisions (detailed in the video below), Human Growth still encountered noisy backlash from conservative and religious groups. Christians argued against it. A 1952 article in The Catholic World criticized the film, stating, “The presentation of such material to young children is a violation of their innocence and a usurpation of parental authority.”
Why did this happen? Consider the times. Remember, this was the McCarthyite fifties. Comic books with risqué covers were being lambasted in the halls of Congress during Senator Kefauver’s Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Such a climate made it easy to snatch Human Growth screenings from school rosters, due to pressure from local politicians and right-wing community groups. One midwestern school board voted to ban the film after a heated public meeting. A board member complained, “This film is not suitable for our children. It crosses a line that should not be crossed in a public school setting.”
Human Growth wasn’t the only sex education film screening back then. Smaller companies also released them. A few were even banned, like Dr. Sigmund Winston’s Masturbation: Putting the fun in self-loving. Others were aimed at particular audiences (like only girls) and sometimes veered into the outright bizarre (see below).
Even though the 1962 version of Human Growth came out when I was a mere 15, I never saw it. It did not screen at my school. There might have been too much guff from parents about “inappropriate language in classrooms.” I even overheard one conversation between my mother and a neighbor. Both agreed with what they’d read in the local newspaper, probably the Danvers Herald. “It’s instruction best left for the home.” As if that “instruction” ever occurred in family gatherings.
There’s plenty of blame to go around for the dearth of sexual education during this period, and perhaps even now. Call them what you like — Republicans, Christian nationalists, or just standard hidebound conservatives.–they appear to have won this round in the sex education struggle. Even at that, some sexual information has managed to squeeze through. It’s more likely that the average male does know what a clitoris is and approximately where it is.
They’re just not clear on how vast it is.
