User:Sandra sullivan/sandbox

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Sandra_sullivan Sandra Sullivan

Mary Ware Dennett (April 4, 1872 – July 25, 1947) was an American sexual education and birth control activist. She was born and raised in Boston and lived most of her life in New York City. She came from a family of social reformers

“The Sex Side of Life” Mary Ware Dennett captured the attention of the public and media for her sexual education pamphlet, “The Sex Side of Life.” Dennett wrote it in 1915 to educate her sons, because she was unable to find any adequate books on the subject. Many of the books on sex either contained inaccurate information or used fear and shame tactics to dissuade the youth from having sex. Therefore, she decided to write her own explanation using research and interviews with doctors. She passed the writing on to her friends with adolescent children. In 1918, it was published in Medical Review of Reviews, and a year later it was published as a pamphlet. The pamphlet was twenty-four pages long. Dennett used scientific discussion of sex while also including the emotion side of sex relations. The pamphlet covered controversial topics including masturbation, sexually transmitted diseases, prostitution, and support for the use of birth control. After fours years of being in circulation, the Post Office informed Dennett that the pamphlet was obscene, and therefore it was banned from being mailed under the Comstock Act. She continued to mail out the pamphlet after the Post Office ignored her inquiries of what parts of the pamphlet were obscene. Seven years later Dennett was indicted by a federal jury court in Brooklyn, New York. On April 23, 1929, she was tried and convicted of mailing