The 13th floor of the Sciences Library isn't the only place on campus to learn about sex. Running through May 23, "Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Sexual Education in the 20th Century" will be on display at the John Nicholas Brown Center. The exhibit, curated by the masters students in the public humanities program, traces the history of sexual education in America throughout the 20th century.
Beginning at the turn of the century, a segment titled "In the Barracks" looks at attitudes and concerns about venereal disease during the two world wars. According to exhibition materials, the military's attempts at educating soldiers about these concerns represent the beginning of contemporary sex education. Setting the scene with military camp beds and other equipment, "Barracks" features dramatic warning posters, including an illustration of a sexualized woman smoking a cigarette, reading "She may be a bag of trouble - syphilis-gonorrhea." Several other posters in the exhibit attempt to identify certain venereal diseases with women.
A silent film titled "The End of the Road" was created by the American Social Hygiene Association in 1918 and follows the diverging fates of sisters Mary and Vera. According to exhibition materials, Vera leads a promiscuous life, leading to an early death from venereal disease, while Mary follows strict moral guidelines, becomes a nurse during World War I and marries a respectable doctor.
A second segment of the exhibit, entitled "At Home," addresses sex education as carried out by parents and educators in the 1950s and 1960s. Various domestic scenes - the kitchen table, the children's bedroom - are presented in conjunction with guidebooks for parents seeking to educate their children about sex.
The bedroom scene features two children's beds littered with the objects and materials that may influence them beyond their parents' control. The "feminine" bed is strewn with advertisements for sanitary belts, bras and a set of Barbie and Ken dolls. The "masculine" bed, draped with a race car-patterned bed spread, features an old Playboy magazine, a sports letter jacket and a discreet stack of National Geographic magazines.
A nearby television loops classic sex education films such as 1953's "Molly Grows Up" and 1957's "As Boys Grow," both by Medical Arts Production. Exhibition materials also referred to the 1946 animated film "The Story of Menstruation," a collaboration between Walt Disney and sanitary product manufacturers.
A separate room, "Hanging Out," depicts notions of sexuality based on the media of the 1980s and 1990s. The room arrangement centers on a futon surrounded by stacks of Madonna CD's, romance novels and a television looping shows such as "My So-Called Life" and "Beverly Hills 90210."
The final space, "In the Classroom," represents current views about sex education and its politicization, culminating in a collection of educational books, pamphlets and brochures.
Similar to last year's "Pulp Uncovered," "Birds and Bees" was created to provide public humanities students an opportunity to practice the skills they have learned in class, said Project Manager Stephanie Fortunato GS. Students submitted exhibit proposals and then voted from about the seven or eight candidates, she said, noting sex education appealed because it taps into a sense of collective memory.
The students began researching and decided to tackle the topic as a chronological history, she said. Many of the objects in the exhibit were obtained from eBay, while the images largely came from a number of archives, she said. Fortunato added that the multiple sites of sex education depicted in the exhibit represent that there is "no one way any person learns about sex education."
There are two upcoming programs in conjunction with the exhibit - on April 23 at 5:30 p.m., Megan Andelloux of Miko Exotic Wear will present "Confessions of a Sex Educator" at the John Nicholas Brown Center; and on May 1 at 7 p.m., Norma Swenson, co-author of "Our Bodies, Ourselves," will present the exhibit's keynote address in Smith-Buonanno Hall 106.
