Mary Ware Dennett

Mary Ware Dennett

Mary Ware Dennett was a women's rights and sex-positive birth-control activist in the early 1900s. She is known for writing her sex education pamphlet, "The Sex Side of Life: An Explanation for Young People." In it, she takes a scientifically informed approach. She talks about the pleasure of orgasm and the emotional side of heterosexual sex. It was revolutionary for its time.

After three harrowing childbirths, Dennett and her husband were advised not to have any more children. Being uneducated in contraceptive techniques, they abstained from sex. Dennett partially blamed her subsequent divorce on this enforced celibacy. Dennett realized the incredible possibility birth control held for improving the lives of women.

In 1915, she co-founded The National Birth Control League. At the time, sharing birth control information was illegal under the Comstock laws. The NBCL lobbied state legislatures to change the laws. Later, she founded the Voluntary Parenthood League which lobbied to repeal these laws at the federal level.

Dennett believed in unrestricted access to contraceptives and birth control information. She didn't want access to be determined by affluence. Ultimately, Dennett was the catalyst for the overturning of Comstock laws. She was sued for distributing her sex education pamphlet. After a conviction and appeal, it was ruled that intent mattered when determining obscenity and birth control information for educational purposes was legal.

"By a rhythmic movement of the penis in and out, the sex act reaches an exciting climax or orgasm, when there is for the woman a peculiarly satisfying contraction of the muscles of the passage and for the man, the expulsion of the semen, the liquid which contains the germs of life. This is followed by a sensation of peaceful happiness and sleepy relaxation. It is the very greatest physical pleasure to be had in all human experience, and it helps very much to increase all other kinds of pleasure also."