The Social Politics and Experience of Sex Education in Early Twentieth–Century Poland (1905–39)

During the 1990s, there was a significant shift in the research agenda of Polish social historians, with increasing emphasis on the history of sexuality and the body, and on gender and women’s studies. Associated with this has been an increasing interest in the history of sex education for the young in nineteenth and twentieth-century Poland.1 This chapter seeks to supplement this recent research in two main respects. First, it will survey the social politics of sex education in the period 1905-39. In particular, it will examine the social and political context in which a demand for the sex education of the young was first made, as well as contemporary debates surrounding the timing, content and delivery of information on ‘the facts of life’. Secondly, using memoirs and contemporary surveys, it will discuss the individual experiences of children and adolescents in the early twentieth century.