In a study of 1,000 women born shortly before the turn of the 20th century, 74% used some form of contraception (despite Comstock), most made love at least once a week, and 40% acknowledged masturbating during childhood or adolescence (although others began after marriage; D’Emilio & Freedman, 1988). These statistics reflect the freedom women found as they moved to the cities, lived on their own, and began working more outside the home (Irvine, 1990). Yet fewer than half the women polled considered sex crucial to their mental or physical health, and an overwhelming majority still considered reproduction the primary goal of sex. In part, this may be because information about sex was generally unavailable; there was a high correlation between lack of sexual instruction, distaste for sex, and unhappiness in marriage.
By the turn of the 20th century, moral crusaders trying to curb newfound sexual freedoms and those trying to further liberalize sexuality were in a serious struggle, trying to guide the rapid changes taking place in American sexual behaviors. Moral crusaders
pointed to the spread of prostitution, high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and youth who rejected traditional morality for nightclubs, dances, and long — delayed marriages. Liberalizers argued that modern industrial society could not sustain the coercive sexual standards of past centuries. In one guise or another, these battles are still being fought today, more than 100 years later.