Playboy Interview: Dr. Mary Calderone

When Mary Steichen Calderone, a public-health physician and grandmother of two, became director of the newly formed Sex Information and Education Council of the United Slates in May of 1964, she scarcely anticipated that within four years she would be accused of corrupting children and countenancing communism. For Dr. Calderone and the other founders of SIECUS, their aim had been nothing more sinister than "to establish man's sexuality as a health entity." According to their statement of purpose, this means: "to identify the special characteristics that distinguish [human sexuality] from, yet relate it to, human reproduction; to dignify it by openness of approach, study and scientific research designed to lead toward its understanding and its freedom from exploitation; to give leadership to professionals and to society, to the end that human beings may be aided toward responsible . . . assimilation of sex into their individual life patterns as a creative and re-creative force."

To Dr. Gordon V. Drake, an obscure educator who wrote a pair of explosive pamphlets in 1968 for the Reverend Billy James Hargis' right-wing Christian Crusade, SIECUS' motives were, far less lofty. Drake's booklets and subsequent public statements not only questioned the propriety of sex education but linked it to political subversion, pornography and atheism. Sex educators were compared with Karl Marx, who, according to Drake's interpretation, believed that "religion had to be destroyed before communism could hope to maintain control of a nation by reducing it to slavery and dumb obedience." Having smeared the sex educators Red, Drake added other hues to his spectrum of denunciations: "[They] are in league with sexologists--who represent every shade of muddy gray morality, ministers colored atheistic pink and camp followers of every persuasion--offbeat psychiatrists to ruthless publishers of pornography." Drake later added toilet training to his list of sex-education sins, declaring, "Cats know that sort of thing without having to be toilet trained." And he excoriated nudism, explaining that if God had meant us to be nudists, He would have created us with fur--or at least feathers.

Drake's fulminations would have provided little more than Sunday-sermon fodder for the Oklahoma-based Christian Crusade were it not for the fact that the John Birch Society leaders, still chafing over their failure to keep America's precious body fluids free of fluoride, recognized sex education as an issue with enough demagogic potential to restore vitality to their moribund organization. Some six months after Drake's initial diatribes (and almost five years after SIECUS allegedly began corrupting America's youth), Birch Society founder Robert Welch--best known for his assertion that President Eisenhower was a "conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy"--issued a call for an "organized, nationwide, intensive, angry and determined opposition to the now mushrooming program of so-called sex education in the public schools." He termed the program a "subversive monstrosity" and declared that the great (and apparently silent) majority of Americans was "not yet even aware of this filthy Communist plot."

Following Welch's alarum, a Birch front called MOTOREDE (Movement to Restore Decency) was organized to conduct a campaign on the community level; almost simultaneously, disquieted parents throughout the country raided the alphabet for similar action groups, acronymically named POSSE (Parents Opposed to Sex and Sensitivity Education); MOMS (Mothers Organized for Moral Stability); POSE (Parents Opposed to Sex Education); PAUSE (Parents Against Universal Sex Education); PAMS (Parents Advocating Morality Standards); and SOS (Sanity on Sex). To varying degrees, these organizations followed MOTOREDE's master strategy of inviting parents with legitimate concerns about their children's education to join hands with right-wing extremists and to combine traditional criticisms of sex education with hard-core smear tactics. The Birchites, for example, frequently link psychiatry with communism, yet they ardently advocate the fusty Freudian theory that preteenagers may be damaged by exposure to sexual thoughts.

Because of the anxiety and ambivalence with which many Americans regard sex--especially when children are involved--the seeds of doubt cast by the Christian Crusaders, the Birchers and their allies fell on fertile ground. By last fall, 19 state legislatures and the U. S. Congress had before them measures to prohibit, control or curtail sex education in the schools--this despite the facts that 71 percent of adult Americans polled by Gallup in 1969 approved of sex education in one form or another and that sex education is supported by such prestigious organizations as the American Medical Association, the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, the National Council of Churches, the U. S. Catholic Conference, the Y.W.C.A. and the Y.M.C.A.

Dr. Calderone and SIECUS' other leaders, the focal points of the controversy, have responded for the most part with silence--on the assumption, they feel, that fighting in the mud would only soil their own hands--and with an apparent determination to continue their work. This has consisted primarily of making available information to private individuals, professionals and the press through a newsletter and study guides on such subjects as premarital sex, masturbation, homosexuality and sexual moral values. SIECUS also provides speakers, organizes conferences and contributes to the sex-education training of clergymen, doctors, psychiatrists and other counselors. SIECUS had not originally planned to become actively involved in school sex education but was soon swept into it by a prodigious demand from school officials, who had no other place to turn for guidance. Although frequently accused of furnishing elementary school children with pornographic educational aids--to its critics, this appears to mean virtually anything dealing with sex--SIECUS, in fact, provides these students with no materials at all; it does write reviews in its newsletter of publications and films prepared by other sources.

SIECUS' response to undocumented accusations of communism among its leadership is to point out that its 50 board members--each of whom serves for three years--include eminent businessmen, clergymen, educators, physicians, scientists, Government officials, journalists and authors. A brief sampling of recent board members: Dr. George Packer Berry, retired dean of the medical school at Harvard; Mary Bunting, president of Radcliffe College; the Reverend John Thomas, a Catholic family sociologist; and Clark Blackburn, general director of the Family Service Association of America. Dr. Harold Lief, director of the division of family study at the University of Pennsylvania, is president.

But the task of making SIECUS functional and relevant falls mainly on its salaried director, Dr. Calderone, who is described in a forthcoming book by Dr. David Mace, a well-known sociologist and past president of SIECUS, as an "obvious choice" for the job. In addition to her experience as medical director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and her qualities as a physician, grandmother and Quaker, she is, says Mace, "a remarkable person. . . . Daughter of Edward Steichen, the world-famous photographer [who created the celebrated "The Family of Man"], niece to [the late] Carl Sandburg, the distinguished poet . . . she is in every sense a cultured person . . . remarkably knowledgeable in a great variety of fields. Add to this the fact that she has charismatic gifts of no mean order, and is a powerful and persuasive public speaker."

Dr. Calderone, who was born on July 1, 1904, in New York City, may have developed some of these traits through her pursuit of dramatics with Richard Boleslavsky and Maria Ouspenskaya. She studied the Thespian art for three years, following her graduation from Vassar in 1925, where she majored in chemistry. Her career ambitions were temporarily abandoned in 1926, however, when she was married--a relationship that ended in divorce seven years later. Not long after, one of her two daughters died of pneumonia, plunging Dr. Calderone into an emotional crisis that was resolved with the help of psychoanalysis and the determination to pursue a career in medicine. She received her M. D. in 1939 from the University of Rochester Medical School and worked intermittently in public health until she joined Planned Parenthood in 1953. During this period, she met her present husband, Frank Calderone, also a physician, who at one time served as chief administrative officer of the World Health Organization and director of health services with the United Nations Secretariat; they have two children.

Although Mary Calderone achieved wide recognition for her birth-control work with Planned Parenthood, she began to feel a deep sense of frustration with organization policies that didn't allow her to develop programs of aid for people suffering from such sexual problems as impotence, frigidity and homosexuality. This led her, with five fellow participants in a conference on family and religion, to form SIECUS.

A skilled and versatile writer, Dr. Calderone is also the author of two photography books (under her first married name, Martin) in collaboration with her father: "The First Picture Book" and "The Second Picture Book." Current Biography describes these as "pioneering examples of the successful use of photographs in children's books." She has edited "Abortion in the United States" and the "Manual of Contraceptive Practice"; and an original book, "Release from Sexual Tensions," was widely acclaimed by medical, psychiatric and religious publications. An independent Republican, a gourmet cook, an adept horticulturist and an accomplished sailor, she spends her vacations with her husband aboard a 60-foot schooner in the Caribbean. Their home is a 175-year-old farmhouse on Long Island's north shore, where Dr. Calderone met with Playboy Senior Editor Nat Lehrman for the first of their recorded conversations.

"I had known Dr. Calderone casually for several years," says Lehrman, "and I'd always considered her witty, gracious, charming and disarmingly outspoken; but it took six lengthy taping sessions and additional discussions--in her home and in her Manhattan office--for me to begin to appreciate the depth, spirit and open-mindedness of this woman. She belies the extensive knowledge she has accumulated in a wide variety of areas by approaching questions with the freshness and enthusiasm of an 18-year-old. I was constantly conscious during the interview that she was rethinking opinions that she must have begun formulating in early adulthood.

"Her youthfulness shows up as well in her physical appearance. At 65, she carries her height--5'6"--erectly and walks with vigor and bounce. Her conversation is punctuated with abundant physical animation; and her blue eyes, deeply set in those dark shadows that characterize her face, sparkle with the curiosity and candor of a college debating captain. I was also impressed by her unwavering courage. Dr. Calderone is a moderately well-to-do woman who could be spending her days at home or in the serenity of a 'safe' job; instead, she has chosen to stand up against an organized and abrasive campaign of vilification--not only of her ideas and principles but of her family and her personal integrity. On this note, I began the interview with a question about the nature of the extremists who have singled her out as a target for their anti-sex-education crusade."

[Q] Playboy: Sex education in the schools has been under vociferous attack this past year and a half from a large number of pressure groups. Supporters of sex education claim that virtually all these organizations are fronts for the John Birch Society. Are they?

[A] Calderone: Not all of them. Many are unquestionably inspired and encouraged by the John Birch Society, but just as certainly, they include a great number of well-intentioned individuals who ask serious questions about sex education--just as SIECUS does.

[Q] Playboy: How do you explain the sudden formation of these groups? Sex education has been around quite a while.

[A] Calderone: The information we've been given--by such bodies as the Institute for American Democracy and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith--is that organizations like the Birch Society and the Christian Crusade are constantly looking for causes on which to pin a recruitment program, recruitment of membership and of money. Actually, the drive was initiated in the summer of 1968 by the Christian Crusade, which is run by the Reverend Billy James Hargis. He's an ultraconservative preacher of fundamentalist persuasion. He is, of course, rabidly anti-Communist. If I can judge by a TV news story I saw, one of his major activities is to shepherd groups of elderly tourists to Rhodesia, where he introduces them to Prime Minister Ian Smith. Most of the right-wing allegations about sex education stem from a Christian Crusade booklet titled "Is the Schoolhouse the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?"

[Q] Playboy: Many of the charges in this booklet have been widely disseminated. A large number of them were read into the Congressional Record by Representative John Rarick of Louisiana, and some have appeared in newspapers throughout the nation. One of the most widespread accusations concerns a teacher who supposedly became so carried away while conducting a course in sex education that she completely disrobed in front of her class. Is there any basis of truth for this story?

[A] Calderone: No. One of our board members tracked it down and found that, in a health class at a Flint, Michigan, school, a teacher demonstrated how different ways of dressing expressed different personalities, mores and manners. She modeled a number of dresses to illustrate these points and changed behind a screen. She was never without her slip. And bear in mind that this was an all-girl class. So you can see, these simple facts have been grossly distorted. A number of other untrue stories have been making the rounds; for example, it's alleged that in some schools, kids are herded together in closets so that they can feel each other, and that kindergarten children are taught to model genital organs out of clay. These tales are utter nonsense and are never substantiated by name, place or date. I look upon them as blatant insults to the integrity and intelligence of the teachers in our nation's schools.

[Q] Playboy: Some of your own words have been given wide publicity through the efforts of Gordon Drake, author of the Christian Crusade booklet. He's made you sound like a libertine by associating your name with the following lines: "What is sex for? It's for fun . . . for wonderful sensations. Sex is not something you turn off like a faucet. . . . We need new values to establish when and how we should have sexual experiences." Did you say that?

[A] Calderone: Yes, but those words were surrounded by many others during a speech at Blair Academy that was reported in Look. Here's the original quote, with the words that were deliberately omitted by Drake italicized: "What is sex for? It's for fun, that I know, for wonderful sensations. It's also for reproduction, sedation, reward, punishment. It's a status symbol, a commercial come-on, proof of independence, a form of emotional blackmail. Many of these are negative ways of using sex. What we are trying to feel our way toward are the positive ways. Sex is not something to be feared or degraded or kicked around or used. Sex is not something you turn off like a faucet. If you do, it's unhealthy. We are sexual beings, legitimately so, at every age. Don't think that sex stops at the age of 50. It doesn't. We need new values to establish when and how we should have sexual experiences." This is a typical Christian Crusade distortion.

[Q] Playboy: Drake also quotes you as saying to the Blair Academy boys, "I don't believe the old thou-shalt-nots apply anymore." Was this extracted from the same Look article?

[A] Calderone: Yes, but it's from a totally different speech--to the National Congress of Parents and Teachers. I said, "I am a religious person, but I don't believe the old thou-shalt-nots apply anymore." Look senior editor Leonard Gross, who wrote the piece, carefully added an important qualifying phrase, which Drake chose to ignore: "Hers is not a moral judgment but a description of our society." Moreover, Drake deliberately transposed that quote to make it appear I'd said it at Blair Academy.

[Q] Playboy: You've also been criticized by H. L. Hunt's Life Line, which describes your organization as a "frenetic flock of scholars and Communists--a good combination!"

[A] Calderone: Well, scholars they are; but frenetic and Communist they are not.

[Q] Playboy:Life Line adds, "SIECUS has tainted itself with Moscow-oriented thinking, and Moscow has not been noted for its tender mercies toward the American way of life." Are there any facts to support these allegations of communism in SIECUS?

[A] Calderone: No facts at all. One person on the board of SIECUS once had an accusation before an official body made against him, and that was all. During the McCarthy period, his name--among many--was read off by a police spy before a meeting of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was accused, along with several others, of having attended a Communist Party meeting in the Forties. He was not even present at the committee hearing to confirm or deny the accusation. Prior to that, he had been asked by the counsel for another Congressional committee whether he was or ever had been a member of the Communist Party. Our board member answered in the negative, under oath; and apparently the committee was satisfied, because no official charges of perjury or disloyalty have ever been made against him. We are convinced that this man is completely loyal to his country and we deeply resent these stale witch-hunting charges. In fact, we have just re-elected this man to our board. If our opponents are genuinely interested in sex education, let them stick to the issues.

[Q] Playboy: A bit closer to the issues, they have charged you with shocking your audiences by using four-letter words. Do you?

[A] Calderone: I have used a specific four-letter word in a public setting about six times in my entire professional life. On a typical occasion, I used such a word in response to a written question from a high school girl. She wanted to know why boys "talk dirty" in front of girls. I said, "It really depends on what you mean by talking dirty. Some good words can be used in dirty ways, yet we know that the verb 'to fuck' is used by very nice husbands and wives in their relationships with each other. It's the attitude with which the word is used that counts." There were no ill effects in that school. Not a kid blinked or giggled or whispered--and I think they got the point I was trying to make.

[Q] Playboy: Another right-wing criticism pertains to sensitivity training, which is anathema to the Birchers and their cohorts, because it is linked--in their minds, at least--to brainwashing, which, in turn, they link to communism. Does SIECUS advocate the use of sensitivity training?

[A] Calderone: SIECUS has taken no position on sensitivity training. I've personally written that we need to know a great deal more about this technique before we allow it to proceed indiscriminately. The A. M. A. has expressed the same opinion. It's one thing to have a highly skilled leader who can control the length and the depth to which a sensitivity session goes, and quite another to open up topics among strangers that can be threatening and disturbing. I think sensitivity training will find its place, if it's handled in the right way by people who are skilled at it. In any case, it should be for professionals, not for young people in school situations.

[Q] Playboy: Have these charges against SIECUS and other supporters had any effect on the course of sex education?

[A] Calderone: It's hard to assess at this moment. The right-wingers have certainly won some victories, but I think that since so many of their false and sensationalized accusations have been exposed--particularly in the nation's press and in church publications--the tide is beginning to turn. They did succeed, however, in watering down the excellent sex-education program in Anaheim, California. Although 95 percent of the parents in that area were polled as approving the program, only 14 percent of the people went out to vote during a school-board election. As a result, two rightist members were elected and there have been changes there.

But that's only one case. Generally, there are many communities in which a sound, slowly developing, carefully thought-out curriculum has been scurrilously attacked by the right wing and perhaps prevented from ever coming into being. What happens when screaming, hysterical men and women attack local school boards is that the educators simply lay aside their plans for sex education, because they don't want to jeopardize their other programs.

[Q] Playboy: Have any of these attacks touched you or your family?

[A] Calderone: No tactic has been too low for our critics. My husband, Frank, was at one time chief administrative officer for the World Health Organization. Its distinguished director, Brock Chisholm, was a psychiatrist--and therefore, to these benighted souls, a brainwasher--and his agnosticism was well-known. Thus, he, by implication, and my husband, by association, are Communists. Nothing, of course, could be farther from the truth. But that's not all. My husband inherited a small chain of theaters on Long Island from his father--who, incidentally, like mine, came to this country as a poor immigrant. Along with many well-reviewed post-Broadway productions, Frank also showed the popular Minsky's burlesque at one of his theaters; as a result, he's been described by some of our critics as a pornographer. This, in spite of the fact that he willingly made cuts in the show at the suggestion of the local district attorney.

[Q] Playboy: Do you receive any hate mail?

[A] Calderone: Yes, a few letters, usually written neatly on pink note paper with cute little rosebuds on top. They're signed "Anonymous" and they express the sincere Christian wish and expectation that I'll roundly roast in hell.

[Q] Playboy: As unpleasant and irrational as your critics may be, they appear to have marshaled support throughout this country far in excess of their own numerical strength. Doesn't this indicate that a great many moderate citizens--people who wouldn't dream of indulging in smear tactics--are following the lead of these extremists because they, too, disapprove of sex education for children?

[A] Calderone: That's very possible; and, if so, they've missed the point of what SIECUS is trying to do. My personal belief is that a society gets what it wants. If society doesn't want sex education for children, then no one should impose it on society. That's why we've never adopted an aggressive program of disseminating sex education in the schools--a fact our critics conveniently ignore. SIECUS has simply responded and will continue to respond to requests for information. That's been our policy all along. In fact, we are far more interested in educating the adult segment of society. Obviously, if the attitudes of adults about sex and sexuality were other than they are, the kids wouldn't be in so much trouble. They wouldn't have the hang-ups, the difficulties, the ignorance. They wouldn't be confused by an excess of eroticism on the one hand and an excess of repression on the other; this would work toward eliminating all the pathetic overacting that we see in kids. Returning to your question, I think the extremists have touched upon the public's fear of sex and sex education. But there are also large numbers of courageous and clear-sighted parents and school-board members who nonetheless will persist in supporting programs.

[Q] Playboy: What can these concerned parents and educators do to establish and preserve sex education in their communities in spite of the opposition?

[A] Calderone: Educators, clergymen, physicians and other influential individuals must be enlisted to stand up and be counted. These people, who are respected in the community and cannot easily be smeared Red by the hate merchants, must use whatever platform is available to tell the truth about sex education and to expose the opposition's lies about their own community's programs. They should organize a committee that names itself, that announces its membership and purpose--something the opposition rarely does. For some reason, the extremists usually operate in the shadows and are difficult to identify. The committee should state its program through newspaper publicity and advertisements. Then it should continue to act by attending and speaking before school-board meetings, so that the educators aren't left without support in the face of criticism. The National Education Association in Washington has prepared an excellent information kit on how to proceed on the local level.

[Q] Playboy: The opposition isn't unfamiliar with the techniques of organization. One of your California critics offered the following tips on how to head off a local sex-education program: "If you're not already a member of an organization, start one--and don't hesitate to join more. Go to school-board meetings in your town and in other towns--applaud and groan at the right times and, if necessary, stomp your feet and scream. . . . The more brazen you are, the more attention you'll get." Has this kind of tactic been effective?

[A] Calderone: On the contrary. As a matter of fact, the extremists tend to expose themselves, as they did in this instance. At one state legislative committee meeting, for example, there were so many hysterical women screaming that the legislature simply got disgusted and tabled their anti-sex-education resolutions for two years. Supporting citizens, on the other hand, have been by and large sober, intelligent, quiet and strong, and they bring documented evidence that is presented by leading professionals in an orderly way. The contrast between the two groups is usually very apparent. The opposition's methods are totally undemocratic; in fact, to use terms I generally employ sparingly, they're typically Communist or fascist methods. Instead of debating or discussing the merits of an issue, they'll march into a board-of-education meeting and stampede it; they'll scream and shout personal attacks and yell obscenities and blasphemies; they'll boo and hiss and refuse to allow any proposals to be heard.

I think, frankly, that they're killing themselves. They're destroying their own cause. This saddens me, in a way, because I don't like to think in terms of winning, losing or fighting battles. As a Quaker, I prefer to work toward consensus through dialog, with everyone having a chance to express his carefully considered viewpoint and all parts of a discussion contributing to agreement. The irrationality of anti-sex-education extremists sometimes gains immediate victories, but, ultimately, it alienates the moderates in any community in which the subject has come up. In the face of name-calling and hysteria, they begin to feel that their best bet lies with the honest, solid citizens who really attempt to examine the evidence.

[Q] Playboy: There has also been serious criticism of sex education by people with no apparent political ax to grind. Child psychologist Rhoda Lorand, for example, has said that "presentation of sexual material overwhelms, embarrasses, upsets and excites the children, forcing them in turn to then repress all of these troublesome feelings, and this may lead to many difficulties. It would very likely lead to sexual difficulties later in life." Is she correct?

[A] Calderone: The concept of the latency period, which is what Dr. Lorand is referring to, and which describes a period in the child's development--from five or six to ten or twelve--when he theoretically has no interest in sex, is not accepted by most psychiatrists and psychologists today. The general feeling is that the postulation of a latency period as one of the five stages in the sexual evolution of a child may have been applicable in Freud's time but is no longer valid, because we live in a different society. In Freud's day, sex wasn't so ubiquitous and intrusive in the life of the child; he was insulated from it. This is no longer so. Also, I believe Dr. Lorand may have been speaking from the point of view of the disturbed young people she has treated as a child psychologist. The observations of teachers and physicians who have had an opportunity to deal with normal children indicate that these kids get a tremendous sense of relief when they find an adult ready to level with them about sex--and this is true at any age. Dr. Carlfred Broderick, who has done the best studies so far of pre-adolescent sexuality, has said that children develop a very clear-cut and continuing interest in sex as early as five years old.

[Q] Playboy: Dr. Lorand also claims that child analysts have accumulated "incontrovertible evidence" that the "major portion of sexual energy and curiosity" in the young child is "normally redirected into learning academic subjects and physical skills." She feels that this leaves him "free to learn in school and to behave in a reasonably sedate and controlled manner" and that to interfere with this can be harmful.

[A] Calderone: Dr. Lorand doesn't state what her incontrovertible evidence is nor which child analysts have accumulated it. Her theories certainly don't seem to be borne out by the authorities I've consulted. These experts do, indeed, agree that the pre-adolescent has a strong interest in academic learning. But that's exactly why they believe it's an ideal time to provide young people with objective and factual knowledge about sex and reproduction, before the Sturm und Drang of puberty begins; when it does, they'll have a good basis for understanding what's happening to them.

[Q] Playboy: How do you go about teaching them what's happening to them? What is taught in sex-education courses?

[A] Calderone: There are an incredible number of variations. Basically, an adequate sex-education program is one in which the parents, the school, the community and the church have all participated at appropriate times in the child's life, with the aim of producing mature, aware adults, capable of understanding themselves and others and of behaving responsibly as sexual people.

As for scope, a good program begins in kindergarten and continues throughout school in an integrated way. In the primary years, the study of the nature of the family, the relationships and responsibilities of husbands and wives, of mothers and fathers, of brothers and sisters, of the role of the family in society is paramount; and a good program should certainly attempt to impart an understanding of the changes that occur in boys and girls--and it should do so just prior to the occurrence of these changes. Thus, the fifth-grade girl will know what to expect of menstruation; and the boy will know what to expect of nocturnal emissions and he will understand the growth of his sexual organs; both sexes will know about pubic hair and be prepared for it. They'll also acquire knowledge of reproduction, of sexual physiology and of the similarities and differences between male and female sexual response.

[Q] Playboy: You said that sex education should begin in kindergarten. Isn't that a bit early?

[A] Calderone: Not really, when you consider that it actually begins at birth, in the home, by the way parents demonstrate, or fail to demonstrate, a loving relationship to each other, by the way they talk, or refuse to talk, about how a neighbor had a new baby, by the way they educate the child about its body. This is very important: Is the child's body something beautiful? Is it good to get pleasure from one's body, whether in dancing, swimming, eating--yes, even in masturbation? Positive attitudes are needed here. This, and the way parents answer a child's questions, is part of sex education. And, of course, they should be open and honest, yet not overwhelming with a whole lot of details--a difficult balance to achieve. If what I'm saying is true, then kindergarten is certainly not too early to make it clear to children that reproduction and sex are areas of life that merit the same dignified imparting of information as any other area.

[Q] Playboy: Are school children ever taught the techniques of intercourse as a part of this program?

[A] Calderone: Not to my knowledge. I don't think this should be taught in the schools. I'm even against its being taught in marriage manuals.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Calderone: It's not necessary. In one week, I received letters from two young husbands that bear this out. "We've been married nine months and we have great sex," one of them wrote. "My wife has an orgasm every time, but we want to be sure we're not missing anything. Isn't there a book that teaches techniques?" I wrote back and said. "For heaven's sake, let your imagination be your guide. Don't go to a book; explore with each other various ways of making love. Discover them as you go and not all at once. Leave something for the future."

[Q] Playboy: Yet marriage counselors and other authorities point out that sexual intercourse, though not as complicated as playing a musical instrument, does need to be learned and that "doing what comes naturally" can lead to humiliation as often as to success.

[A] Calderone: Not really. Failure shouldn't lead to humiliation as long as the couple's attitude is free and joyful.

[Q] Playboy: How is this achieved?

[A] Calderone: That's the sex educator's job. The attitude to be conveyed is that sex is an exalted, wonderful, exciting gift from God and that it is probably most rewarding within an enduring relationship such as marriage. Sex is a human attribute and exists in us from earliest childhood. Young people need to develop a positive attitude about this that will help them fulfill themselves in a sexual relationship when they come to it. That's very different from the old guilts that stem from the grudging concession that sex may be good--but only in relation to reproduction.

[Q] Playboy: Would this attitude help alleviate the guilt that many people feel about noncoital sex?

[A] Calderone: Yes. Children and even adults ask if the different noncoital means of sexual stimulation are perverted. A good sex-education program should make it clear, for example, that oral-genital contact is not perverse. I think the consensus in society is that any act two people find gratifying is definitely not abnormal and should not be subject to supervision by the state. The churches have been very helpful in this area, many of them having removed the moral stigma that noncoital sex used to have.

[Q] Playboy: Does SIECUS recommend that sexual morality be taught in the classroom?

[A] Calderone: I don't see how worthwhile education about any subject can avoid moral issues. The teacher usually makes his own personal beliefs clear; but at the same time, he should be careful not to take such a moralistic, authoritarian stand that he throttles free discussion among the youngsters. If he does, there won't be any exchange of views and they won't teach one another, which is the best way to learn. If you really want to hear a conversation on ethics and morals that would warm the cockles of a minister's heart, listen to a bunch of adolescent boys and girls talking about sexual morality. The great thing about all our young people today is the way they challenge the adult world for its false and hypocritical values--not about sex alone but about all of life's great issues.

[Q] Playboy: You mentioned boys and girls. Are sex-education classes coed?

[A] Calderone: For the most part, yes. The students generally want it that way. There comes a time in early junior high when they occasionally prefer to be separated. But very shortly thereafter, they want to be back together again, not only because they've developed an interest in the opposite sex but so they can answer one another's questions. I've never seen any embarrassment in these situations.

[Q] Playboy: Many parents who don't oppose sex education per se are more concerned about the embarrassment of the teachers than the students. They feel that the task is too often turned over to frustrated old maids or uptight gym instructors. How are teachers picked for the job?

[A] Calderone: This is a point of great concern to SIECUS. First, let me say that there are disqualifications other than those you mention. Some teachers go into this field with unhealthy motivations. A few are unconsciously seductive; others may seek to work out their own sexual hang-ups by teaching the subject, and still others have such closed minds that they can't help but foist their own moralistic biases on the children. These teachers simply have to be screened out by the principal, who presumably knows his staff. Or, failing this, the person in charge of the training program can usually assay which teachers are fit and which aren't. Many teacher-training programs are under way, and there will be more.

[Q] Playboy: Do the people responsible for screening concern themselves with the potential teacher's sex experience or lack of it?

[A] Calderone: They shouldn't, because the fact of having had or not having had intercourse isn't what makes a good teacher of sex education. Remember, it isn't technique that's taught in the classroom. Rather, it is, or should be, the dynamics of becoming a man or a woman and of understanding one's own sexual nature and that of others. Even an elective celibate, such as a priest or a nun, has had sexual urges and has had to learn how to deal with them within his or her particular framework. Obviously, a celibate who has dealt with such urges in a repressive way--in other words, denied to himself that these urges exist or are a valid part of himself--isn't qualified to teach sex education. But this could also apply to an unmarried, noncelibate, nonreligious teacher as well. It could even apply to the married. We don't find grim attitudes about sex only in the celibate. Many nuns and priests, particularly if they're warm people who understand the sexual drive, have demonstrated their capacity to teach children how to become fulfilled men and women.

[Q] Playboy: Your sympathetic explanation notwithstanding, celibates teaching sex would appear to be the ultimate of what many liberal critics consider an antiseptic and antisexual schoolroom approach to sex. John Gagnon and William Simon, both sociologists with impressive credentials in sex research, have, in fact, written that children learn more, and more effectively, about sex from their peers--the kids on the street--than at home or in school.

[A] Calderone: The children themselves tell us that. Of course, what they learn may not always be correct and it surely isn't what most of their parents would like them to learn. But we're not going to stop that kind of education and we shouldn't try to. Rather, we need to provide additional sound information conveyed by respected authority figures, to rectify the misinformation exchanged among peers. You know, there's a lot of harmful mythology passed on from generation to generation. In certain cultural groups, for instance, there is a fiction that a male's brain will explode if he doesn't ejaculate regularly. On the other hand, there's also a myth that the oftener a male ejaculates, the more he weakens his future sex life--exactly the opposite of the truth. Certainly, communication among the kids is better than no communication, but communication based on facts is best of all.

[Q] Playboy: Aren't you concerned that all this communication will lead to just what most parents fear--an increase in experimentation among children?

[A] Calderone: On the contrary: It's ignorance that most often leads to experimentation. Kids have known the hazards all along--in fact, that's practically all they've known; and it hasn't deterred them in the past. I think teaching the truth about sex--the hazards, the pleasures and the responsibilities--allays many of the children's anxieties, which are another impetus for experimentation. Additional causes of juvenile sexual activity, in my opinion, are the stimulus now widely given in the media and the freedom given to children by their parents. When intercourse or advanced sex-play takes place among adolescents, it's almost always in the home of one of the two. This is proved by studies of unwed pregnancies.

[Q] Playboy: In the home? Are you suggesting this is done with the knowledge and approval of the parents?

[A] Calderone: No, behind their backs. And this is because overpermissive parents try to have it both ways. They give children almost total freedom, and then expect the kids to restrict their own behavior. In my day, it was very difficult to get pregnant. It was made, difficult for us, because everyone always knew where we were.

[Q] Playboy: The automobile changed that, didn't it?

[A] Calderone: There were plenty of cars then, only we weren't given the keys or the freedom.

[Q] Playboy: How old do you think a child should be before he's trusted by his parents to be on his own?

[A] Calderone: Ideally, by the time youngsters are 16, we've done whatever we can to help them develop standards of behavior. If we can't trust them from then on to make fairly sensible decisions about most important things, we're not going to influence them. These days, they're pretty independent.

[Q] Playboy: Perhaps with good reason; because the more educated they become, the better equipped they are to make decisions. But if they know about birth control and V. D. prevention and if they're taught to respect one another as people--and these are the qualities society defines as sexual maturity--then what reason is there to discourage them from premarital sexual experimentation?

[A] Calderone: The implication of your question is that the decision to engage in premarital sex is not only a moral one but also one of appropriateness to the maturity level of the person.

[Q] Playboy: Isn't it?

[A] Calderone: Probably. And, you know, the mature young person may very well choose not to have premarital sex. There are a number of young people who have decided against it until they're sure their relationship has meaning, whether or not it will be permanent. However, I do think the younger generation is definitely accepting premarital sex--that is, sex in anticipation of marriage. In many cases, they accept it regardless of whether or not the engagement is officially announced. Now, will the next step be acceptance of premarital sex that isn't in anticipation of marriage--that is, as part of a relationship that's acknowledged to be temporary? Society is probably already moving into that stage.

[Q] Playboy: In both cases, you're talking about what sociologist Ira Reiss classifies as permissiveness with affection, or committed sex. But how far are we from acceptance of permissiveness without affection, that is, casual sex?

[A] Calderone: It seems that adult society is now becoming so openly involved with casual sex that I don't know what's going to stop the younger generation from following suit. After all, they tend to imitate us--although perhaps they do things with a sounder basis of honesty than we do. But I'm not looking forward happily to a widespread acceptance of casual sex. My puritan conscience prevents me from liking it; I don't like casualness in anything. I'm particularly concerned about those who aren't old enough to engage in casual sex without being hurt.

[Q] Playboy: Would you use the old pejorative promiscuity to describe casual sex?

[A] Calderone: I look upon casual sex as being purely for pleasure, with no regard for the relationship of the partners. It can be promiscuous but not necessarily so. To me, there are two kinds of promiscuous behavior. One is compulsive promiscuity, which is a way of expressing neurotic difficulties. Some people show compulsiveness in alcoholism, or in drug addiction, or in excessive eating. But others express it sexually. Studies show that compulsively promiscuous girls rarely experience sexual pleasure, rarely attain orgasm. Their sexual activity is motivated by very deep-seated needs that result from emotional deprivations of various kinds in early childhood. And some studies on males indicate that while the promiscuous male--the Don Juan, the Alfie--achieves ejaculation, he doesn't thereby experience full satisfaction. There's another kind of promiscuity that I call environmental promiscuity. Here, children grow up seeing casual sex all around them. They don't learn that there is any other way to behave sexually. This is frequently true in the ghetto. In neither case can you blame nor judge the youngster for responding in a way he can't consciously control.

[Q] Playboy: Do you see any increase in these forms of promiscuity?

[A] Calderone: I'm not sure. I imagine the incidence of compulsive promiscuity might reflect the incidence of neurosis in a population group. Environmental promiscuity has probably increased, because the urban environment has become more vicious and more damaging, in terms of overcrowding.

[Q] Playboy: Casual or committed, do you think premarital sex has a beneficial or a harmful effect on marriage?

[A] Calderone: As a scientist, I have to report that studies show very little correlation between premarital sex and success or lack of it in marriage. On the one hand, we know that a girl who has achieved orgasm in any way whatsoever before marriage will have a more rapid sexual adjustment in marriage. But this doesn't guarantee that the marriage itself will be successful. On the other hand, a girl who has had no sexual experience until marriage may turn out to be a very responsive person. As for my personal view, I don't believe in premarital sex. But my feeling about this may be due to a generational hang-up, which I don't try to impose on others. I certainly know from experience that you can't reach the younger generation with narrow, authoritarian, moralistic beliefs. They won't accept them, because this is a rational generation, a generation that wants the facts and wants to make its own decisions. Many of the churches themselves have recognized this.

[Q] Playboy: When you say you disapprove of premarital sex, what age are you talking about? Would you disapprove of it for a 30-year-old man or woman?

[A] Calderone: No. I'm talking about the teenager. And I'm not even talking about 19-year-olds. I just don't think that 14- or 15-year-old youngsters are mature enough to have this kind of experience.

[Q] Playboy: But young people mature faster physically than emotionally. Some educators, in recognition of this, have suggested compromises, such as that teenagers be encouraged to pet to climax until they're mature enough to engage in intercourse. Do you advocate this solution?

[A] Calderone: I advocate discussion of it, so that young people know they have choices, beginning with masturbation, of course, and petting to climax and mutual orgasm, before moving on to intercourse. But I don't take a position on any of these choices, because I think it would be silly to do so. The kids simply don't pay attention to adult didacticism.

[Q] Playboy: Do you feel that parents should advise their children about masturbation at a particular age?

[A] Calderone: No, they should simply accept it at any age. If the question comes up, parents should be sure to make clear that there is not only no harm in masturbation but that it serves a very useful function at many times in the life cycle and is accepted by most psychiatrists as an expected part of the growing-up process. For a parent to bring it up, however, is a mistake.

[Q] Playboy: Why?

[A] Calderone: Because it makes too big a thing of what should be a purely private matter for the child. But I should add that there are some people who feel that girls ought to be given instruction about masturbation, so that they'll have a more rapid sexual adjustment later on. It isn't a problem for boys, because without instruction, they all ejaculate and have orgasms by their late teens. But by the age of 18, 60 percent of the girls still haven't had a comparable experience.

[Q] Playboy: Though mental-health practitioners approve of masturbation as a normal practice, some say that it can be harmful in excess. Do you agree?

[A] Calderone: Physically, there's no such thing as excess; masturbation is self-regulating. Emotionally, it could be the visible symptom of an inner conflict, but then, so could sexual intercourse. What needs to be dealt with are the conflict and its sources, not the masturbation itself. What is there in the child's life that's driving him to seek this outlet? Some children seek refuge in masturbation because of poor grades or feeling unloved in the home or overcompetitiveness with a sibling.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think this sensitive subject should be factually incorporated into school curriculums?

[A] Calderone: Yes, if it's done calmly and objectively, with the teacher simply pointing out that masturbation is almost universal, doesn't hurt anyone and is useful as a release from tension. It serves a purpose not only in youth but in later life. It can help adjust a difference in sexual drive between two partners and it can provide an adequate substitute if one partner is sick or if they are separated. And, of course, masturbation also plays a valuable role in the child's psychosexual development.

[Q] Playboy: How so?

[A] Calderone: It can help a person come to know his most intimate self. He is experiencing himself in a very intense way. He's learning that his body is a source of great pleasure, that his body is good. In this sense, it lays the groundwork for experiencing oneself with another person. As I've indicated, this can be a positive factor in a sexually well-adjusted marriage.

[Q] Playboy: Well-adjusted marriages, if we are to judge by staggering divorce statistics, aren't terribly common these days. Do you have any ideas how the trend might be reversed?

[A] Calderone: I'm not competent to comment on that question, but I do think that if some of our notions about child rearing were changed, we'd have better family adjustments. I think this is one of our most important sex-education needs today--better family planning.

[Q] Playboy: You mean a wider dissemination of birth-control information.

[A] Calderone: It's much more than that. It's not just saying that couples shouldn't have children until they can afford them or that they should space them properly when they can--important as this may be. Rather, one of the most important parts of preparation for marriage is a real understanding of the dynamics of child development and nurture. This would help people--particularly males--know when they're ready to play the heavy role they ought to be playing in the raising of their own children. I frequently tell boys it's going to take more than a sperm from them to make a baby, a child, a person; they've got to invest themselves. Now, obviously, a boy and a girl of 17 or 18 aren't ready for this investment. They can produce a baby, but they simply don't have the capacity to nurture that child, to have the comprehension that there ought to be a mutual commitment to the child until it is at least 18.

If we're ever going to interrupt the chain of irresponsible sexuality that leads to irresponsible procreation, then the dynamics of child development must be introduced into sex-education courses when the kids are 13 or 14. Just handing them contraceptives and saying, "Be sure you don't get pregnant," is to me a very shallow approach to this problem. Teenagers have got to understand what it means to have a child--not a doll, not a toy, not a status symbol--placed in their care. I don't think they can fully achieve this understanding unless they delay their childbearing.

[Q] Playboy: Then would you recommend later marriages than are now common?

[A] Calderone: Not necessarily, especially in view of the open erotic stimuli all around us today. There are possible solutions to the problem that don't necessitate delaying marriage. Margaret Mead has suggested breaking marriage into three phases, which can be called pre-parental, parental and postparental. This would mean that the couple might marry young--even as young as 18 to 20, which I think are marvelous years for mating. It would be a contract marriage that would be entered into in good faith but would not be binding until the couple elected to make it so by having children. Now, that doesn't mean you could just say goodbye and walk out. But there wouldn't be the drawn-out and emotionally damaging process of legal divorce proceedings if there's a split-up. And, because of the elective nature of this preparental marriage, there wouldn't be the terrible stigma of failure that accompanies so many divorces today. Once they chose to have children, of course, they would be as legally committed to raising them as they are in present marriage. But the most important commitment would be the moral one of staying together as mother and father to the children, until they reach adulthood, when the partners would then move into the postparental phase. Then, the dissolution of the marriage--if desired--would once again be less complicated.

[Q] Playboy: Those are dramatic reforms, and they may take a long time to go into effect--if ever. Meanwhile, a number of sex counselors and clergymen have suggested that extramarital sex can be an effective safety valve for the pressures of marriage as now instituted. What do you think?

[A] Calderone: Generally speaking, no one really knows how effective extramarital sex is in helping or hurting a marriage. I think that requires sound scientific study, not guesswork based on a few cases. But I can certainly conceive of situations in which it might be helpful in stabilizing a marriage during the parental phase. For instance, a man and a woman are devoted to each other and have a family. Then one of them becomes sexually disabled--from disease or an accident or something of that nature. What are they supposed to do? Is the healthy mate to live with sexual drives and no outlet for the rest of his or her life? Or should they break up their family? I would think in cases like this, an extramarital affair that's really solid might have very good results.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think communal marriages can be a solution to society's marital ills?

[A] Calderone: It's too early to tell. Personally, however, I can't imagine myself and my husband in such an arrangement. I think it would be difficult to pick people not only one would want to have sex with but with whom one would want to have breakfast every morning and who shared one's ideas about bringing up children. If you've ever been on shipboard or in a resort hotel, where you're thrown together with the same individuals all the time, you've become aware how very few people you can be compatible with on a day-to-day basis. At the same time, I think there's much to be learned from the fact that younger people are experimenting with this communal type of mating. For one thing, I believe it's more of a social than a sexual phenomenon. One of the messages to be gotten from these patterns, as well as from the popularity of sensitivity groups, is that there is great hunger among people to relate to one another in groups. This is something we had in the old days, with the family and its many branches coming together for celebrations, or during periods of stress, or just to socialize with one another. Everybody knew everybody else well in those relationships and there was a great deal of interpersonal give and take. People today lack these family patterns and, presumably, they are seeking warmer, more intimate contact with people other than their mates. They are rebelling against the loneliness of the urban nuclear family, in which a mother, a father and a few children have only one another for emotional support. Perhaps society is trying to reorganize itself to satisfy these yearnings.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think the emotional support provided by group patterns would eliminate some of the gender-identity problems that are common today--homosexuality, for example?

[A] Calderone: That's difficult to say--although the early childhood period, when this emotional support is most needed, is (continued on page 154)Playboy Interview(continued from page 78) probably the same period when homosexuality is programed into the child. So perhaps it would have a positive effect. You know, this is something very few people realize--that the child is psychologically oriented to homosexuality by circumstances that apparently come together during his first ten years. Experts don't agree on what these circumstances are, but you can reverse what I said and postulate that heterosexuality also has to be programed into the child during the same prepubertal period. The individual's anatomy--his chromosomes or hormones--doesn't automatically determine what his or her sexual orientation will be. This is proven in cases of mistaken gender identity, in which a baby born with the apparent genitalia of a female is brought up as a female; but it is discovered later that the child is really a male with some minor genital abnormalities that could have been corrected by surgery. However, the parents, thinking the child is a girl, have brought it up as a girl. By the age of 12 or 13, when puberty begins, the mistake is realized. But by then, it's usually impossible to change that child's personality structure back to male.

[Q] Playboy: Are you implying that homosexuals necessarily identify with the other sex? We thought the opposite was generally true--that, apart from sexual preferences, a male homosexual is essentially male and a Lesbian, female.

[A] Calderone: That's correct. I was just using that example to illustrate how gender identity is built into the child. What I'm trying to say is that, even though very little is known about the complete causes and the full personality structure of homosexuality, we're fairly certain that it isn't inherited but definitely related to childhood conditioning. Another proof of what I'm saying is the fact that the facultative homosexual--the one who accommodates to a situation where there is no heterosexual outlet, such as in prison or during extended periods of isolation in the Armed Forces--will revert to his previous heterosexual patterns as soon as he has the opportunity.

[Q] Playboy: You've used no emotionally loaded terms--such as sick--to describe homosexuals. Would that indicate that you disagree with the psychoanalytic concept that homosexuality is an illness?

[A] Calderone: I don't know enough about psychoanalysis to agree or disagree. I feel sad for the promiscuous one-nighter--he's missing so much in life. But, as I said, so is the promiscuous heterosexual one-nighter. Perhaps it's an illness in both cases. But I can't feel that homosexuals--those who may not be recognized as such in the community and are living totally responsible and dedicated lives--are ill. And yet they don't have the opportunity to form families. It must be a lonely life, particularly when they reach old age. However you define their condition--ill or not--I feel compassion for them. I think they are deprived.

[Q] Playboy: Your compassion might be resented by many of today's homosexuals, who proclaim that they don't feel deprived and who are becoming increasingly militant about securing their rights. Indeed, "gay power" has become a common slogan among homosexuals.

[A] Calderone: Then perhaps my compassion is misplaced. But it saddens me to see the way society treats them. I don't believe any group in society should be treated in such a way that it has to become militant.

[Q] Playboy: As much as today's homosexuals resent being told they're sick, they also resent the corollary notion that they can be cured: In spite of the early childhood forces that cause homosexuality, do you think it's possible to reverse this condition with the aid of psychotherapy?

[A] Calderone: The psychiatric reports say it's very difficult, no matter how high the motivation. Apparently, the best that can be accomplished is to change a homosexual to a bisexual. But as I understand it, he constantly has to be careful to lean away from his homosexual toward his heterosexual life.

[Q] Playboy: If homosexual tendencies are that difficult to reverse, is the opposite equally true? For example, many parents are greatly concerned that their adolescent children may be seduced into a fixed pattern of homosexuality by older men or women. Is this likely?

[A] Calderone: No. The adolescent's sexual identity is already firmly established by then. And if he does allow himself to be seduced, it's because his early emotional relationships, with his parents primarily, made him seducible.

[Q] Playboy: The adult-adolescent homosexual seduction scene is probably much rarer than imagined by anxious parents. But many experts point out that homosexual contact among adolescents themselves is exceedingly common. How do you allay parental apprehension about that?

[A] Calderone: I assure them that, as we grow up, we all experience many homosexual feelings, which have nothing to do with the way we're eventually going to turn out. Many young people not only are attracted to members of the same sex but they may even express this attraction in overt sexual contact. However, if we're honest adults, we'll admit that we all have had this range of feeling and experience while maturing. There's quite a difference between the person who has been conditioned in early childhood to a homosexual fixation and the person who simply experiences some attraction to the same sex as part of growing up.

[Q] Playboy: Many psychiatrists believe that the fuss made by parents over an early sexual experience--regardless of its nature--is more harmful to the child than the experience itself. Do you agree?

[A] Calderone: I surely do. This is a belief I've had for a long time, because I have a knack for being able to gain insights through personal experience some years before science establishes support for such insights. I had an experience when I was six or seven involving a young man about 17 or 18, who was working as a gardener on my father's place in France. This young man got me behind a tool house one day and exposed himself to me. He was in full erection. He didn't approach me, didn't touch me; he wasn't even masturbating, as I remember. But I must have displayed curiosity, because he repeated this exposure two or three times. I'm a little hazy on some of the details now, but what I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday is my father's reaction when he learned about this garden scene. He dragged me into the house and threw himself on his knees in front of me and wept and said, "Now you have lost your innocence!" Then he called in the boy's father, made a tremendous whoop-de-do and fired the boy. After that, every time we went through the village, we'd have to drive past the boy's house and my father would say, "Don't you look at that house." Now, I hadn't even been thinking of looking at the house, but as soon as my father spoke, naturally, my head would turn like a magnet and he'd slap me. Unquestionably, the fuss my father made far outweighed the experience itself in my memory; yet he was only reacting as a "normal" father would. I felt I had been "bad" and "dirty," which caused me troublesome conflicts later on.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have any other misadventures in your youth that helped shape your sexual philosophy?

[A] Calderone: None like that. But what did make an indelible impression on me was being a young, growing person--and a girl--during precisely that time when female sexuality began its fantastic emergence some 50 years ago. It was then and in the 1930s that the marriage manuals began to appear and, of course, when D. H. Lawrence resexualized a woman before our eyes--and very beautifully, too--in Lady Chatterley's Lover. Indeed, this past half century has been what sociologist Jessie Bernard calls the age of the resexualization of women. Females have moved from the Victorian era, the period in which nice ladies (continued on page 236)Playboy Interview (continued from page 154) didn't feel anything sexual, to an era in which the woman is actually aggressive, so aggressive in demanding her sexual due that she's beginning to strike terror in the heart of the male.

This is the unfortunate backlash of female resexualization. Girls grow up today with the expectation of experiencing orgasm almost on contact. And if they don't experience it, they feel there's something wrong with them or with their partner. Perhaps as a direct result, there appears to be a disturbing rise in cases of male impotence. I've heard reports of this from university psychiatrists on a number of campuses--but, of course, we'd need studies on this before forming any conclusions. Hopefully, adjustments will be made as we become more accustomed to our new-found freedom. But what I wonder about most is whether the modern woman is finding something she had once and lost or is she developing something she never really had? I doubt the latter, but who really knows?

[Q] Playboy: Masters and Johnson, in their Playboy Interview in May 1968, said they felt that female sexuality is enjoying a renaissance from pre-industrial times.

[A] Calderone: Probably so. In any case, I think it's a good thing. What was suppressed in the Victorian era--especially in Anglo-Saxon society--is now being found again, and I suspect that something new has been added. There is an element in women's sexual attitudes today that's different from the lustiness of the Elizabethan or Restoration period. It isn't sex qua sex. In most women I talk to, it's sex for the relationship as well as for sex.

[Q] Playboy: Wouldn't you agree that this is one of the things that separate the boys from the girls--that most men can enjoy sex for its own sake and that most women prefer it within the context of a relationship?

[A] Calderone: Yes. I don't think women can as easily accept casual sex as men can. Maybe this is a biological difference, but I don't know. Sex for most women is a profound experience--the female puts a lot of herself into it. Males, by contrast, probably can't be made monogamous. It took women 50 years to become resexualized, but I doubt that man could be made monogamous in 50 or 100 or even 200 years. And possibly he shouldn't be. On the other hand, perhaps the new forms of marriage we discussed are an effort toward accommodation to these differences. Maybe such phenomena as mate swapping are, too. This kind of behavior must be studied, free from preconceived rigidity and repression. It's not merely licentiousness; it's not just anarchy. The people experimenting with these new forms of behavior have needs and they're trying to meet them. How successful they are won't be known until some serious studies are made to find out the results. The trouble is that the sexual reactionaries won't even let serious scientists scrutinize these problems. They believe it's God's plan that we all totally suppress our sexuality until the marriage ceremony; then the ceremony is supposed to turn open the faucet of sex and it will be great from then on. But psychiatrists and clergymen know this isn't so, and so do the reactionaries. They're acting out of their own frustration and their own inability to imagine, much less adjust to, a full sexual relationship in marriage. Part of the anti-sex-education campaign undoubtedly comes from frigid wives and husbands grimly suppressing their sexual urges because they've been taught that they're sinful. I'm sure that, at least in part, they seek to project their own difficulties onto others by repression.

[Q] Playboy: But the behavioral changes you mentioned occur in spite of extremist opposition--obviously encouraged by a climate of social freedom that is unprecedented in our history. Don't you agree?

[A] Calderone: Unquestionably. There has truly been a revolution in sexual attitudes, and this is reflected by the openness that can be observed in the media and in public behavior. It was inconceivable in my time that a boy and a girl would hold hands--much less kiss--in public. I can remember when it was considered indecent for a woman to apply lipstick in public. When I was 14 or 15, my bathing suit consisted of what would be a miniskirt and tunic today. But underneath it, I wore long black stockings, and it was considered pretty daring if they were rolled to the knees. In courting, we went out with boys, sure, but there was little physical contact. And a kiss was literally an event; you led up to it for months. As I mentioned before, we didn't have the freedom to get into sexual situations that young people have today. We were carefully watched and chaperoned; it was very, very difficult to get pregnant, I assure you. Oh, girls managed, of course; it was the F. Scott Fitzgerald era. But it was much harder, and it's all too easy now. Obviously, along with all this, there was less honesty about ourselves as sexual people than there is today. We simply didn't admit to having sexual urges. Boys did. But they went to prostitutes.

[Q] Playboy: You said it's much easier for girls to become pregnant today than it was 50 years ago. Wouldn't the availability of the pill contradict that?

[A] Calderone: Not necessarily, because the pill isn't effective unless it's taken. There are whole cultures--ghetto cultures--where the girls have never heard of the pill. In any case, I used the example of pregnancy only to emphasize my point that sexual intercourse among young people is easier today.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think the pill has contributed to that?

[A] Calderone: I agree with Ira Reiss, the sociologist we discussed before, who says the pill has merely made safer sexual behavior that would have occurred anyway.

Piayboy: There has been considerable controversy--including a full-scale Congressional investigation--over the dangers of the pill. Do you think they are real or exaggerated?

[A] Calderone: Obviously, the pill carries with it some statistically proved dangers. But they are of a very low order of risk. Every medicine we take--even aspirin--carries with it certain risks. And the risks involved in birth-control pills don't begin to approach those associated with pregnancy itself, which the pill prevents with virtual certainty.

[Q] Playboy: What, specifically, are the medical risks associated with the pill?

[A] Calderone: Thrombophlebitis, or clotting of the blood in the veins, is the primary one.

[Q] Playboy: A recent women's-magazine article implied that there is also a danger of cancer of the cervix associated with the pill.

[A] Calderone: The evidence that this might be so has not been substantiated. There is a correlation between cancer of the cervix and intercourse with uncircumcised males. It's assumed that this cancer virus emanates from the smegma that accumulates under the foreskin of the penis, and the cervix may be shielded from it if the woman uses a diaphragm or the man a condom. Obviously, a woman using the pill is not so shielded and is, therefore, more likely to be infected by the virus. So, putting these speculations and facts together, you can sec why the pill might have been associated with cancer of the cervix.

When I speak to young people, I point out that the younger the woman, the more susceptible she is to this virus. That's because the immature covering of the cervix apparently doesn't resist infection as well as it does once matured. So I tell the youngsters not to have intercourse until they're 18. But they won't listen, any more than they listen when the dangers of cigarettes are pointed out.

[Q] Playboy: There's been criticism of those who marketed the pill before science knew about its long-range effects. Do you think that's valid?

[A] Calderone: No. Countless drugs are put on the market before their long-range effects are known. The pill, on the other liand, had more long-term and intensive study than any other drug in history. In public health, the possible risk to a very few people is balanced against the benefit to a tremendous number. Overall, the pill is at the moment the single most effective method of contraception for the greatest number of people, and we have to be deeply grateful for it. If there have been a few deaths directly attributable to it, then, regrettable as they are, it's a price society must pay, as with other medications, such as penicillin. We risk far more deaths in many, many other ways and never even give them a second thought--driving cars, smoking, even crossing the street.

Incidentally, you'll often find that some of the people who scream loudest about the pill are the ones who'd like to make it more difficult for a woman to secure a legal abortion. The number of deaths caused by botched illegal abortions is unknown; but among the poor, they have certainly risen, and they are far greater in number than any attributable to the pill.

[Q] Playboy: Are you in favor of legalized abortion?

[A] Calderone: I'm in favor of placing control of abortion--as with all other surgical procedures--in the hands of the medical profession. This would, of course, mean abolishing all laws against medically controlled abortion.

[Q] Playboy: The removal of abortion from the penal code has been one of the main platforms of the militant new feminist movement. As a highly regarded crusader for women's rights, have you had any dealings with these groups?

[A] Calderone: No, indeed. I think some of these organizations are shrill and anti-female, and I am not a crusader for women's rights. Women don't have rights--as women only. They have human rights. That's what I crusade for.

Playboy: But wouldn't you say that the right to birth control and abortion--with both of which you're strongly identified--is primarily female?

[A] Calderone: Perhaps this is a matter of semantics. Certainly, a woman should have the right to control what happens to her own body. But I want to stress that this is a human right. Obviously, men should have the same right, but abortion is not pertinent to men, since they don't get pregnant. As for birth control, I look upon it as a matter of moral obligation for both male and female, and I want people of both sexes and from all social classes to have equal access to it and to feel responsibility about using it. That, in my opinion, is one of the directions in which the sexual revolution--or evolution, as I prefer to call it--should head.

[Q] Playboy: What other directions do you hope for?

[A] Calderone: Basically, I hope that it will move in the direction of fruition, not destruction. I conceive of men and women relating to one another on a far higher level than they do today. You know, many people think a higher level means less sex. That's not what I mean. Leave aside the bed kind of sex and think of how difficult it is for a man and a woman to express love for each other unless they are erotically involved--and by that I mean something as simple and innocent as touching each other. To give you a personal example, every time I meet a man who's dear to me, I spontaneously throw my arms around him and kiss him. Now, damn it, that doesn't mean I'm going to go to bed with him; it means I love him in a way that to me is exciting and challenging. We relate to each other; our minds and spirits meet and clash and interact. Our bodies don't meet, except in that very simple way, but we respond to and stimulate each other as persons.

I wish men and women could be free to respond to their own sexes in this way, too. My husband has a Sicilian background and in his culture, the men openly express affection to each other. They embrace when they meet, they walk arm in arm, they put their arms around each other's shoulders. This is very normal in the Mediterranean culture. But in our society, men keep a great distance from each other because of their pathological fear of homosexuality. Anyhow, the point I want to make is that occasionally, Frank will get into a passionate debate with an American and he'll reach over to grab the man's hand and hold onto it while arguing. And I sit there and watch the man shrink. So on the way home, I say jokingly to Frank, "Please keep your hands off Anglo-Saxons."

I've told this story two or three times in public to illustrate how a pathological fear of homosexuality interferes with the capacity of men to relate warmly to one another. Gordon Drake picked it up in one of his pamphlets and gave it a leering implication--that I've had trouble with my Sicilian husband because he can't keep his hands off other men. This is one of the hateful ways that such unfortunate people use to attack both of us. And I do mean unfortunate, because they deny the beauty of sexuality, except in narrow, rigid terms. They don't really understand what God meant by making us sexual creatures. God wasn't expecting us to diminish ourselves by repression. Our obligation is to create an atmosphere in which we can fulfill ourselves as men and women. That's really why I'm in this--to help create a new climate in society for sexual fulfillment and responsibility.

You asked me before what I think of sensitivity training, by which people are helped to be free to touch each other. This is what the erotic repressive fears most. He doesn't trust himself, because he thinks that when people touch each other, they're automatically going to wind up in bed together. Maybe they will; more likely, they will develop spiritual nuances in their sexuality and they will enhance their capacity to touch and to be tender and to look. Did you ever notice how few people can really look into each other's eyes? As for me, I've never participated in sensitivity groups; I don't think I particularly need to, because I feel free to give and receive warmth and love without feeling threatened and without feeling that I or the other person has to express it genitally. Isn't this a strange thing for me at 65, brought up as a puritan? Maybe it's my safety valve.

[Q] Playboy: You call yourself a puritan, yet you're in the vanguard of modern sexuality. How do you reconcile this seeming contradiction?

[A] Calderone: It's not always easy. I'm an individual caught in a moment of tremendous human evolution, an evolution that encompasses many aspects, including the sexual. Obviously, I can't--and don't want to--think or behave like a teenager any longer, even though I communicate with young people on many levels. This means 1 become caught in some of my own convictions--for example, my really profound belief that sex belongs primarily in marriage. As a scientist and an observer, I know my belief runs counter to the current trend. So what am I to do? I can't stop society from evolving and I can't force other people to adhere to my personal beliefs. No single individual can, not even Gandhi. Not even Jesus--we're still struggling to interpret and live up to the ideals he propagated. Thus, my own life is a paradox in a very real sense. Many of the things I'm open-minded about as a scientist are closed subjects to me personally. But I think this makes me bend over backward to behave with integrity as a scientist. I still struggle to reshape my personal views, though, and I'm constantly learning, growing and changing

[Q] Playboy: At 65, most people would be retired. But, having already given five years to SIECUS and the better part of your career to public-health service, you still seem ready, willing and able to continue fielding brickbats from unfriendly people. Why?

[A] Calderone: I'm a Quaker who is concerned, that's why. And maybe I'm not as far from retirement as your question implies; perhaps just another inning or two and I'll ask for relief--although I doubt it, as long as life continues to turn me on, as it always hasf Concerning my entry into sex education, I think the foundation was laid for that when I became national medical director of Planned Parenthood quite late in life-- at the age of 50. My first job was to put this essentially informational organization on a sound medical and public-health, basis.

After accomplishing that, I moved into the ideological end. Gradually, I became aware that there had to be more to planned parenthood than just counting babies or handing out booklets on contraceptive techniques. And I became aware of the many individuals who wrote letters to me about sexual problems that had nothing to do with planned parenthood. These people simply had no other place to write to. About this time--in 1960--I got together with several colleagues who, like myself, were resource people at the First North American Conference on Church and Family of the National Councils of Churches of the U. S. and Canada. We had several meetings and kicked around the idea of organizing a sex-education council, and finally went ahead in 1964. Every voluntary health organization--and that's what SIECUS is--needs a full-time director, so I left Planned Parenthood to assume that role.

[Q] Playboy: In the five years since its inception, what do you think SIECUS has accomplished?

[A] Calderone: Let me backtrack a little. Our purpose is stated as being "to establish man's sexuality as a health entity." Having found in society a distinct sense of unease--or perhaps I should say "disease"--concerning this vital segment of man's life, we have been determined to help him achieve health in it. This means "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being" with respect to his sexuality. More specifically, our goal has been to bring sex education into broad focus throughout all of society, not just in the schools. We believe that, in a democracy, people must think for themselves, and we want to help the American people do so by providing facts about sex and its role in their lives. We've published two books about this--The, Individual, Sex and Society and Sexuality and Man.

As for how well we have succeeded, we still have a long way to go and the path has been obstructed, as you know, by a band of bigots whose only purpose is to stifle free discussion. But SIECUS has accomplished something that is unique in society. We have succeeded in establishing in the minds of leaders in all professions and religions the concept that human sexuality is, in and of itself, a healthy and vitally important part of man's life above and beyond the erotic acts that may or may not accompany it. We are proud of this accomplishment and still prouder that we've done it in only five years.

[Q] Playboy: What have been your main frustrations in accomplishing these goals?

[A] Calderone: During our first three years, our only frustration was lack of funds to do what we wanted to do as quickly as we knew it needed to be done. We've lacked the necessary research facilities and we've constantly been short of personnel to perform the services demanded of us. But we've grown so fast that we always thought of these as growing pains, rather than as frustrations. Our first true frustration occurred in the summer of 1968, with the opening volley fired by the Christian Crusade. Now, this wasn't a frustration in terms of their actually hindering us, because they've failed even to slow us down. We receive increasing numbers of invitations and requests for service, and they keep coming from distinguished groups of all kinds--medical, religious, educational and civic. The real sense of frustration for me has been a personal one, in the sense that I, as a believing Quaker, am confronted by a group that calls itself Christian yet uses the most anti-Christian methods to achieve its aims. That has been a vicious affront, less against me personally than against the very convictions by which I live, or at least try to live.

I understand Christ's principles in the words our founding fathers used to express them--that is, the practice of democracy and the total respect for one another as individuals. True Christianity means to me the desire to accommodate as much as possible to the, needs of others, without sacrificing one's own integrity, so that we can all live together harmoniously. Christ said, "Judge not, that ye be not judged," and this is exactly what these so-called Christians have controverted. They presume to be judge, jury and advocate. To me, it's a mockery that these people who call themselves Christians use hatred and lies, fear and suspicion against innocent people. And they do this without conscience, without any conscience at all. I can't fully express what an outrage this has been to me and it's certainly the major frustration I've experienced in my entire career.

But, I'm happy to repeat, we find no lessening of public or professional confidence in SIECUS, no pressure to go backward from the groups we're trying to reach; quite the contrary. So we plan to hold firmly to our path, in spite of all obstacles. In fact, since our enemies have made SIECUS a household word throughout the land, we intend to take advantage of this and augment our efforts to press forward the boundaries of knowledge and understanding of human sexuality, which all of us share and which can make life so exciting, rewarding and beautiful. That's my mission as a scientist, as a human being and as a woman.