SINAS Research Seminar: "The Swedish Sin: US-Swedish Sex Education Relations in the 1950s"

Abstract: By the late-1950s sex education organizations in the US and Sweden had established transactional, transnational relationships in which they worked together to gain, share, and disseminate sex instructional information. In this chapter (chapter 5 of my monograph), I explore the concept of the “Swedish sin,” showing how Cold War anti-communism infused conservative groups’ protests about Swedish methods of sex education in the US heightened by Cold War fears. The Swedish sin is a phenomenon that portrays Sweden as a country with loose sexual morals, rampant sexual permissiveness, and an unending number of blonde women eager for sex. By the 1970s, the Swedish sin was an international idea with countries across the world connecting Sweden and sex, mostly because of a series of sexually explicit Swedish films released in the 1960s and 1970s. What this framing misses, however, is the true origins of the Swedish sin: the country’s policies on sex education during the 1950s. By this time Swedish sex education ideas and cultures (alongside tangible objects like films and pamphlets) were entering the US, and many politicians and media figures railed against such material in the country, claiming the material was obscene, pornographic, or not morally sound. Additionally, this chapter examines how tensions between the US and Sweden exacerbated when Swedish organizations and activists spoke in support of the American Civil Rights movement. This further geopolitical and diplomatic strain was not only about race relations, but also about US fears of social relations and sexuality.

The seminar will take place in person (English Park campus, room 16-1044) and on Zoom. The text will be available one week before the seminar.