Matters of Sex

Chronicles the pioneering reformer whose 1920s study of female sexuality ignited America's first sexual revolution

Decades before Alfred Kinsey released his famous “Reports” on human sexuality, Katharine Bement Davis conducted a pioneering study of female sexuality. Published in 1929, Factors in the Sex Life of Twenty-Two Hundred Women was notable not only as the first major study of women’s sexuality and the first such study conducted by a woman, but also as the first published study of “normal” women’s sexuality—what Davis defined as the study of women who were “not pathological mentally or physically.”

In Matters of Sex, Anya Jabour offers an in-depth exploration of Katharine Bement Davis’s life and work, revealing her pioneering efforts to promote scientifically accurate information about sex. Even before publishing her study, Davis was a true trailblazer. One of the first women to earn a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, Davis worked as a schoolteacher and a social worker before serving as the first superintendent of Bedford Female Reformatory and New York City’s first female Commissioner of Correction. The book traces her journey as an advocate for female sexuality, exploring her work with birth control and free speech advocates to promote both sex research and sex education.

Jabour showcases how Davis’s candid discussion of women’s sexual behavior—from contraception to masturbation to lesbianism—challenged prevailing ideas about “pure” and “passionless” women and drove the nation’s first sexual revolution. Drawing from organizational records, Davis’s own unpublished memoirs, and family-held materials never before consulted by scholars, Matters of Sex offers a comprehensive and engaging biography of a remarkable woman whose legacy still resonates today.