Elise Ottosen-Jensen and the birth of sexual reform

 Today (the 2nd of january) marks the birth-day of Swedish sexual educator and reformer Elise Ottosen Jensen. Originally born in a conservative priest family in Norway, Ottosen-Jensen lived her life as an international anarchist whose actions would transform the swedish sexual politics during the last fifty years of her life (1923-1973). As a reformer Ottosen-Jensen is mostly known for the creating of the Swedish association for sex education (RFSU) in 1933 which was formed during a dynamic period in Swedish sexual history. During the 1920's and most of the 1930's it was illegal to publicly support contraceptives in Sweden and hence one of the key goals of RFSU was to reform the legislation, which eventually suceeded in 1938 when marketing of condoms and pessars were made legal. After that Ottosen Jensen and RFSU spent years propagating for important reforms such as sexeducation in public schools and a reform of the swedish abortion legislation, which Ottosen Jensen however did not live to see through since the legislation was changed a year after her death in 1973. 

Elise Ottosen Jensen - picture from the Swedish national Archives

When reading the history of Swedish sexual reform, it is almost impossible to not read it as the life story of Ottosen Jensen. Amongst the more sexpositiv parts of the internet, Ottosen-Jensen is often conceived as the same as RFSU and the early sexual reform movement. A position which I however strongly object to, and I think that Ottosen Jensen also would have mixed feelings about, since she was a socialist and a proponent of social change through collective rather than individual action. This have led me to spend the last months trying to rewrite the history of swedish sex education, were I have asked myself: who have the annals of history forgotten? It seems to me, just like for professor Lena Lennerheden, that it would have been impossible for Ottosen Jensen to solely transform the public speech of sexual reform. And once I started digging, I found that this was truly the case. 

Since my article is yet to published, I can not fully disclose it's results but what I however can do is present a synchrozation of previous research. Let start with the obvious:

When Elise Ottosen-Jensen was seven years old the public discourse towards sexual education was alreaady undergoing a transformation. In the 1880's Knut Wicksell, a economics, had proposed the use of contraceptives as a way to lessen the burden of the working class whom had to many children. In the upper classes the use of contraceptives were already wide spread, but the working class lacked the sufficent knowledge. In the coming thirty years, several public figures spoke out on the issue, were one example is Hinke Bergegren whom from the 1880's up until his death in 1936 supported the use of contraceptives as a way to reform the morale of the time, giving women the possibility to have a freer sexuality. Bergegren was however critical towards the condom and instead thought that the pessar was the correct way to solve the issue of unwanted pregancies, since this was biologically give women the same possibilities as men. Similiar thoughts were expressed by Frida Steenhoff and other public figures, whom supported the need of contraceptives. In 1910 Hinke Bergegren launched a campaign which caused a public outcry and lead to the ban of contraceptives within public speech. And it is a few years after that RFSU and Elise Ottosen-Jensen enters the stage. 

What Elise Ottosen Jensen did was to connect the discourse on sexuality with the discourse of medicine. Were previous sexual reformers had aimed to change societies morale, Ottosen Jensen instead used the tactics of the american birth control movement. Contraceptives were in the understanding of RFSU not a tool for changing sexual values, but rather to solve the medical issues of unwanted pregancies. They did not public speak about free love, but rather as a way to create a freedom of choice of when to become a parent. This ideas were not only the ideas of Ottosen Jensen, but she was strongly supported by a communitiy of doctors, which gave the ideas legitimacy. Nor was Ottosen Jensen alone in thinking about this, but she rather created a network of people with shared beliefs, thus enabling mobilization towards sexual reform. Thereby some names should be added to the list of people providing a social and cultural ground for the sexual reforms between 1933-1976, names who we however will have to wait until the article is published until I can give out. 

So, is the birth of Elise Ottosen-Jensen worth celebrating? Definitly. Without her actions and her networks the transformation of sexual politics in Sweden would not have been possible. But it is still important to remember that her main skills was that of a movement organizer which created this change, not the personality of Ottosen-Jensen herself. By writing history this way it becomes possible to give Ottosen-Jensen the credit she actually deserves, something that I think she herself would approve of. The aim of RFSU was to change the social structures through a mass-movement, and not to create a strong leader.