To The Sexual Pioneers Before Us — Thank You!

It's not easy for anyone these days. Attempts to take back some of the hard fought rights won over a long history of battling for women are coming from all directions.

And while we’ve taken the time to self indulge in cries and sorrow, we’d like to invite you to think about some of the women before us who made love, sex and intimacy “mainstream” and safer. We have a lot to thank them for! After all, they’ve helped create the exciting, hopeful and breath-taking world we live in. Let’s use their examples to fuel us as we fight on!

Here are a few of the “Power Babes” who’ve helped us understand our bodies, our minds and our passion just a little bit more. Thank you, ladies!

Margaret Sanger

Margaret Sanger isn’t a new name to anyone who uses birth control. 

She was the original Babe With the Power. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the all-powerful Sanger, she dedicated her life to legalizing birth control. She started out in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, working as a nurse. She coined the term “birth control” in 1915 and was arrested for opening up her first birth control clinic in 1916. By 1921, she founded the American Birth Control League which became Planned Parenthood. 

Every time you take your birth control, please send a warm thank you to Margaret.

Virginia E. Johnson

This name shouldn’t be new to anyone who took a high school psychology class, but she’s a pioneer sex researcher goddess and we owe her a huge thank you! 

She worked tirelessly with William Masters to understand sexuality and sexual intercourse and to help de-stigmatize it. In the 1960s, mind you! While people were burning Beatles albums, she was studying sexual intercouse in a lab. She was the key component for one of the largest human sexuality studies in history. Her warmth, kindness and openness was what made participants feel comfortable enough to shed their clothes and open up about their sexuality as well as be studied during the most intimate times. She never stopped learning, growing or researching sexual health and intimacy.   

Dr. Ruth Westwheimer

We know her, we love her, and can only imagine how amazing family dinners would be if Ruth Westheimer was at our table. 

She’s been talking about sex since her first radio show “Sexually Speaking” in 1980, and continues to talk about it on her Youtube channel. She never misses the opportunity to give frank sex advice and the world loves her for it. She emphasizes the importance of relationships, communicating and more recently, unplugging from your phone! She gives a strong warning to long term couples as well, “Don’t let boredom creep in to the bedroom.”

Just this year, a new documentary about her amazing life dropped. We totally recommend checking it out.

Everyone would have a lot less fun and be a bit more sexually confused if Dr. Ruth wasn’t such a powerful babe! Thanks, Dr. Ruth!

Julie Schwartz Gottman

Julie Gottman is co-founder and President of the Gottman Institute, a world-renowned therapy institute for couples. 

Julie has helped thousands, probably millions, of couples communicate better and increase their intimacy – physically and emotionally. She and her hubby are the pioneers in couple’s health, communication and sex research. If you ever have a fight with your partner (which is inevitable and totally normal), research "The Gottman communication techniques."

You and your partner will thank her, revel in the ease and passion of your talks, and maybe even wonder what all the fighting was about in the first place! By listening to partner interactions, even just for five minutes, the Gottman Institute can even predict the lasting of your relationship with a roughly 90 percent accuracy rate. Now that’s an amazing woman!

But our journey as women isn’t over just yet. We can all help further the mission of these sex-positive ladies by taking our sexual wellness into our own hands and becoming the empowered babes they so dreamed of! And so many modern women are doing this today. Keep checking in to find spotlights on some of our favorite badass babes, or what we like to call them – Babes with the Power!

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Amy Haywood is a writer, storyteller, and part-time dog masseuse who loves spreading health and wellness empowerment to the masses. You can check out her writing and social media on her website, helloamychristine.com.