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The phrase “sexual revolution” brings to mind the 1960s and ’70s, yet one pioneering female broke through the impossibly high walls of “decorum”  far earlier than that, and you’ve likely never heard her name.

After discovering her own husband was impotent, Marie Stopes was determined to prevent other women the disappointment and frustration of what she termed “sex-ignorance.” After performing exhausting research and conducting thousands of interviews, she finally found a publisher for her book, Married Love, in 1918.

Though banned by the U.S. and the Church, copies found their way around the world, into the hands of both men and women.

“That girls can reach a marriageable age without some knowledge of the realities of sex would seem incredible: but it is a fact,” wrote Stopes. A functional marriage, she said, was not instinctual, and even the “supreme human art” required practice. At the very least, she wrote, every mating man and woman should know the essential facts. She added a wild, bonus proposition: women needed to enjoy their time in bed, too.

So the next time you see a Cosmo in line at the grocery store loudly proclaiming sex tips for women, think of Marie Stopes, the women who walked that path first.

Full story at Atlas Obscura.

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Photo credit:Marie Stopes International Australia/Public Domain