The Fundamentals of Sex

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Dr. June Dobbs Butts was a magazine columnist, taught at three HBCUs, and wrote Bermuda's sex ed curriculum.

Her op-eds debunked myths about to HIV/AIDS, queerness, teen pregnancy, sexual abuse, and sex addiction.

She was an early advocate for comprehensive sex ed covering sexual rights, health, diversity, and autonomy.

Dr. June Dobbs Butts was a sexual education pioneer whose legacy deserves greater recognition and preservation, especially during Black History Month. Born in 1928, Dr. Butts was arguably the first Black feminist scholar to declare that equitable and inclusive sex education is integral to racial justice.

In college, Dr. Butts and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—her childhood playmate—traversed the U.S. conducting the Baptist Ministers Survey, collecting data for a research study called “The Negro Baptist Ministry: An Analysis of its Profession Preparation and Practices.” Years later, her master’s thesis, “An Interrogation of the Relational Meanings of Sex and Race in the United States,” explored gendered racism nearly a decade before the critical theory of intersectionality entered academic discourse.

As a Planned Parenthood board member in 1970, she met William Masters and Virginia Johnson—a couple who founded the sexology field—and became the first Black sex therapist trained at their renowned institute.

By the mid-1970s, Dr. Butts had departed from the Masters and Johnson Institute to establish her own private practice. A 1980 Washington Post profile hinted at a shift in priorities, explaining, “At Masters and Johnson, all of her patients were white; now 90 percent of them are Black.”

At this stage, she was known for her specialization in culturally adapted sexual education. In 1976, for instance, the Government of Bermuda commissioned her to develop and implement a national sex education program and, in April 1977, she debuted "Sex Education: Who Needs It?", Ebony Magazine’s first-ever op-ed on sexuality.

Throughout the 1970s and 80s, she taught at three historically Black universities: Tennessee State University and the medical schools of Fisk University and Howard University. Despite academic commitments, she still hosted a call-in radio show, wrote “Sexual Health”, an Essence Magazine column published from 1980-82, and consulted with the CDC. And in 1983, she presented at the First National Conference on Black Women’s Health Issues, which convened over 3,000 Black women at Spelman College.

Dr. Butts’ archive is timely for Black History Month, but also politically relevant. Similar to how Reagan-era policies conflicted with her advocacy, the last presidential election ushered in an administration that is rapidly unraveling social policies via Project 2025. These parallels mean that Dr. Butts’ archive is not just an interesting artifact, but a source of moral courage for advocates at the intersection of emotional, reproductive, and sexual health.

As early as 1978, Dr. Butts advocated for comprehensive sex ed, specifically curricula that explored cultural attitudes framing sex as a shameful taboo. In "Growing Up: An Essay on Human Emotions," for example, she discusses sexual silence. One section urges parents to overcome their own fears:

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“Most adults have difficulty handling their own emotions when it comes to discussing sex with youngsters. They either freeze up, or talk in the abstract, as my mother did. Also, there are parents who don’t even talk, who assume that their child has taken everything in stride and digested the facts of life simply because the youngster can prattle off psychological jargon. It is the polysyllabic words which make adults feel secure, not the display of insight on the part of the youngster, or intelligent questioning about one of life’s puzzling phenomena. How can concerned adults clue in to the state of knowledge of children and help them build a frame of reference which includes but does not exploit their own sexuality?”

“Most adults have difficulty handling their own emotions when it comes to discussing sex with youngsters. They either freeze up, or talk in the abstract, as my mother did.

Also, there are parents who don’t even talk, who assume that their child has taken everything in stride and digested the facts of life simply because the youngster can prattle off psychological jargon. It is the polysyllabic words which make adults feel secure, not the display of insight on the part of the youngster, or intelligent questioning about one of life’s puzzling phenomena.

How can concerned adults clue in to the state of knowledge of children and help them build a frame of reference which includes but does not exploit their own sexuality?”

She then advises parents about the longitudinal implications of their sexual silence, cautioning that their children may suffer later on:

“I have seen many people whose sexual dysfunctions stemmed directly from…false assumptions, acquired early in childhood and half-forgotten.”

“I have seen many people whose sexual dysfunctions stemmed directly from…false assumptions, acquired early in childhood and half-forgotten.”

Surviving child sexual abuse without parental support may have been one motivator for Dr. Butts’ advocacy for honest and holistic parental sex education. In “The Challenges of Being June,” she recalls her own sexual silence:

“I repressed the whole incident. And, in typical victim mode, I blamed myself for whatever happened – for 35 years."

“I repressed the whole incident. And, in typical victim mode, I blamed myself for whatever happened – for 35 years."

“Pinky”—a poem titled after a neighbor who molested her at age four—suggests that her repression may have been partly due to fear about her father avenging him to protect her. Yet several interviews mention resentment about her father's unapologetic misogyny. Perhaps, even as a girl, she saw hypocrisy in his allegiance to patriarchal mindsets promoting rape culture.

Black feminism unequivocally informed Dr. Butts’ work—for instance, in Ebony’s “Dr. June Dobbs Butts: How Did A Nice Lady Like Her Get To Be An Expert On Sex?”, she states:

“Many men believe that the vagina is nothing more than a receptacle for his pleasure rather than an active organ in its own right. They don’t know that this part of the woman is quite resistant to penetration unless and until she is psychologically ‘turned on.’ When a man only shares his innermost feelings with other men, when he has no close friends who happen to be female, then he cuts himself off from understanding more than half the world. He misses out on female thinking which can be rich, sustaining and often downright humorous.”

“Many men believe that the vagina is nothing more than a receptacle for his pleasure rather than an active organ in its own right. They don’t know that this part of the woman is quite resistant to penetration unless and until she is psychologically ‘turned on.’

When a man only shares his innermost feelings with other men, when he has no close friends who happen to be female, then he cuts himself off from understanding more than half the world. He misses out on female thinking which can be rich, sustaining and often downright humorous.”

Butts also presented on sexual violence against Black women at the "Black Women and Public Policy: Issues for the 1980s" conference and a Voorhees College convening. There, she proposed addressing sexual violence at HBCUs by awarding academic credit for feminist “study circles”; eliminating Greek life’s practice of hazing, which she compared to “sadism and masochism”; and offering sexual education covering “heterosexual concerns, homosexual concerns, and common sexual concerns.”

A truly intersectional Black feminist, Dr. Butts refused to amplify homophobia in Black community discourses on AIDS that vilified “down low” men. She instead discussed how the risky and closeted exploration of "DL" men is fueled by a patriarchal, heterosexist social hierarchy conflating queerness, femininity, and weakness. In "Fighting AIDS with Sexual Honesty," a 1992 op-ed, she advocated for a culture wherein bisexual men could free themselves of denial, secrecy, and the shame of accessing preventative resources:

“...bisexuals who camouflage themselves...do not see the prevention messages about transmission of HIV infection that acknowledged homosexuals see everywhere they go. Bisexuals cannot turn to friends and loved ones to vent their fears about AIDS. And they dare not 'blow their cover' by suddenly taking the precautions of safer sex practices at home.”

“...bisexuals who camouflage themselves...do not see the prevention messages about transmission of HIV infection that acknowledged homosexuals see everywhere they go. Bisexuals cannot turn to friends and loved ones to vent their fears about AIDS. And they dare not 'blow their cover' by suddenly taking the precautions of safer sex practices at home.”

A longtime ally, in 1988, she published "Sex Therapy, Intimacy, and the Role of the Black Physician in the AIDS Era" to urge Black doctors to educate homophobic Black men on HIV:

"They prefer to think of HIV infection as 'a gay white man's disease'... Often when they come face to face with a person with AIDS (PWA), their reaction is one of condemnation if not outright persecution. I know of three young black men (PWAs) who were telephoned as they lay on their hospital beds by hostile callers asking, 'When are you gonna die?' Surely the responsible Black physician can help to defuse some of this unfounded fury by educating clients and their families about how AIDS is transmitted, and about the wrongness of vilifying the dying."

"They prefer to think of HIV infection as 'a gay white man's disease'... Often when they come face to face with a person with AIDS (PWA), their reaction is one of condemnation if not outright persecution.

I know of three young black men (PWAs) who were telephoned as they lay on their hospital beds by hostile callers asking, 'When are you gonna die?'

Surely the responsible Black physician can help to defuse some of this unfounded fury by educating clients and their families about how AIDS is transmitted, and about the wrongness of vilifying the dying."

Her earliest pro-LGBTQ column, from 1981, was perhaps provocatively titled “Is Homosexuality a Threat to the Black Family?" to lure in dissenters. Two letters to the editor illustrate the widespread gratitude for her publicly forward-thinking stance. A 40-year-old gay Black man penned:

“The article dispelled many myths about homosexuality, and as far as the author is concerned, her professional title may be ‘Dr.,’ but to me, she is ‘Sister.’”

“The article dispelled many myths about homosexuality, and as far as the author is concerned, her professional title may be ‘Dr.,’ but to me, she is ‘Sister.’”

Another reader echoed appreciation for the controversial op-ed, writing:

“Perhaps the homosexuality issue is God’s final and greatest challenge to mankind. He loves and appreciates us all, and if there is to be such an evolution in the enlightenment of the human race, let it begin with Black folks.”

“Perhaps the homosexuality issue is God’s final and greatest challenge to mankind. He loves and appreciates us all, and if there is to be such an evolution in the enlightenment of the human race, let it begin with Black folks.”

Dr. Butts' last public appearance was a reading of her erotic poetry in 2016.

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