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However, as was noted at the time, in spite of the American declaration, slavery continued in the Southern states, the French declaration neglected the rights of women, who remained disenfranchised, and the UN declaration was silent on sexual rights, which, in the decades before, had become an important social issue. Indeed, the first Magna Charta of Human Sexual Rights had already been proposed in 1930, but, because of the growing threat of fascism and the following Second World War, it was simply forgotten. When the UN eventually issued its declaration, it was criticized for failing to protect sexual rights by René Guyon, who sent a privately printed pamphlet to all sexologists he knew.
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The UN Declaration and its critic
The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) was criticised by René Guyon for failing to protect sexual rights. Shown here on the right is the cover of his pamphlet “Human Rights and the Denial of Sexual Freedom” (1951).
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In the end, it was left to various small and large social groups to issue their own Declarations of Human, Sexual, and Reproductive Rights. In the present context, the most important of these is the Declaration of Sexual Rights adopted in 1999 by WAS - the World Association of Sexology (today “for Sexual Health”). The full text follows.
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