decided to write her own explanation using research and interviews with doctors. She passed the writing on to her friends with adolescent children. In 1918, it was published in Medical Review of Reviews, and a year later it was published as a pamphlet. The pamphlet was 24 pages long. Dennett used scientific discussion of sex while also including the emotion side of sex relations. The pamphlet covered controversial topics including masturbation, sexually transmitted diseases, prostitution, and support for the use of birth control. Her views were considered radical for this time, because she was not promoting abstinence. After fours years of being in circulation, the Post Office informed Dennett that the pamphlet was obscene, and therefore it was banned from being mailed under the Comstock Act. She continued to mail out the pamphlet after the Post Office ignored her inquiries of what parts of the pamphlet were obscene. In 1928, she was indicted under the Comstock laws for distributing her pamphlet. H. L. Mencken observed the proceedings. He had briefly praised Mrs. Dennett’s book in the May 1926 issue of The American Mercury, and took a sympathetic interest in her later legal troubles: Eventually a safe jury was empanelled by the prosecution “and Mrs. Dennett was quickly convicted, and Judge Burrows fined her $300. The jury was composed entirely of "middle-aged family men". The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) supported and sponsored Dennett, maintaining that her pamphlet was not obscene. In fact, it was an important educational tool for the youth. Six months later the Circuit Court of Appeals, consisting of [Thomas Walker?] Swan, Augustus Noble Hand and Chase, JJ, set aside the verdict, decided that the pamphlet was so obviously not obscene that ‘no case was made for submission to the jury,’ and ordered Mrs. Dennett released from her bond.” When the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned her conviction in 1930, the Court set a legal precedent that took intent into account in the evaluation of obscenity. Dennett's trial was part of a series of rulings that culminated in the 1936 ruling in United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries, which exempted birth control information and materials used by physicians from obscenity laws. See also History of the birth control movement in the United States Notes References 1. ^Craig, John M. ""the Sex Side of Life": The Obscenity Case of Mary Ware Dennett."