In one of the clinics where we work, a 16-year-old girl came in with a sprained ankle. She left with a prescription for birth control.

This turn of events is not as surprising as it seems: As family physicians, we treat the whole person. A quick update revealed that our 16-year-old patient had recently begun to have unprotected sex — and had no plan to get birth control. One of the reasons we love practicing family medicine is that we get to know our patients over time and provide the preventive care they need at every possible opportunity.

Do you believe that the government should stay out of your private sex life? Let me guess… What I love about How Sex Became a Civil Liberty, by Leigh Ann Wheeler, is how she forces us to reexamine our assumptions.

Wheeler, a historian at Binghamton University and the co-editor of the Journal of Women’s History, sets out to unearth the history of a phenomenon most of us probably see as natural—that we possess, in Wheeler’s apt phrase, “sexual civil liberties.”

As a reproductive justice activist in Missouri, I had a lot of “preach, sister!” moments while reading Delirium. I’ve seen the damage wrought from the relentless assault on reproductive rights…the unplanned pregnancies resulting from a lack of comprehensive sex education and access to contraception, the emotional and economic toll taken as women navigate a seemingly endless series of hurdles to access reproductive health care, and the devaluing of pregnant women resulting from legislative attempts to cast them solely as reproductive vessels who forfeit their rights once pregnancy has been confirmed. I’ve also seen the transformative power of activism, particularly in my home state of Missouri where the masses hold far more nuanced views on the politics of sex than those elected to represent us. For every challenge to access to birth control or abortion care, there is a fired up response that gives me hope for the future.