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The Rise of Sexual Freedom

Joanna L. Grossman and Lawrence M. Friedman

in Inside the Castle: Law and the Family in 20th Century America

This chapter discusses some of the dramatic changes in the law relating to sexual behavior since the middle of the twentieth century. The ultimate cause, of course, was changing sexual mores. But at ... More

This chapter discusses some of the dramatic changes in the law relating to sexual behavior since the middle of the twentieth century. The ultimate cause, of course, was changing sexual mores. But at several points, the Supreme Court, by recognizing a constitutional right to privacy, acted in ways that gave these changing mores a solid foundation in law. This right of privacy was expanded over time to include contraception, abortion, and even same-sex behavior. Through these cases, the Court authorized marriage without sex (by prisoners, for example) and sex without marriage (between gay people, who were forbidden to marry). It also authorized marital sex without reproduction (through contraception and abortion) and reproduction without marriage (through rights of illegitimate children and unwed fathers).Less

Sex, Gender, and the Family

Hugh McLeod

in The Religious Crisis of the 1960s

This chapter discusses the sexual revolution, gay liberation movement, ‘second wave feminism’, and changes in family life that had a significant impact on religion. The 1960s and early 1970s were a ... More

This chapter discusses the sexual revolution, gay liberation movement, ‘second wave feminism’, and changes in family life that had a significant impact on religion. The 1960s and early 1970s were a time of crisis for the churches in most Western countries. Of the changes in this period in the field of sex, gender, and the family, those that had an impact on the largest numbers of people were the increasing focus of life on the home and the nuclear family, the influence of the ‘companionate marriage’ ideal, and the declining importance of the neighbourhood and of customs enforced by pressure from neighbours and extended families. The Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation Movements exercised a powerful influence, but on much smaller numbers of people, revolutionizing the thinking of those who joined, becoming for many of them a complete way of life, and often placing attachments to religion or the churches under severe strain.Less

‘Truly it Felt Like Year One’: The English Sexual Revolution

Hera Cook

in The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception 1800-1975

The availability of the Pill precipitated a transformation in sexual mores. It involved three innovations: reliability, widespread publicity, and large-scale modern distribution. Rising rates of ... More

The availability of the Pill precipitated a transformation in sexual mores. It involved three innovations: reliability, widespread publicity, and large-scale modern distribution. Rising rates of pre-marital sexual activity were leading to sharply increasing illegitimacy. Unmarried mothers were highly stigmatized. The advent of the pill created a new practical alternative and gave rise to debate about the need for a new sexual morality which increased intellectual support for change. The media encouraged comments on sexuality from the likes of J. A. T. Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich, Alex Comfort, Martin Cole, and Helen Brook. The pace of change was astonishing and by the 1970s the debate had narrowed to concerns about ‘school girl’ sex.Less

‘A Car or a Wife?’ The Northern European Marriage System and the Sexual Revolution

Hera Cook

in The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception 1800-1975

This chapter re-analyses existing statistical sources to explain the underlying transformation and disruption of existing ways of living that occurred as a result of the astonishing reduction in risk ... More

This chapter re-analyses existing statistical sources to explain the underlying transformation and disruption of existing ways of living that occurred as a result of the astonishing reduction in risk of pregnancy brought about by the Pill and legal abortion, and the accompanying collapse of restraints on young women's sexual behaviour. It shows that the greater autonomy that female controlled contraception made possible reached directly into the lives of the vast majority of English women. Over 80% of British women of reproductive age since the early 1960s have taken the Pill.Less

Sanctified Heterosexuality

Heather R. White

in Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights

This chapter describes a series of theological skirmishes that took place in the late 1960s between mainline Protestant denominations. It traces the emergence of a heterosexual consensus, where ... More

This chapter describes a series of theological skirmishes that took place in the late 1960s between mainline Protestant denominations. It traces the emergence of a heterosexual consensus, where Protestants across the theological and political spectrum adopted modern paradigms for sexuality into both conservative and liberal theological frameworks. The battle pitted defenders of traditional morality against liberals accused of peddling a faithless “new morality.” One conflict emerged from a committee report written by Presbyterians. The debate over this document connected to larger concerns about religion and sex in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a moment at which the “sexual revolution” was at a breaking point. Additionally, a hot-button political issue at this time was sexuality education, and Presbyterians were hardly alone in navigating denomination-wide skirmishes over sexual morality. Similar debates roiled other mainline denominations, and they also surfaced in arguments over local public school sex education curricula.Less

The End of Heart Balm

Joanna L. Grossman and Lawrence M. Friedman

in Inside the Castle: Law and the Family in 20th Century America

This chapter considers the decline and fall of a group of closely related causes of action: breach of promise of marriage, alienation of affections, criminal conversation, and perhaps even civil and ... More

This chapter considers the decline and fall of a group of closely related causes of action: breach of promise of marriage, alienation of affections, criminal conversation, and perhaps even civil and criminal actions for “seduction.” The story here is tangled and complex; no one factor explains why these causes of action lost ground. But they are connected with the social meaning of marriage, and very notably, with one striking twentieth-century development: the sexual revolution—specifically, the end of the idea that only married people were entitled, legitimately, to have sexual intercourse. These causes of action lived in the shadow of traditional marriage, and depended for their validity on traditional marriage. As it declined, they too receded into history, although not entirely.Less

Cohabitation

Joanna L. Grossman and Lawrence M. Friedman

in Inside the Castle: Law and the Family in 20th Century America

This chapter looks at the rise of cohabitation, both as a prelude to marriage or as an outright substitute. This trend is one outcome of the sexual revolution, the new sexual freedom, referred to in ... More

This chapter looks at the rise of cohabitation, both as a prelude to marriage or as an outright substitute. This trend is one outcome of the sexual revolution, the new sexual freedom, referred to in the previous chapter. Here, courts and legislatures have had to grapple with a new social fact. Hence, this chapter considers how cohabitation has come to lose its criminal stigma; along with the growing ability of couples who live together to make claims against each other, or to demand some sort of family-like status. The trend, in short, has gone from legal and social disapproval to piecemeal civil protection. Legally speaking, cohabitation has become an accepted part of life, revealing new implications on marriage and on parentage.Less

Epilogue

Kate Fisher

in Birth Control, Sex, and Marriage in Britain 1918-1960

This epilogue discusses the challenges posed by this book's novel focus on the centrality of male roles in the fertility decline to our wider understanding of changes in contraceptive behaviour, ... More

This epilogue discusses the challenges posed by this book's novel focus on the centrality of male roles in the fertility decline to our wider understanding of changes in contraceptive behaviour, particularly during the era of ‘sexual revolution’. Rather than viewing the significant role played by women in determining contraceptive strategy in the 1960s as the culmination of their increasingly successful attempts to limit the size of their families over the previous half-century, these should be seen as novel developments representing a sharp break with previous contraceptive practice. New research is needed on how this previously male-dominated culture of contraception was transformed in the last half of the 20th century. It is suggested that intimate personal perspectives, which provide access to the ways in which sexual and contraceptive behaviour is negotiated in the context of real relationships, should be central to this work.Less

The Grassroots Campaign to Save the Family

Daniel K. Williams

in God's Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right

Even without encouragement from Republican politicians, Christian activists in the mid-1970s launched campaigns against cultural liberalism, uniting evangelicals with conservative Catholics and ... More

Even without encouragement from Republican politicians, Christian activists in the mid-1970s launched campaigns against cultural liberalism, uniting evangelicals with conservative Catholics and reshaping the Republican Party. In the early 1970s, Phyllis Schlafly, a Catholic, led evangelical women in a successful campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment. Evangelicals’ opposition to feminism and the sexual revolution also prompted them to join Catholics in speaking out against abortion. During the presidential election of 1976, cultural conservatives forced Gerald Ford to move to the right on abortion and challenged Jimmy Carter after his controversial interview with Playboy. Though an organized Religious Right had not yet developed, evangelicals were discovering their power to influence national politics.Less

Premarital Sex

Steven Angelides

in The Fear of Child Sexuality: Young People, Sex, and Agency

Chapter 2 historicizes the 1960s and 1970s as period of a radical change with regard to anglophone thinking about childhood and teenage sexuality. This period was dubbed the “second sexual ... More

Chapter 2 historicizes the 1960s and 1970s as period of a radical change with regard to anglophone thinking about childhood and teenage sexuality. This period was dubbed the “second sexual revolution,” a time of intense concern about the earlier onset of puberty, premature sexuality, premarital sex, youth promiscuity, sexually transmitted infections, and “illegitimate” pregnancies. It was also a time of increasing concern about challenges to adult power structures. Calls for universal sex education in schools were being made to avoid what many were forecasting as the impending decline of Western civilization. The chapter takes Australia as a case study of the broader anglophone shift towards school-based sex education programs in Western societies, arguing that the mobilization of fear and shame about comprehensive sex education was a vehicle for advancing several interlinked strategies. On the one hand, it was a means of stimulating community action towards controlling the sexualities of young people, enforcing social and moral norms of sexuality, reaffirming boundaries between children and adults, and buttressing adult power. On the other, it was a way of undermining young people’s claims to sexual agency, autonomy, and knowledge by recasting the teenager as essentially immature, incompetent, and endangered in matters of sex.Less

Same-Sex Relationships

Joanna L. Grossman and Lawrence M. Friedman

in Inside the Castle: Law and the Family in 20th Century America

This chapter describes what might be the last battleground over “traditional” marriage—same-sex marriage, and the social and legal revolution that brought us from an era in which it was never ... More

This chapter describes what might be the last battleground over “traditional” marriage—same-sex marriage, and the social and legal revolution that brought us from an era in which it was never contemplated to one in which, depending on the state, it is either expressly authorized or expressly prohibited. Same-sex marriage has posed—and continues to pose—a challenge to traditional definitions of marriage and family. But, more importantly, the issue implies broader changes in family law—the increasing role of constitutional analysis; limits on the right of government to regulate the family; and the clash between the traditional family form and a new and wider menu of intimate and household arrangements, and all this against the background of the rise of a stronger form of individualism.Less

Gay Identity and Community in Early Portland

Peter Boag

in Same-Sex Affairs: Constructing and Controlling Homosexuality in the Pacific Northwest

This chapter explores the nature of Portland's middle-class gay community as revealed in the documentary evidence of the 1912 affair and of a smaller scandal that occurred in 1928. It also ... More

This chapter explores the nature of Portland's middle-class gay community as revealed in the documentary evidence of the 1912 affair and of a smaller scandal that occurred in 1928. It also investigates the formation of white middle-class gay subculture in the context of the national and even international development of corporate capitalism. The chapter then describes the sexual practices of these gay men and makes the argument that middle-class sexual forms contributed a great deal to America's first sexual revolution. In the 1912 scandal, the typical male who participated in Portland's early homosexual subculture was a young, white-collar worker who was single and lived on his own or with others like himself. Gay men referred to Lownsdale simply as “the park,” a name that denoted its centrality to their world. The emergence of the homosexual community, homosexual identity, and expanding homosexual activities is a significant part of America's first sexual revolution.Less

Natalism, Homosexuality, and the Controversy over Corydon

Jeffrey Merrick

in Homosexuality in Modern France

This chapter examines the history of homosexuality, natalism, and the controversy surrounding André Gide's book Corydon in France during the early 1900s. It mentions studies indicating that a vast ... More

This chapter examines the history of homosexuality, natalism, and the controversy surrounding André Gide's book Corydon in France during the early 1900s. It mentions studies indicating that a vast homosexual culture thrived in Paris during the sexual revolution of the interwar years and suggests that this period constituted something of a golden age for French homosexuality. However, Gide's book has shown that tolerance of homosexuality was almost nonexistent outside of the capital and uncommon even within Paris. Many of the men and women who “came out” during this time experienced provincial intolerance, parental dismay, and public antipathy.Less

Sexual Revolution?: Contexts of Countersubversive Moralism

Benjamin A. Cowan

in Securing Sex: Morality and Repression in the Making of Cold War Brazil

Chapter Two contextualizes the Cold War linkage of countersubversion and moralization exploring what, precisely, rightists reacted against, and in what circumstances. I analyze linked cultural ... More

Chapter Two contextualizes the Cold War linkage of countersubversion and moralization exploring what, precisely, rightists reacted against, and in what circumstances. I analyze linked cultural histories to uncover the ways in which emergent youth culture, sexual revolution, and radical politics were focal points for broad public debates in 1960s Brazil. Within those debates, right-wing reaction against changing gender and sexual norms represented only one of many publicly permissible viewpoints. The sheer diversity of these viewpoints makes clear several critical contextual factors. First, regardless of how extensively new gender and sexual patterns actually affected women, young people, students, or other demographics on which anxieties focused, moral panic was not the sole possible response to perceived changes in these realms. Second, though counterculture, political radicalism, and nonnormative sex each attracted considerable attention, narratives that conflated these categories did not monopolize public discourse—even those who denounced moral and sexual change did not always associate it with subversion. Lastly, for all of the Right’s insistence on this association, the regime’s fiercest and most visible opponents never embraced sexual liberalization. Many were the voices who constructed “youth,” “sexual revolution,” and “subversion”—and not everyone, least of all those on the political Left, saw direct articulation between the three.Less

Conclusion

Carrie Hamilton

in Sexual Revolutions in Cuba: Passion, Politics, and Memory

This book concludes by showing how the Cuban Revolution has had a profound impact on all areas of life, including sexuality. However, as argued in this book, the transformation in sexual values and ... More

This book concludes by showing how the Cuban Revolution has had a profound impact on all areas of life, including sexuality. However, as argued in this book, the transformation in sexual values and practices did not happen from one day to the next—nor did the Revolution sweep away all remnants of conventional sexual mores. Indeed, sexuality is one area where we see most clearly the coexistence of the old and the new in revolutionary Cuba. The changes in Cubans' sex lives since 1959 are best understood not as a singular event—a “sexual revolution”—but as a process that has been, like the Cuban Revolution itself, both uneven and ongoing. Furthermore, notwithstanding specific policies designed to encourage certain behavior, changes in the area of sexuality came about less as a result of official policy and more as a consequence of the general social upheaval ushered in after 1959.Less

The “Impotence Boom”: From Kinsey to Masters and Johnson

in Impotence: A Cultural History

In its October 1972 issue, Esquire carried a story by Philip Nobile which played off claims by alarmists such as Dr. George L. Ginsberg that in recent years there had been a marked rise in impotence, ... More

In its October 1972 issue, Esquire carried a story by Philip Nobile which played off claims by alarmists such as Dr. George L. Ginsberg that in recent years there had been a marked rise in impotence, against the reassurances of Dr. Albert Ellis that only reports of such sexual dysfunctions had risen. In the decades between World War II and the 1980s, the media portrayed incapacitated males as casualties of the war, of the social pressures of the consumerist, conformist culture of the 1950s, and finally of the sexual revolution and the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. These were the decades in which preeminent sex surveyor Alfred Kinsey and the therapists William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson became household names. In rewriting the sexual script, they popularized notions of new models of the sexual body, and in their very different ways advocated a shift in treatment of male dysfunctions away from psychotherapy and toward sex therapy.Less

Toward a Feminist Sexual Revolution

Nona Willis Aronowitz

in The Essential Ellen Willis

This chapter examines sexual revolution from a feminist perspective, with particular emphasis on how sexual morality in a patriarchal culture becomes a primary instrument of social control. It ... More

This chapter examines sexual revolution from a feminist perspective, with particular emphasis on how sexual morality in a patriarchal culture becomes a primary instrument of social control. It considers the debate between feminist sexual radicals and conservatives concerning a wide range of sex-related issues, including pornography, the definition of sexual consent, the nature of women’s sexuality and whether it is intrinsically different from men’s, and the meaning of heterosexuality for women. Each of these issues, in turn, became a focus of deeply felt disagreement over the place of sexuality and sexual morality in a feminist analysis and program. In one way or another, they raise the question of whether sexual freedom, as such, is a feminist value, or whether feminism ought rather to aim at replacing male-defined social controls over sex with female-defined controls.Less

Toward a Feminist Sexual Revolution

Ellen Willis

in No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays

This chapter examines sexual revolution from a feminist perspective, with particular emphasis on how sexual morality in a patriarchal culture becomes a primary instrument of social control. It ... More

This chapter examines sexual revolution from a feminist perspective, with particular emphasis on how sexual morality in a patriarchal culture becomes a primary instrument of social control. It considers the debate between feminist sexual radicals and conservatives concerning a wide range of sex-related issues, including pornography, the definition of sexual consent, the nature of women’s sexuality and whether it is intrinsically different from men’s, and the meaning of heterosexuality for women. It also explores how each of these issues became a focus of deeply felt disagreement over the place of sexuality and sexual morality in a feminist analysis and program, arguing that they raise the question of whether sexual freedom is a feminist value, or whether feminism ought rather to aim at replacing male-defined social controls over sex with female-defined controls.Less