THE CHANGES

How it was before…

Prior to the sexual revolution of the 1960s America, people were exposed to romanticized image of love in the media. Sex was rarely discussed and when it was, our elders reproached us against masturbation and premarital sex. The lack of communication between adults and children helped create the generation gap.

‘Proper’ sex was reserved for those who loved each other, got married, and had children. Thus sex, love, marriage and children were sold as a complete package that could not be separated. Any other type of sex was considered deviant and would lead to unfortunate consequences (bastard children, disease, and perversion).

The revolution

The so-called "permissive" or "swinging sixties" has become a metaphor for contemporary social conflict, since the revolutionary movements of the 1960s saw the reproductive suburban family along with its morality of self-restraint, hard work and moral Puritanism as an expression of class domination. Issues such as pornography, divorces and single parent families all have their origins in the "permissiveness" of the sixties.

The Increased Numbers of Sexual Partners

Central to the sexual revolution was the growing acceptance of sexual encounters between unmarried adults. Throughout this period young men and women engaged in their first acts of sexual intercourse at increasingly younger ages. The impact of earlier sexual experimentation was reinforced by the later age of marriage; thus, young men and women had more time available to acquire sexual experience with partners before entering upon a long-term monogamous relationship.

Shifts in Mores and Attitudes

The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s was marked by profound changes in the mores and attitudes towards women's sexuality, homosexuality, and freedom of sexual expression. It was the culmination of three essential developments: the empirical sex research of Alfred Kinsey; the battles of pornographers, performers, and literary writers to secure the right of sexual speech; and the counterculture movement, the women's movement, and the gay and lesbian liberation movement.

The Kinsey Report

A new awareness of human sexuality began to spread among Americans starting with the Kinsey Report in 1948. It was a nine-year study of human sexuality, which revealed patterns of sexual behavior theretofore unsuspected. More importantly, it documented how Americans' sexual behavior deviated from their widely accepted norms.

His findings on homosexuality were among his most controversial and widely publicized. He found that homosexuality was much more common that anyone realized, the results indicating that up to 10% of the entire population is gay. Kinsey's report on female sexuality also revealed evidence that showed that women were much more interested in sex that went beyond reproduction than most sociologists and psychologists had expected.

Battles over Obscenity and Pornography

The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s would not have taken place without a series of extended battles over obscenity and pornography. These battles helped to create a public space in American culture for sexual speech, where it was allowed to discuss patterns of sexual behavior, to portray sexuality honestly and bluntly in fiction, on the stage, and in movies.

Pornographic representations of sexuality ranged from profound explorations of desire to highly stereotyped permutations of sexual positions. The sexual explicitness of pornography ranged from soft-core images of attractive models posing or running in the woods to depictions of kinky sex acts.

Marriages and divorces

The institution of marriage was in a rising crisis. The growing influence of the idea of sex for pleasure rather than exclusively for procreation, and the availability of an easy and efficient means of birth control with the pill, made the concept of monogamous marriage as an institution with a monopoly on sex less attractive.

Both men and women sought to explore new sexual territories, and even to create new institutions that allowed for new ways of relating to one another: open marriage, mate swapping, swinging, and communal sex.