Introduction
The sexual revolution, sometimes referred to as the sexual liberation, was a social awareness movement that challenged traditional practices pertaining to sex, sexuality, and personal relationships between persons in a number of Western nations beginning from the 1960s all through to the 1980s. The period was marked by a radical deviation from social norms that were then accepted as standard in society (Smith, 1990, 5).
These included the increased acceptance of sex outside of the traditional heterosexual relationships (largely through marriage), contraception and birth control, public nudity, mainstream acceptance of homosexuality and other forms of same-sex relationships, increased acceptance of pornographic materials, and the legalization of abortion.
Attitudes to these facets of sex and sexuality evolved, sometimes radically, throughout the whole duration of the revolution. The revolution was facilitated by the urge to ‘find oneself’, the rights movements of the 1960s, and the quest for autonomy regarding sex and sexuality (Garton, 2006, 95).
Although the term ‘revolution’ means radical and extensive change, this was not generally the case. Even in the midst of the revolution, traditionally held opinions were widely observed, and many contemporary social scholars have recently begun to think that the use of the term ‘revolution’ is too much of an exaggeration. Most of the experimental data related to the movement only date back to the mid 1960s. Despite this, there were observable shifts in sexual attitudes and norms, especially among young adults.
Although it is often said to have began in the 1960s, signs of the revolution had began earlier on in the 1920s, the 1960s revolution extended the ideas by the activists to many Western nations and encompassed many pro-groups that were now associated with the era (McLaren, 1999, 12). The movement is thought to have begun with Freud’s ideas on sexual liberation and psychosexual topics. In the end, pro-gay rights groups, hippies, pro-abortion groups and many other political movements were all instrumental in the push for change.
The sexual revolution of the 1960s was manifested in a number of Western nations, for example, the Stonewall riots of 1969 in the US that pitted homophile groups against the police, in Sweden, sexually themed movies with explicit nudity such as Hon dansade en sommar (She Danced a Summer AKA One Summer of Happiness) and Sommaren med Monika (The Summer with Monika) were introduced, and in the UK, the government unsuccessfully attempted to try Penguin Books in court for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a book that contained explicit content. Other books with sexual themes and explicit content such as Joan Garrity’s The Way to Become the Sensuous Woman (1969), Alex Comfort’s The Joy of Sex: A Gourmet Guide to Love (1972) and so on, were published and imported in several Western nations, often at the resistance of the respective governments. Playboy, Penthouse, and Cosmopolitan magazines were also read widely in these countries.
The idea of “Free Love” as expressed by these groups did not just appear overnight. It is a viewpoint with roots deep in human consciousness that only needed a little support to come out. That support appeared from the 1960s onwards in the form of new knowledge regarding human sexuality, birth control and contraception, psychedelic drugs, and a counter-culture that discarded traditional ways and embraced individual freedom.
Theories on the Origin of the Sexual Revolution
The sexual revolution of the 1960s is viewed as a gradual process, and a product of a process that had began in the early 20th century. It was the developments in the modern world, the considerable loss of power by the values of morality entrenched in Christianity, and the surfacing of permissive societies that finally led to the revolution.
A widely held notion is that the changes in sexual behavior that appeared in the 1960s had much of their origin in the developments of the 1940s and 1950s. During this time, public perception of sexual conduct, sex roles, and psychological development was mainly based on Freudian writings.
Some of the early Freudian writings had focused on sexual repression, however, he also identified the consequences of sexual repression. Freud recognized that libidinal energies were powerful and disruptive and in his later works, he came to believe that sexual repression and sublimation were important to the survival of the contemporary human culture.
Wilhelm Reich and Alfred Kinsey’s writings were also influential in the sexual revolution. Wilhelm Reich was one of the Freud’s assistants. He wrote that sexual expression, mainly through orgasm, was natural and that social regulation of libidinal energies by the family, institutionalized sexual morality, and the state was damaging to society’s social well-being. Reich argued that sexual repression heavily deformed psychological development and resulted into dictatorial acts.
Reich’s outlook on the social implication of repression was strengthened by Alfred Kinsey’s experimental studies. His studies showed the extensive ignorance and shame relating to sex due to the conservative sexual and morality ideas. In the Kinsey Report of 1948, the author made unbeknown findings about American’s sexual behaviors. Among these findings was that homosexuality was more common in the United States than anyone had realized, this encouraged more and more homosexuals to come out of their closets and demand for their rights.
Kinsey also wrote that women were much more interested in sex that went beyond reproduction. His writing that “the only unnatural sexual act is that which you cannot perform” only seemed to encourage people to explore their sexuality (Kinsey, 1953, pp. 52).
The sexual revolution was also influenced by the widespread battles over obscenity and pornography, battles that were facilitated by the provisions of the First Amendment. Distribution and sales of pornographic and explicit material was a very lucrative business in many Western nations and in the US, it sometimes involved organized crime and violence.
These battles generated public interest in free sexual speech in a society that had disallowed not only the discussion of matters to do with sex in the pubic domain, but also the portrayal of blunt and actual sexuality in fiction, on the stage, and in videos.
The invention of the television and its widespread use in the 1950s and 1960s, along with other mass communication gadgets and radios and newspapers meant that meant that millions of people could be reached within a short span of time. These media items spread new ideas, including those related to sexuality, at a very speedy rate.
A number of books with erotic content were introduced in the US and UK in the early 1950s and this eventually led to court cases regarding their legality from 1959 through 1966. In the US, three of such books were banned from sale but later reinstated while in the UK, the Obscene Publications Act was enacted in 1959 resulting into court cases. It is thought that these technological changes also pushed the desire to have freedom to express oneself sexually that characterized the sexual revolution (Garton, 2006, 89).
Other proposed elicitors of the movement include the introduction of birth control pills in the 1960s that enabled women to regulate pregnancies, and the advancement of obstetrics, which significantly reduced the number of women who died during childbirth (Garton, 2006, pp. 74).
None of these factors can be single-handedly said to have led to led to the revolution, however, some factors played more significant role than others. It is only safe to say that cumulative contributions of these factors in the preceding years finally ushered the sexual revolution (Allyn, 2001, 24).
Positive Contributions of the Sexual Revolution
The contemporary consensus regarding the sexual revolution of the 1960s is that it was characterized by a radical shift in traditionally held values related to sex and sexuality, in other words, the revolution led into sex becoming more acceptable in the social circles and not only confined to the sharp boundaries of the heterosexual family setup. The revolution had a noticeable impact in a number of social institutions and other facets of the society of which courtship, marriage, parenting, cohabitation, and divorce were the areas most affected.
One of the greatest contributions of the sexual revolution was that it sensitized society on the need for planned contraception while still enjoying sex as had been put forward by Kinsey. Although the idea of birth control pill had surfaced in the 1940s and 1950s, it did not receive widespread attention.
However, with the onset of the revolution and introduction of Enovid, the first ever birth control, its advantages became apparent. Before its introduction, women did not take on long-term jobs since they would leave the job whenever they were pregnant and reenter it when the children were of school-going age. Pills enabled women to plan their future regarding education and careers. They could now pursue higher education and attain some level of equality with men with pregnancy not getting in their way.
Consequently, a higher number of women graduated from colleges and schools and took up professional jobs. Eventually, the pill became a symbol of the sexual revolution as it divorced contraception from sexual acts.
Contraception became easier to manage with the pill as opposed to methods that had been adopted earlier, such as rhythm and safe-days methods. Although many organizations, the church and governments had opposed useof the pill around the time it was introduced, the sexual revolution gave women rights movements more voice to champion for its usage, the endorsement of the pill by Lyndon Johnson, US president during the 1960s due to this social pressure was further testament of the power of the revolution.
The sexual revolution led to the societal acceptance of homosexuality as a legitimate form of sexual orientation. Even at a time of unprecedented changes in society and growing liberal opinions and policies, homosexuality was still publicly censured, condemned and seen as a form of melancholy of mental illness. In fact, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the prevailingnotion in medical circles was that homosexuality was a poor adjustment to development.
Even though doctors were supposed to give objective advice to their clients, their conclusions were in most cases subjective, which led to biases against the homosexual population (Petigny, 2004, 2). Biased views gained ground as they stemmed from medical professionals. Basically, referring to homosexuality as a psychological condition prevented this community from validly being able to push for their social and legal rights. Homosexuals were viewed as abnormal and risky to the rest of the public.
For instance, between 1956 and 1956, Florida banned homosexuals from public systems, especially in the teaching field. This ban stemmed from the popular belief that these so called ‘deviants’ did a lot of damage when around susceptible and naïve young persons.
With the onset of the sexual revolution, homosexual groups became more vocal and found creative ways of countering societal stereotypes of them. The Mattachine Society, founded in 1950 to fight for gay rights, openly championed for gay rights by confronting a number of federal agencies in the early 1960s. The number of gay lesbian rights groups rose rapidly and by 1966, the number had swelled to 15 with more groups being formed (Smith, 1990, 45).
An example of gay activism was observed in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve 1964, a 4-day seminar between pro-gay groups and Protestant priests that led to the formation of the Council on Religion and the Homosexual. The Stonewall Riots of 1969 also signified not only a rise in both public consciousness of gay rights campaigners, but also in the readiness of gays to fight for the rights they knew they deserved.
The sexual revolution contributed immensely to developments in the medical regulation of sexuality. Apart from the pill, sexual autonomy resulted in adoption of safer sex methods.During the sexual revolution, homosexuality became an accepted sexual orientation, consequently, the number of gays engaging in sex rose (Pizulo, 2008, 121). This soon led to the spread or sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) among this community.
This caused a major concern to come up with safer sax methods, especially after the discovery of STDs such as gonorrhea, syphilis, and Hepatitis B. The discovery of AIDS among homosexuals resulted in the mainstream adoption of the condom as a method of halting the spread of these diseases without necessarily excluding sexual activity. When pro-gay groups adopted the condom, the concept was soon adopted by public health educators and AIDS activists as the foundation for preventing the spread of AIDS and other STDs.
Negative Consequences of the Sexual Revolution
The changes in sexual that were heralded by the sexual revolution had several negative effects on societal morality, behaviors and social attitudes surrounding sexuality. First, it led to increased commercialization of sexuality through pornographic videos and mass media.
Pornographic portrayal of sexuality ranged intense presentations of desire to highly stereotyped combinations of sexual positions. Materials ranged from soft core pictures and writings, such as Dr. David Reuben’s Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) or magazines portraying attractive pictures of beautiful models, to gritty illustrations of kinky sex acts in a typical bedroom or chair. Unfortunately, this autonomy to access pornographic material had profound effects on society.
Pornographic material strengthened the most offensive labels of sex roles, beauty and caused lust. Feminists such as Andrea Dworkin condemned pornography, arguing that it depicted women as sexual objects. There was an increase in sexual activity among teenagers and unmarried youths.
Teenage engagement in sexual acts (determined by age at first intercourse and present active status) increased by large margins during this period, particularly among girls. Consequently, teen pregnancy increased by the same margins. Apparently, normalization of the pill, a consequence of the sexual revolution, also contributed to this increase of sexual activity (Jeffreys, 1990, 26).
A combination of the pill and sexual freedom resulted in a considerable increase in sexual activity, abortions, children born out of marriage, STDs, and divorce. Since the 1960s, the number of marriages has dropped by a third while divorce rates have doubled. During the 1960s, there were only 4 known STDs, so far, the number has risen to 24.
The revolution led to family breakups as women felt more autonomous (regarding their contraception choices and sexual expression) and authoritative and this was strengthened by society’s changing perception of the importance of marriage due to the increasing infiltration of pornographic materials (Allyn, 2001, 73). The movement instigated numerous hitherto unheard sexual experiments in daily living such as open relationships, partner swapping, and ménage à trois.
Communal living environments encouraged short-term relationships. Groups such as the Sexual Freedom League publicized their continuing orgiastic events. Even the unmentionable act of sexual intercourse in the public was discarded. Parks, festivals and hippie meetings were an occasion for ‘couples’ to have sex, even in the full public view. Obviously, these acts deviated from the socially acceptable morals back then, just as it is today. Other unconventional sexual practices such as sadomachism (S&D), BDSM and D&S.
A quite alarming result of the sexual revolution is that it led to an increased support for pedophilic activities. The pro-pedophilia movement begun with Kinsey’s 1953 book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, in which he mentioned that children as young as 2 months “derive definite sexual pleasure” from sexual stimulation and that sex was important to children just as it was among adults (Kinsey, 1953, 70).
Several events during the revolution aimed at legalizing pedophilia failed to get through, including the call for the “repeal of all laws governing the age of sexual consent” by several gay rights groups, one of which was backed by liberal Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern (Kinsey, 1953, 65). Although these calls never saw the light of day, acts of pedophilia continued to soar but were overlooked due to the newly found “free love” concept.
Conclusion
The sexual revolution of the 1960s was marked by the urge to find oneself and the quest for autonomy and these led to alterations in sexual attitudes and behavior, the movement also challenged traditional social norms related to sex and sexuality. This movement had several impacts on society, both positive and negative.
On the positive side, it sensitized society on the need for planned contraception while still enjoying sex, led to the societal acceptance of homosexuality as a legitimate form of sexual orientation, and contributed immensely to developments in the medical regulation of sexuality.
However, the movement had positive aspects including increased commercialization of sexuality through pornographic videos and mass media, increase in sexual activity among teenagers and unmarried youths leading to an increase in teenage pregnancies and abortions, STDs, divorce and an increase in singe parent families. The revolution also saw an increase in pedophilic acts, unnatural sexual acts, and sexual experiments.
References
Allyn, D. (2001) Make Love, Not War: An Unfettered History. Routledge, NY
Bailey, B. (1997). Prescribing the Pill: Politics, Culture, and the Sexual Revolution in America’s Heartland. Journal of Social History, 1997, 30(4):828, 845
Garton, S. (2006). Histories of Sexuality. Equinox: London
Jeffreys, S. (1990). Anti-climax: a feminist perspective on the sexual revolution. The Women’s Press: London
Kinsey, F. (1953). Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Indiana: Indiana University
McLaren,A. (1999). Twentieth Century Sexuality. Oxford: Blackwell
Petigny, A. (2004). Illegitimacy, Postwar Psychology, and the Reperiodisation of the Sexual Revolution. Journal of Social History, Volume 38(1), pp. 63-79
Pizulo, C. (2008). The Battle in Every Man’s Bed: Playboy and the Fiery Feminists. Journal of the History of Sexuality, Volume 17, Number 2, May 2008, pp. 259-289
Smith, T. W. (1990). Report: The Sexual Revolution? The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 3.