The sexual revolution refers to a change in sexual morality and sexual behavior throughout the Western world. In general use, the term refers to a later trend of equalizing sexual behavior which is generally accepted to have started in the 1960s, although the term has been used at least since the late 1920s.
The term appeared as early as 1929; the book Is Sex Necessary?, by Thurber & White, has a chapter titled The Sexual Revolution: Being a Rather Complete Survey of the Entire Sexual Scene.
One suggested trigger for the modern revolution was the development of the birth control pill in 1960, which gave women access to easy and reliable contraception. Another likely factor was vast improvements in obstetrics, which greatly reduced the number of women who die in childbirth and thus increases the life expectancy of women. Other data suggest the "revolution" was more directly influenced by the financial independence gained by many women who entered the workforce during and after World War II, making the revolution more about individual equality rather than biological independence. Many people, however, feel that one specific cause cannot be selected for this large phenomenon.[1]
Some historians argue that sexual revolution was not a complete break from earlier Western sexual attitudes but rather a liberalization after a conservative period that only existed between the 1930s and 1950s. They note that the Cold War sparked a socially conformist identity which tended to be self-conscious of its appearance to the outside world. Within the United States, this conformity took on puritanical overtones which contradicted natural or even, ironically, culturally-established human sexual behaviors. It was this period of Cold War puritanism, some say, which logically led to a cultural rebellion in the form of the "sexual revolution". Despite this, however, before the 1920s the Victorian era was much more conservative than even the 1930s and 1950s. Due to the invention of TV and the increasingly wide use of it in the 50s, by the 1960s a vast majority of Americans had television. This mass communication device, along with other media outlets such as radio and magazines, could broadcast information in a matter of seconds to millions of people, while only a few wealthy people would control what millions of people would watch. Some have now theorized that perhaps that these media outlets helped spread new ideas among the masses. A prime example of this occurred during the early 1960s when the Beatles (virtually unknown at the time) came to America and was introduced on the Ed Sullivan show. Once the show was over they were an instant hit. Forty million Americans had watched it that night and thus morals in one perspective changed instantly; although obviously it would take longer for this to occur. The mass media's broadcasting of new ideas to the population was radical, and during the late 1960s the counterculture was becoming well known on radio, newspapers, TV and other media outlets.
The extent to which the sexual revolution involved major changes in sexual behavior, however, is questionable. Many observers have suggested that the main change was not that people had more sex or different types of sex, it was simply that they talked about it more openly than previous generations had done. Historian David Allyn argues it was a time of "coming-out": about premarital sex, masturbation, erotic fantasies, pornography use, and homosexuality.[2] Although this may be true, some historians have doubts on this due to the lack of contraceptives en masse before the common era. This would have made it extremely difficult to cover up pre-martial relations due to extremely high risk of pregnancy.
It is clear that sexual behavior did change radically for the vast majority of women, but only a generation after the "revolution" had begun. Women reaching sexual maturity after about 1984 have behaviors much more in common with the men of a generation earlier. Some had more partners (two to three times), starting at an earlier age (by three to five years), than women of the generation of the 1970s. Nevertheless this rather radical change in actual behavior is rarely reported on, being regarded as no longer newsworthy.
Historical development
The sexual revolution can be seen as an outgrowth of a process in recent history, though its roots may be traced back as far as the Enlightenment (Marquis de Sade) and the Victorian era (A. C. Swinburne's scandalous Poems and Ballads of 1866). It was a development in the modern world which saw the significant loss of power by the values of a morality rooted in the Christian tradition and the rise of permissive societies, of attitudes that were accepting of greater sexual freedom and experimentation that spread all over the world and were captured in the phrase free love.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Sweden was an international leader in what is now referred to as the "sexual revolution," with gender equality particularly promoted during this time.
Modern revolutions
The Industrial Revolution during the nineteenth century and the growth of science and technology, medicine and health care, resulted in better contraceptives being manufactured. Advances in the manufacture and production of rubber made possible the design and production of condoms that could be used by hundreds of millions of men and women to prevent pregnancy at little cost. Advances in steel production and immunology made abortion readily available. Advances in chemistry, pharmacology, and knowledge of biology, and human physiology and all sorts of new drugs led to the discovery and perfection of the first oral contraceptives also known as "The Pill". New drugs like Viagra helped impotent men have an erection and increased the potency of others. Purchasing an aphrodisiac and various sex toys became "normal". Sado-masochism ("S&M") gained popularity, and "no-fault" unilateral divorce became legal and easier to obtain in many countries during the 1960s and 1970s.
All these developments took place alongside and combined with an increase in world literacy and decline in religious observances. Old values such as the notion of "be fruitful and multiply" rooted in the Bible, for example, were cast aside as people continued to feel alienated from the past and adopted the life-styles of modernizing westernized cultures.
Another thing that helped bring about this more modern revolution of sexual freedom was the writing of Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich, who took the philosophy of Karl Marx and other such philosophers, and mixed together this chant for freedom of sexual rights and release in our modern culture.
Freudian school
Doctor Sigmund Freud of Vienna believed the roots of human behavior were in the libido. This new modern "science" of psychoanalysis revolutionized an entire culture's self image. Victorian prudishness was shoved aside by a new consciousness of a sex drive. Men had an Oedipus complex and women had ***** envy according to Freud. The mother's breast was the source of all later erotic sensation. This new philosophy was the new intellectual and cultural underpinning ideology of the new age of sexual frankness. Nonetheless, much of his research is widely discredited by professionals in the field.
The Anarchist Freud scholars Otto Gross and Wilhelm Reich (who famously coined the phrase "Sexual Revolution") developed a sociology of sex in the 1920s and 1930s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_revolution
الكبت الجنسي -
18th July 2007
I even knew I wont get (too many) replies, so thanks for your honesty!:)
