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The Sexual Revolutions of the 1960s in the US

The Sexual Revolutions of the 1960s in the US. ” Movements” and ”Revolutions”. 1960s in the US: jokes and realities legacy of the 1950s: conformity and rebellion (teenager) social criticism: Whyte, Riesman, Beats under the surface: race, ethnicity, gender

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The Sexual Revolutions of the 1960s in the US

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  1. The Sexual Revolutions of the 1960s in the US

  2. ”Movements” and ”Revolutions” • 1960s in the US: jokes and realities • legacy of the 1950s: conformity and rebellion (teenager) • social criticism: Whyte, Riesman, Beats • under the surface: race, ethnicity, gender • 1960s criticism: Vietnam, Cold War, nature • social sciences: ”conflict” histories, New Left • ”sex, drugs, and rock and roll” • ”movements” become ”revolutions” from draft resistance through CRMs to feminism

  3. Before the Sexual Revolutions • sexual taboos: abortion, prostitution, etc.: sin, crime, or illness? cf. Freud • language of abuse: perv, freak, deviant, faggot • 1950s: Gay Rights Movement starts as homophile movement (ONE magazine) • 1952: Transvestia: Journal of the American Society for Equality in Dress • traditional roles: whose place where? • drive-ins, double features and teenagers: sexual liberation and contraceptives

  4. Reich and the Sexual Revolution • Wilhelm Reich, Freud and psychoanalysis • The Sexual Revolution (1945): originally: Die Sexualität im Kulturkampf (1936) • Authoritarian states suppress sexual drives and desire to promote ”bourgeois sexual morality” • Sanctity of marriage, lack of sexual education, persecution of ”deviance”, opposition to abortion (focus on the SU) = unnatural controls make people sick • Arrested several times in the US, books burnt by authorities, etc. • Christopher Turner, Adventures in Orgasmatron. Wilhelm Reich and the Invention of Sex (London: Fourth Estate, 2011).

  5. The Kinsey Report(s) • Alfred Kinsey: biologist and zoologist, studied human and animal sexual behavior at the Kinsey Institute • Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948): instant bestseller, a media scientist • 0-6 scale from hetero- to homosexuality, with X for sexual inactivity • follow-up: Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) • homosexuality in the animal world demonstrated • avoided ”taboo” issues like transsexuality

  6. Sexual Revolutions 1: Women’s Lib • Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963) and ”the problem that has no name” • NOW (1966) and its BofR • hippie communes and free sex and a new generation of contraceptives and condoms • ERA second try, second failure • abortion: Roe vs. Wade, 1973 SC decision • radical feminism: Anne Koedt, ”The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” (1970) and the ”sexually expendable male” • ”The Redstockings Manifesto” (1969)

  7. Sexual Revolutions 2: Hollywood • film set the women’s movement back: male filmmakers and the female body • Hays Code: no graphic sexual content or violence (1932-68) • challenge from France: Godard, Truffaut • 1967: Bonnie and Clyde, 1968: The Wild Bunch, 1969: Easy Rider, 1970: Zabriskie Point and Woodstock • softcore: 1974: Emanuelle • emergence of hardcore, but in separate movie theaters: 1970: Mona, the Virgin Nymph and 1972: Deep Throat • 1953: Playboy launched w. MM as centerfold (Hugh Hefner)

  8. Sexual Revolutions 3: Gay Lib • the last of the movements, confined largely to NYC and SF: ”gay pride parades” and ”coming out” • language: queer, dyke, drag • 1966: Vanguard (SF) and Gay Manifesto (Carl Wittman, 1970) • persecution by police: Stonewall Riots, NYC 1969: national media attention • backlash in the 1980s, revived in the 2000s: gay marriage, military service, etc.

  9. Sexual Counterrevolution • 1980s: Reagan and back to the 1950s + AIDS as ”God’s punishment for homosexuals” • Early 1990s: the ”rape” debates, and MC and PC • 9/11: return of the Christian rhetoric: gay marriage, abortion (pro life vs. pro choice), ”don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military • 2012 campaign: contraceptives, abortion, gay marraige, etc. again: mobilizes the conservative right • key: private sphere drawn into politics: reason vs. ethics (or supposed ethics)

  10. Additional Reading Doherty, Thomas. Pre-Code Hollywood. Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Escoffier, Jeffrey, ed. Sexual Revolution. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003. Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty. A History of Women in America. New York: Free Press, 1989. Farber, David R. The Age of Great Dreams. America in the 1960s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1994. Lewis, Jon. Hollywood v. Hardcore. How the Struggle over Censorship Saved the Modern Film Industry. New York and London: New York University Press, 2002. Meyerowitz, Joanne. How Sex Changed. A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2002. Sides, Josh. Erotic City. Sexual Revolutions and the Making of Modern San Francisco. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Toffoletti, Kim. Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls. Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman Body. New York and London: I. B. Tauris, 2007.

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