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 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

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

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).

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

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)

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 ( ) 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)

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.

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)

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