During the 1960s, the urge to 'find oneself' and a quest for autonomy were characterized by changes to sexual attitudes and behavior, often referred to as the “sexual revolution”. As described at the time, the sexual revolution represented a “new permissiveness in sexual behavior…a “new morality” freed of hypocrisy and fear and grounded in tolerance…a state of mind, in which sex would be separated—as far as science, will and conscience could separate it—from duty, pain and fear, from everything but pleasure, and there would be an equality of giving pleasure and taking it, as in a mythic democracy where power would not be exercised by one group or person over another…in essence a women's revolution, [challenging] old assumptions about the nature of female sexuality and women's place in society.” (Worsnop, 1970)
Well, that was how it looked then. These days, a sexual counter-revolution has taken hold, amidst growing concern that generations of free and easy sex has taken a toll on the lives of both men and women, not to mention families and children, leading more and more young adults to steer clear of sex altogether. Critics of the sexual revolution, such as Christine Emba, argue that it “led to generations of men unmotivated to grow up or commit to serious relationships, in large part because men saw less need to make themselves into appealing long-term partners”. According to this view, the sexual revolution allowed men to rationalize sexual pushiness as an expression of cultural liberation, guilt-tripping or otherwise pressuring women to yield in the name of freedom, or of “letting go”. Thus, as a direct consequence of the 1960s sexual revolution, we got a multi-decade epidemic of sexual harassment and assault, single moms and deadbeat dads.
Some call for a return to a norm of sexual restraint. As Emba put it, “Now could be the time to reintroduce virtues such as prudence, temperance, respect and even love. We might pursue the theory that sex possibly has a deeper significance than just recreation and that ‘consent’—that thin and gameable boundary—might not be the only moral sensibility we need respect.”
So what do you think? Did the sexual revolution do more harm than good? Was the sexual revolution necessary for the evolution of feminism and LGBT rights? Is the sexual revolution being blamed for ills that have other causes?
Next: Was the Sexual Revolution a Mistake, Part II. Summary of arguments presented at my debate club.
References and Links:
Sexual revolution: myth or reality/Worsnop http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre1970040100
Let's Rethink Sex/Emba https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-rethink-sex/2017/11/26/d8546a86-d2d5-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8d0ce03b8238
Why Humans Have Sex/Meston and Buss https://labs.la.utexas.edu/buss/files/2015/09/why-humans-have-sex-2007.pdf
The Sexual Revolution in the 1960s/Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_revolution_in_1960s_United_States
The Sexual Revolution was a Huge Mistake/Nora
https://readswc.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/the-sexual-revolution-was-a-huge-mistake/
The Sexual Counter-Revolution Among Young Adults/Wilcox https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-sexual-counter-revolution-among-young-adults
Sexual liberation: Whose sexuality is liberated, men's or women's? /Barber