The 1960s: Sexual Liberation?

1. The 1960s: Sexual Liberation? Week 10

2. Introduction • Definitions of ‘sexual liberation’ and ‘sexual liberalization’ • Rejection ‘sexual liberation discourse? by Foucault • Later analyses by feminists and gay studies also reject in favour of concepts of liberalization and commodification

3. Outline • Introduction • Events concerning sexual morality • Legislation concerning sexual morality • Youth movements>>Commodification or (of?) rebellion • Emergence of second wave feminism • Gay movement • Conclusion

4. Newsworthy events and scandals • Lady Chatterley Obscenity Trial 1959 • The Profumo Affair 1963 • Publication of Honest to God, 1963, by John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich

5. Some legislative measures of the 1960s • 1965 Murder (Abolition) Act - abolition of capital punishment • 1967 Sexual Offences Act- sexual activity between men decriminalised, in private, for men 21+ • 1967 Family Planning Act- makes contraception available on the NHS • 1967 Abortion Act- legalises abortion under certain conditions • 1968 Theatre Act- allowed nude stage performances • 1969 Divorce Reform Act- allowed for divorce on grounds of irretrievable breakdown

6. Youth movements • Rockers, hippies, etc. putting sex into discourse • Supported by sexual liberation claims of Herbert Marcuse (later retracted)

7. Second wave feminism- two directions 1. Sexual liberation for women: • ‘For the true, ultimate zipless A-1 fuck, it was necessary that you never get to know the man very well. I had noticed, for example how all my infatuations dissolved as soon as I really became friendly with a man, became sympathetic to his problems, listened to him kvetch about his wife, or ex-wives, his mother, his children. After that I would like him, perhaps even love him- but without passion. And it was passion that I wanted. . . Another condition for the zipless fuck was brevity. And anonymity made it even better.’ (Erica Jong, Fear of Flying, 1974: 19)

8. Sexology plays a double-edged role in this ‘liberation’ • Makes single women available to men available to men >>>suspicion of permissive ideology as intensifying sexual exploitation. • But feminist discourse also influenced by some findings from sexology, see for example Anna Koedt, ‘The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm’ (extract in S. Jackson and S. Scott, eds Feminism and Sexuality and discussion in Hawkes and in Gerhard on Reading List. Women use findings of Masters and Johnson to question heterosexuality, • E.g. ‘What is a sexually marooned woman?Any woman who is unwilling or unable to fulfill her destiny as a fully-fledged female and thereby enjoy a lifetime of gratifying sexual experiences is sexually marooned. A woman who is not completely expressing her womanliness in its most direct way is emotionally and sexually cut off from the rest of the world—marooned.’ ‘Dr Reuben’(1969)

9. 2) Second stream within second wave feminism, radical feminism, question heterosexuality (take up next term) and the way ‘sexual liberation’ was configured. Second wave feminism ends up politicising sexuality rather than liberating it

10. Gay movement • Stonewall Bar, New York City, 1969, patrons riot when police attempt raid and arrests • Gay movement challenges the politics of the preceding homophile movement, more assertive and more challenging to normative heterosexuality. At first demands ‘the end of the homosexual’ (Weeks 2007). Then develops a discourse of ‘gay identity’ built around ‘gay pride’ and promoting gay rights, not tolerance of ‘plight’. Like the feminist movement it politicises sex. • Gay and feminist movements: ‘the personal is political’

11. Conclusion Sexual liberation? • Legislation set aside a restricted area in which sexual choices could be exercised. The law was liberalised, setting up the private sphere as a place the law would not intervene. • Medicalisation and commercialisation of sex became increasingly important in shaping sexuality. • Hence sex remained enmeshed in power, there was not a lifting of power as the term liberation suggests. But that is not to say that there were not real changes in the regime of regulation.