THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION: WHAT ARE THE CHANGES?
In order to determine the changes that have been brought about by the sexual revolution, we can turn to two sources of information: those that are immediately apparent and conventionally identified, and those that have been examined through scientific study.
We have already suggested a number of obvious changes that are publicly acknowledged, and in Chapter 4 we will examine in detail the changes in American sexuality that have been scientifically documented. For our present purposes, we will offer a brief overview here of the changing sexual scene in America from the fifties through the seventies and in subsequent chapters we will describe them more thoroughly.
As we suggested earlier, many of the changes effected by the sexual revolution are apparent even to the casual observer; the most visible of these are in the popular media: newspapers, magazines, television, and the movies. Somewhat less evident, but equally important, is the more generally relaxed atmosphere in which sexual topics are publicly discussed. Even our highest government officials now acknowledge that sex is a fact of life; for example, President Carter's statement that he "lusted after women" simply means, in non-Biblical terms, that he finds women sexually attractive.
Many such examples are available from a wide variety of resources and it seems unnecessary to belabor the point: American society in the sixties and seventies is much less sexually inhibited than it was prior to World War II.
But what of the other and perhaps even more important dimensions of a sexually mature society: Has the sexual revolution provided for the sex education needs of our young people?
Has it helped reduce the ignorance and superstition of 2000 years of sexual repression? And, finally, has it contributed to the sexual enhancement and thus the personal enhancement of our citizens? Here, the answers are difficult to determine and require a more penetrating analysis. Simply because a popular TV program satirizes conventional antihomosexual attitudes, or a renowned photographer is deluged with volunteers willing to pose in the nude, does not mean that we are no longer burdened by the guilt and the superstitions of the past; as a matter of fact, many archaic sexual laws are still in effect.
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