Editing Sexual revolution (section)

==Origins==
===First sexual revolution===
{{Further|Roaring Twenties}}
Several other periods in Western culture have been called the "first sexual revolution", to which the 1960s revolution would be the second (or later). The term "sexual revolution" itself has been used since at least the late 1920s. The term appeared as early as 1929; the book ''[[Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do]]'' by [[James Thurber]] and [[E. B. White]], has a chapter titled "The Sexual Revolution: Being a Rather Complete Survey of the Entire Sexual Scene".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/issexnecessaryor00thur |title=Is sex necessary? or, why you feel the way you do |last1=Thurber |first1=James |author1-link=James Thurber |last2=White |first2=E. B. |author2-link=E. B. White |publisher=Harper & Row |date=1929 |isbn=9780060911027 |via=Internet Archive Digital Library |oclc=877647 |access-date=March 22, 2021}}</ref> According to [[Konstantin Dushenko]], the term was in use in Soviet Russia in 1925.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/87856.html |title=Mustering Most Memorable Quips |access-date=March 22, 2021 |last=Solovyova |first=Julia |date=October 28, 1997 |website=The Moscow Times |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080504082655/http://bailey83221.livejournal.com/87856.html |archive-date=May 4, 2008}}</ref>

When speaking of the sexual revolution, historians<ref>The First Sexual Revolution: The Emergence of Male Heterosexuality in Modern America. Kevin White (New York: New York University Press: 1992)</ref> make a distinction between the first and the second sexual revolution. In the first sexual revolution (1870–1910), Victorian morality lost its universal appeal. However, it did not lead to the rise of a "permissive society". Exemplary for this period is the rise and differentiation in forms of regulating sexuality.

Classics professor [[Kyle Harper]] uses the phrase "first sexual revolution" to refer to the displacement of the norms of [[sexuality in Ancient Rome]] with those of Christianity as it was adopted throughout the Roman Empire. Romans accepted and legalized prostitution, [[bisexuality]], and [[pederasty]]. Male [[promiscuity]] was considered normal and healthy as long as masculinity was maintained, associated with being the penetrating partner. In contrast, female chastity was required for respectable women, to ensure the integrity of family bloodlines. These attitudes were replaced by Christian prohibitions on homosexual acts and any sex outside marriage, including with slaves and prostitutes.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/01/the-first-sexual-revolution |title=The First Sexual Revolution / How Christianity transformed the ancient world |author=Kyle Harper |date=January 2018}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=December 2021}}

History professor Faramerz Dabhoiwala cites the [[Age of Enlightenment]]—approximately the 18th century—as a major period of transition in the United Kingdom.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution |author=Faramerz Dabhoiwala |year=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199892419}}</ref> During this time, the philosophy of liberalism developed and was popularized, and migration to cities increased opportunities for sex and made enforcement of rules more difficult than in small villages. Sexual misconduct in the Catholic Church undermined the credibility of religious authorities, and the rise of urban police forces helped distinguish crime from [[sin]]. Overall, toleration increased for heterosexual sex outside marriage, including prostitution, mistresses, and pre-marital sex. Though these acts were still condemned by many as [[libertine]], infidelity became more often a civil matter than a criminal offense receiving capital punishment. [[Masturbation]], [[homosexuality]], and [[rape]] were generally less tolerated. Women went from being considered as lustful as men to passive partners, whose purity was important to reputation.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.historyextra.com/period/the-origins-of-sex-a-history-of-the-first-sexual-revolution/ |title=The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution |date=February 14, 2012 |website=HistoryExtra |access-date=March 22, 2021}}</ref>

Commentators such as history professor Kevin F. White have used the phrase "first sexual revolution" to refer to the [[Roaring Twenties]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The First Sexual Revolution: The Emergence of Male Heterosexuality in Modern America |author=Kevin F. White |year=1992 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-0814792582}}</ref> [[Victorian Era]] attitudes were somewhat destabilized by [[World War I]] and alcohol [[prohibition in the United States]]. At the same time the [[women's suffrage]] movement obtained voting rights, the subculture of the [[flapper girl]] included pre-marital sex and "petting parties".

===Formation===
Indicators of non-traditional sexual behavior (e.g., gonorrhea incidence, births out of wedlock, and births to adolescents) began to rise dramatically in the mid-to-late 1950s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Francis|first=Andrew|date=2013|title=The Wages of Sin: How the Discovery of Penicillin Reshaped Modern Sexuality|journal=Archives of Sexual Behavior|volume=42 | issue = 1 |pages=5–13|doi=10.1007/s10508-012-0018-4|pmid=23054260|s2cid=24253086}}</ref> It brought about profound shifts in attitudes toward women's sexuality, homosexuality, pre-marital sexuality, and the freedom of sexual expression.<ref name=":0" />

Psychologists and scientists such as [[Wilhelm Reich]] and [[Alfred Kinsey]] influenced the changes.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jul/08/wilhelm-reich-free-love-orgasmatron  |last=Turner |first=Christopher |title=Wilhelm Reich: The Man Who Invented Free Love |date=July 8, 2011 |website=The Guardian |access-date=March 22, 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Sexual Behavior in the Human Male |journal=American Journal of Public Health |date=1948 |volume=93 |issue=6 |pages=896–897 |doi=10.2105/AJPH.93.6.896 |last1=Brown |first1=Theodore M. |last2=Fee |first2=Elizabeth |pmid=12773347 |pmc=1447862 }}</ref> As well, changing mores were both stimulated by and reflected in literature and films, and by the social movements of the period, including the [[Counterculture of the 1960s|counterculture]], the women's movement, and the gay rights movement.<ref name=GLBTQ /> The counterculture contributed to the awareness of radical cultural change that was the social matrix of the sexual revolution.<ref name=GLBTQ />{{better source needed|date=September 2018}}

The sexual revolution was initiated by those who shared a belief in the detrimental impact of sexual repression, a view that had previously been argued by [[Wilhelm Reich]], [[D. H. Lawrence]], [[Sigmund Freud]], and the [[surrealism|Surrealist movement]].{{citation needed|date=September 2018}}

The counterculture wanted to explore the body and mind, and free the personal self from the moral and legal sexual confines of traditional American values.<ref>Kevin Slack, "Liberalism Radicalized: The Sexual Revolution, Multiculturalism, and the Rise of Identity Politics," {{cite web |url=http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/08/liberalism-radicalized-the-sexual-revolution-multiculturalism-and-the-rise-of-identity-politics |title=Liberalism Radicalized: The Sexual Revolution, Multiculturalism, and the Rise of Identity Politics |access-date=October 10, 2013 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131002014520/http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/08/liberalism-radicalized-the-sexual-revolution-multiculturalism-and-the-rise-of-identity-politics |archive-date=October 2, 2013 }}</ref> The sexual revolution sprung from a conviction that the erotic should be celebrated as a normal part of life, dodging religion, family, industrialized moral codes, and the state.<ref name="America Divided">{{cite book|last=Isserman|first=Maurice|title=America Divided|year=2012|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York, NY|isbn=978-0-19-976506-5|pages=138–140}}</ref>

The development of the [[The Pill|birth control pill]] in 1960 gave women access to easy and more reliable [[contraception]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/a-brief-history-of-birth-control/ |title=A Brief History of Birth Control in the U.S. |date=December 14, 2013 |website=Our Bodies Our Selves: Information Inspires Action |access-date=March 22, 2021}}</ref> Another likely cause was a vast improvement in [[obstetrics]], greatly reducing the number of women who died due to childbearing, thus increasing the [[life expectancy]] of women. A third, more indirect cause was the large number of children born in the 1940s and throughout the 1950s all over the Western world, as the "[[Baby Boom Generation]]", many of whom would grow up in relatively prosperous and safe conditions, within a middle class on the rise and with better access to education and entertainment than ever before. By their demographic weight and their social and educational background, they came to [[Postmaterialism|trigger a shift in society]] towards more permissive and informalized attitudes.

The discovery of [[penicillin]] led to significant reductions in [[syphilis]] mortality, which, in turn, spurred an increase in non-traditional sex during the mid-to-late 1950s.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/did-penicillin-kickstart-sexual-revolution |title=Did Penicillin Kickstart the Sexual Revolution? |date=January 29, 2013 |access-date=October 4, 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005104342/http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/did-penicillin-kickstart-sexual-revolution |archive-date=October 5, 2013}}</ref>

There was an increase in sexual encounters between unmarried adults.<ref>Brown, Callum G. "Sex, Religion, and the Single Woman c.1950–75: The Importance of a 'Short' Sexual Revolution to the English Religious Crisis of the 1960s." 20th-Century British History, 22, 2, 2010, pp. 189–215</ref> Divorce rates were dramatically increasing and marriage rates were significantly decreasing in this time period. The number of unmarried Americans aged twenty to twenty-four more than doubled from 4.3&nbsp;million in 1960 to 9.7&nbsp;million in 1976.<ref name="Easy Come, Easy Go">{{cite book|last=Kahn|first=Ashley|title=Rolling Stone: The 1970s|url=https://archive.org/details/rollingstoneseve00kahn|url-access=registration|year=1998|publisher=Little, Brown and Co|location=Boston|pages=[https://archive.org/details/rollingstoneseve00kahn/page/54 54–57]|isbn=9780316759144}}</ref> Men and women sought to reshape marriage by experimenting with new practices consisting of open marriage, mate swapping, [[Swinging (sexual practice)|swinging]], and communal sex.<ref name=GLBTQ>{{cite web|title=Sexual Revolution, 1960 – 1980 |url=http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/sexual_revolution.html |access-date=December 14, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130108175637/http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/sexual_revolution.html |archive-date=January 8, 2013 }}</ref> <!-- essay, & unsourced: There is an introduction of casual sex during the revolution to a level that was never seen or heard before. Americans were gaining a set of relaxed morals and with the contribution of premarital sex on the rise and the development of birth control, casual sex between adults was becoming very popular. -->