Editing Sexual revolution (section)

===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. -->