Book contents
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures in Volume IV
- Contributors to Volume IV
- Editors’ Preface to the Series
- 1 Sexuality and Capitalism
- 2 Colonialism and Modern Sexuality
- 3 Gender, Migration, and Sexuality in the Modern World
- 4 ‘Pornography’, ‘Obscenity’, and the Suppression of Libertine Literature
- 5 Sexuality and the Print Media in the Modern World
- 6 Eugenics, Public Health, and Modern Sexuality
- 7 Sexuality and Consumerism in the Modern World: The Business of Pleasure
- 8 Sex Education in the Modern World
- 9 Birth Control and Reproductive Rights in the Modern World
- 10 The Impact of the World Wars on Modern Sexuality
- 11 Sexualities and Dictatorships of the Twentieth Century
- 12 Sexuality in Post-war Liberal Democracies
- 13 The Sexual Revolution
- 14 Sex Tourism: Fluid Borders of Meanings and Practices
- 15 The History of AIDS since 1981: Medicine, Politics, and Societies in a Pandemic
- 16 Sex Trafficking in the Modern World
- 17 Sex, Law, and Domestic Violence against Women in the Modern World
- 18 Sexuality under Attack Now
- Index
- Contents to Volumes I, II, and III
- References
13 - The Sexual Revolution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2024
Book contents
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures in Volume IV
- Contributors to Volume IV
- Editors’ Preface to the Series
- 1 Sexuality and Capitalism
- 2 Colonialism and Modern Sexuality
- 3 Gender, Migration, and Sexuality in the Modern World
- 4 ‘Pornography’, ‘Obscenity’, and the Suppression of Libertine Literature
- 5 Sexuality and the Print Media in the Modern World
- 6 Eugenics, Public Health, and Modern Sexuality
- 7 Sexuality and Consumerism in the Modern World: The Business of Pleasure
- 8 Sex Education in the Modern World
- 9 Birth Control and Reproductive Rights in the Modern World
- 10 The Impact of the World Wars on Modern Sexuality
- 11 Sexualities and Dictatorships of the Twentieth Century
- 12 Sexuality in Post-war Liberal Democracies
- 13 The Sexual Revolution
- 14 Sex Tourism: Fluid Borders of Meanings and Practices
- 15 The History of AIDS since 1981: Medicine, Politics, and Societies in a Pandemic
- 16 Sex Trafficking in the Modern World
- 17 Sex, Law, and Domestic Violence against Women in the Modern World
- 18 Sexuality under Attack Now
- Index
- Contents to Volumes I, II, and III
- References
Summary
This chapter explores those transformations in intimate lives that have been collectively shorthanded with the term “sexual revolution.” Whether thought of as a gradually evolving process spanning the 1950s to the 1990s or rather understood as referring to the briefer era of heightened incitement and excitement around sex that reached its heyday in the 1960s-1970s, the story of sexual developments in the second half of the twentieth century has long been written in a linear, teleological fashion. Scholars emphasize the rise of reproductive freedom, women”s equality, rights for sexual minorities, and a more general attitude of sex-positivism. However, by reconceiving the story of the sexual revolution as a global one, inextricable from tectonic geopolitical shifts in both East-West and North-South relations – from the Cold War to decolonization and development projects and obsession with the purported dangers of “overpopulation” in the global South, and from the eventual collapse of Communism to the rise of a neoliberal economic order – this chapter challenges the “liberalization paradigm” and instead explores the sexual revolution as a multi-form, multi-sited, but also profoundly ambivalent process, met with recurrent backlashes as well as marred by its own intrinsic complexities.
Keywords
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge World History of Sexualities , pp. 275 - 296Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024
References
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