Could the "sexual revolution" ever be un-done?

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You are equating the sexual revolution with "narcissistic self indulgence and callous disregard for the welfare of the 'other'." That is simply wrong. More about this later.

The massive wave of divorces in the 1960's and 1970's is an aspect of what can be thought of as the sexual revolution's (temporary) reign of terror (as distinct from the sexual revolution itself -- see my posts on the previous page).

However, marriages by people with more realistic expectations, shaped by the sexual revolution, are more likely to be stable.

Here in the U.S.A., the states with the highest divorce rates tend to be the more socially conservative states, whereas the states with the lowest divorce rates tend to be the more socially liberal states. See, for example:

- Divorce rate in the United States in 2016, by state (per 1,000 of population)
- These Are The States With The Highest / Lowest Divorce Rates By 30

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 08 Nov 2018, 7:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's true that the simple removal of the constraints on sexual practices once considered deviant does not lead INEXORABLY to unlimited self indulgence, but nevertheless, in the event, this has been the consequence in most western countries. I can't believe you if you're telling me that the abundance of single mothers, violent sexual crimes and sick perversions has nothing to do with the "if it feels good, do it" ethos of the sexual revolution.

There were "single mothers," "violent sexual crimes," and "sick perversions" even in Eisenhower's day.

Don't forget....around the 15th/16th century, there were Popes who participated in orgies.

Actually, no. See my reply to kraftiekortie above.

I don't find that we are in a particularly "sexually liberating" time.

I find we are in a time when the crazies feel "enabled," somehow.

Much of this "mass shooting" stuff started with people "going postal" in the 1990s. Columbine really accelerated it. There were always shootings of this nature, though----although it's been more frequent since Columbine, especially.

The "sexual revolution" was over by the mid-1980s. Because of AIDS.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 08 Nov 2018, 8:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Of course those problems existed prior to 60s - at every time in history, but they weren't even a minute fraction as bad as they are today, and the radical increase in the prevalence of these problems was directly contemporaneous with the sexual revolution. It would take a state of denial beyond anything I can understand to deny the link.

It's important to note, also, that although not directly relevant to the topic of this thread, every other social problem - drug abuse, petty crime and so forth - also increased in prevalence in that unfortunate decade.


The post you're talking about mentions divorce, nothing else. It's true that divorce rates have dropped slightly over the past few years, as is inevitable from time to time, even in a degenerate age like ours, but that's absolutely irrelevant to the point I'm making, because they're still vastly higher than they were before big business and, quite ironically, the bourgeoisie, decided to sell sexual "liberation" to the ignorant masses in the sixties.

We are not degenerate sexually, I don't believe.

What we are "degenerate" in is the decreased ability amongst many to suppress their base emotions.

I guess you and I define "sexual revolution" differently, then?

AIDS resulted in people needing to use condoms (for more than just birth control) and generally needing to be more careful, but it did NOT kill what I consider to be the sexual revolution. Far from it.

The LGBT rights movement continued to make progress. Other sexual minority subcultures, e.g. BDSM and polyamory, continued to grow and develop, although not to anywhere near the extent that the LGBT community did.

People in general were still free to use birth control, although abortion rights continued to hang in the balance, as they still do.

Most importantly, outside of highly religious enclaves, we did NOT go back to the days when the worst thing a woman could possibly be was an unmarried non-virgin.

It's true that we don't live in an especially "sexually liberating" time, but we are still far more liberated than we would have been before the 1960's.

I would say that the sexual revolution is still in progress, and that progress has slowed down. I would also say that the revolution's enemies are still very much alive and fighting, and that the revolution has spawned its own periodic reigns of terror. But we have NOT reverted to the pre-revolutionary tyranny -- far from it.

I really meant in the "free love" sense, actually.

I understand the "other revolution." Very well. I understand the progress "alternative sexualities" have made. Obviously!

I was speaking more of "free love."

We had "free love" in the 1970s----not in the 1980s.

Depending on how you look at it, one could say that at least some of these problems were far worse back then.

For example, old-fashioned orgies were truly evil by today's standards. Centuries ago, orgies typically involved the exploitation of poor teenage girls, with a strong preference for virgins, who were then "debauched" (i.e. their value on the patriarchal marriage market destroyed).

In contrast, modern orgies (which are still uncommon), as practiced by people with a modern sexual revolutionary ethos, are much more ethical, by today's standards at least. (Google "orgy etiquette" for details.)


There was indeed a violent crime wave in the 1960's, and an even bigger one in the 1990's, but there had been plenty of other, even worse crime waves before. Crime has been going down since the 1990's.

Be that as it may, revolutions are always messy, and I agree that the sexual revolution resulted, temporarily, in a lot of short-term chaos. But, in the long term, the solution is NOT go go back to the way things were. The solution is NOT to restore the pre-revolutionary tyranny. The solution is to hold on to the good parts of the revolution while mitigating the bad.


I grew up in the 1960's and would not call it an "unfortunate decade." It was a very scary time, but also a time of great hope and positive as well as negative change. On the whole, I feel that the good aspects outlasted the bad.


Yes but they are continuing to go down, without requiring a reversion to pre-revolutionary patriarchy. Most significantly, divorce rates have tended to go down the MOST in socially liberal places, less so in socially conservative places. How do you account for that?


Are you speaking of the use of sex to get attention in the mass media and thereby sell products? Or are you alleging a conspiracy of some kind, and with what ultimate purpose?

Be that as it may, "big business" did not invent or singlehandedly create the sexual revolution, although, to some extent at least, it happily went along for the ride and thereby facilitated it.

What exactly do you mean by "free love"?

Do you mean "free love" in the sense of there existing lots of people of both sexes willing to have sex with lots and lots of different partners, without using condoms but relying exclusively on non-barrier forms of birth control? If so, I think "free love" in that sense is NOT a natural state of affairs. It was a temporary, overly enthusiastic celebration of the dawn of sexual freedom. It was clearly not healthy in the long run. Had not AIDS come along, some other disease inevitably would have, sooner or later.

Yet people in general (not just "alternative sexualities") still do have much greater sexual freedom than we had before the advent of modern contraception and abortion rights, and before the advent of the modern sexual revolutionary ethos -- which, to a significant degree, is still with us.

Per your first paragraph, what you're saying is simply untrue; one only needs to consult today's newspaper to see accounts of horrendous acts of sexual violence passed over blithely that would have been a national sensation in the 1950s.

Per your second and third paragraphs, being well brought up, I don't see the need to, and I don't think it would be proper to - discuss the intimate details of depraved sexual acts with a woman almost three times my age; I think my previous paragraph is quite sufficient. I will say that I don't think any "orgy", as you put it, or indeed any sexual act where the participants act in that capacity as objects rather than humans, is even remotely "ethical", which of course condemns most sex to take place in the United States today.




Crime may well have been going down since the 90s, but is still well above levels it was at in the 50s, so the fact is again completely irrelevant to the point I am making.



I agree that the sexual revolution brought a few scant benefits; I'm no fan of the contemporary, 21st century gay movement, but I certainly don't believe sodomy should be illegal, which it was in the United Kingdom until 1967. It's easy to fixate on the handful of positive developments from that decade and lose sight of the bigger picture, however; despite the handful of benefits that might be named, the 1960s were overwhelmingly a disaster for the human condition, as I have already outlined. The 1950s were imperfect (what age wasn't?) but still vastly better than the 2010s, in moral terms.



When people mention empty cultural Marxist buzzwords like "patriarchy", alarm bells always start ringing for me, and I say this as something of a Marxist myself (in the economic sense), by the way. I certainly wouldn't consider the 1950s patriarchal, or any decade since the 1910s, for that matter - perhaps since the eighteenth century Enlightenment. I also don't see the bearing of feminist dogma on sexual revolution, either, since it has been a disaster for BOTH sexes.


Per your first paragraph, the sexual revolution was a godsend for big business, which realised as early as the turn of the last two centuries, based on the work of Freud and Bernays, that sex could be used to manipulate the gullible masses into buying junk they don't need, which has since become the basis of the appropriation of the wealth of the proletariat. It's undeniable that there were, in the semantic sense, conspiracies involved here, though probably not in the sense YOU'RE thinking of.

Per your second paragraph, big business has done more than just go along with the sexual revolution; it's provided the major financial and political backing for it over the years, as well as for the destruction of the family, which goes hand in hand with it.


I suggest that you read Culture of Narcissism by Harvard academic Christopher Lasch, a brilliant historical analysis of the rise of narcissism as the predominating force in American society and the role of big money and other powerful institutions in this development.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrUvu1mlWco

If one has an Extra Low Libido and is easily disgusted one can move
to a Muslim Country, if ones likes to Escape the Sexual Revolution of the
West; but if one is a Child, don't make it a Country with the Least Amount of
Sexual Revolution like Saudi Arabia, where 13 Percent of Children Suffer Sexual
Violence According to Research from the National Family Safety Program; and additionally,
80 Percent of Children there Suffer Some Kind of Psychological or Physical Violence as Whole.

Sexual Oppression and Repression is Correlated More with Sexual Deviance than Western Countries, at least.

And that's Common Sense as Sexual Freedom is Part of Health and Well Being Among All Humans when done
in a Mutual and Consensual Way Amongst Humans who have Healthy Levels of Empathy, Sympathy, Compassion
and Cognitive Empathy to Consider the Needs of Others who May have Very Different Needs than still the others;
Depending on one's Natural Levels of Libido as the Science of Lust and Love Shows that Some Folks are certainly
Less Naturally Monogamous than others; and Sexual Orientations; and in General, Preferences are Vastly Different
Amongst the Entire Spectrum of Being Human. Folks who want to be Monogamous Will Continue to do that;
And it is very Possible that Folks who are not allowed their Natural Propensities as Being Human will
move over to Less "Natural" Sexual Activities if their Sexual Nature is not allowed the Freedom to
Do what it Does Love to Do Most all Natural and Mutually Consensual as Lust and Love Matches up
Best in Peace and Harmony; and a Giant Plus as Science Shows; Lust is a Major Source of all Human
Creativity and Productivity; as well as Social Cooperation too; when Balanced with Love per Empathy,
Sympathy, Compassion and Cognitive Empathy for 'Safe Words' too, if one is in to 'that' kind of thing too;
Considering that Biologically Speaking Aggression and Lust are Closely Related; but the Study of Bonobos Clearly
Shows that our Closet Kissing Ape Cousin who Engages in Oral Sex for their Enhanced Empathic Abilities to Feel
the Pleasures of Other Front to Front Kissing Apes; and Front to Front Sexual Activity Diffuse Violence with Sexual
Activity Done Profusely as their Freedom to Do this Can and Will Make them much more of a Peaceful Ape Society
than those Humans ones Where Sexual Oppression and Repression is the Rule of Law, Culture, and or Religion.

And sure, I'll Leave the Links to the Research Below for any 'Disbelievers'; Hehe...

Anyway, back to the Sexual Revolution, Unless We Shut-Down the Internet and Halt the Progress of Western Capitalism
Where 'T and A' is THere to Visit at any Mall, at almost Every Store in Advertisements even in the Most Repressed and
Oppressed so-called Red State Area in the United States for Folks Venturing to Be Different as Assessed by Social
Science Where i Live; And Additionally, where the 60's and the 70's Versus Today's "Meet Market'; yes Dance
Hall, is now more Dominated By Females Heat Seeking Bootie Dances with whatever Strange Male from White
to Black in All the Mixed Colors of Human Beings they Choose to Rub their Rears up and down Similar
to what Female Bonobos Do With Each other Too on the Front Feel Good Parts too. Nah; that wasn't
the Cultural Human Game Plan Back in the 60's and 70's; as the Males still asked the Females to
Dance First; or they Remained Wall Flowers Instead of Heat Seeking Rears now. And even Better
Yet for the Females is they Group Bond with Bootie Dances With Each Other without Regard to
who is so-called Straight or not so-Called Straight as that is a Spectrum from a Bootie Dance
to an entire Love Fest Among Females As Such too. Women Come and Leave in Groups now all
Satisfied for the Fun they Have with each other to the Chagrin I'm sure of Many Men but they often include
me at least in their Group Activities for i ain't Afraid to Dance Free Solo either as now and then A Heat Seeking
Rear Will come to Visit me too, Even when i tell them i am Married and Old Enough to Be their Grand-Daddy;
Times have Changed and these Folks are Very Happy with their Sexual Liberation and People are actually
Getting into Less Fights and Folks are Leaving the Bar with Smiles on their Faces, including Women Hand
in Hand, as Hairless Apes Stronger Together too in all the Colors, Shapes, and Sizes they come in too.

In other Words, Sexual Revolution is Great; It Makes Folks Happy to be able to Express their Sexual Free Natures.

As once again, 'Class'; I live in A Most so-called Conservative Area in the United States; but now that doesn't Stop
the shortest shorts I've ever Seen to date from Roaming the Malls and Dance Halls Same for the Freedom to Feel
Free from Head to toe. Sexual Violence overall, IS an Act of Violence for those folks who Lack Self-Esteem and
Generally Are butt Hurt for Being Excluded in Life. Folks who are Free to Express their Sexuality Now with High
Levels of Empathy, Sympathy, Compassion, as well as Cognitive Empathy are much more 'Deliciously' Happy
Now with Higher Levels of Creativity; and Productivity; as well as Social Cooperation as one again 'Class',
Let's not forget the Lesson of the Bonobo; as Lust and Love When Working Hand in Hand NoW in Balance
Makes a Peaceful and Harmonious Society More than Suicide Bombers Looking For Virgins in Death who have never had the Opportunity to even Hold Hands with Another Gender Member; as True Saudi Arabian Males do get to Hold Hands together that surely does not Decrease Levels of Homosexual Behavior there either. The Environment Matters Now. The
Environment Matters A Lot; And When the Environment Oppresses and Represses Natural Evolved Human Behavior
Like the Fact that Human Beings are Amongst the Sexiest Beasts on Earth; Houston we Have a Problem; as when
the Sexual Revolution 'Goes' that is a Natural Human Propensity, overall, as Closed Legs Exceptions do apply;
So Does Greater Levels of Human Co-Creativity, Productivity, and Social Cooperation; as Both Human Apes
And Hairy Bonobo Apes per the Research that has been done as linked below most definitely does show too.

What we are Lacking Most is Sexual Education for those who Are AcTuAlly very ignorant still now for what it
even means to be a Human Being; yes, overall; A Very Sexy, Creative, Productive, and Socially Cooperative
Beast but tHere are exceptions like Male and or Female Incels too; For it is also true that Sexual Intelligence
Exists and like any other Human Potential, use it or lose it applies, across the Spectrum of Humans too.

Sexy People
who are
Free
to Be
JusT
ThaT;
Are the
Happiest
People on Earth;
A Difference Now too in
the Aisles of Super-Walmart
Among those who are Buttoned up or Free;
In Terms of Happy Smiles or SouR Frowns too.

Ain't no Need Now to Be Scared About the Sexual
Revolution; but plenty of Reason to be Depressed
in ways of Creativity; Productivity, in yes, Cognitive
Executive Functioning too; And yes, Social Cooperation
Now Less, if one is not Part of the Sexual Revolution now.
And As i for one Dam sure prove; it Doesn't end at age 58 by
Far by Far; but i am not a "Cold" Person on the Autism Spectrum;
i am 'Hot' in Empathy, Sympathy, Compassion and Cognitive Empathy;
Which means
i am open
Minded
from
Head to toe too;
And Hell yes; an
Extravert When i Like
And Heaven Yes; An Introvert When i Love too.
My Wife not So Much; but opposites Do Attract too;
And that too is how "We" get "Super Heroes" when the
Most Masculine Man Rescues the Most Feminine Damsel
in Distress; And then Leaves her to raise a Son alone with
Love; as the Son is Eventually Forced to Become His own Father
with the Force of Love And Fearless too as that is how the Game of Life goes
from
Dark
to Light, too;

A Pursuit of 'Naked Women' is A Huge Force of All
Human Creativity, Productivity, and Social Cooperation
too; And an Amazing Progenitor of Technology too; Particularly the Information
Highway As Clothed
or
Not.

Oh by A way; this is another one of My Philosophical, Religious,
and Political Special Interests; Not much Interest here, in this Forum About it;
Yeah;
Go
Figure; Historical
Informal Huge Polls
Show 95 Percent of the
Folks who Inhabit 'this place'
Are Introverts; not so much Libido
tHere and More Overall Disgust now
Over Different as the Science of Personality Shows too.

i am more like in the 1 percent of Extraverts, at least where i live; hehe;
And when i'm in the 'Other Mood'; More Like 1 Percent of Introverts too; Around 'here' too..

In other Words, too; Surely, THere Are Exceptions to 'The' 'Rules' Amongst other Folks here too; Free to Be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82GUjPConiE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tA0JQZn-Qw0

https://technofaq.org/posts/2015/02/inf ... n-in-tech/

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Saudi-Ar ... 36612.html

First off, we're talking about different things. I was talking about orgies, in the sense of organized gatherings of people who engage in sexual activities together, a topic that came up in this thread due to kraftiekortie's mention of Renaissance-era Popes who engaged in orgies. In today's world there exist small organized subcultures of people who have orgies NOT involving sexual violence or exploitation, and this is very unlikely to have occurred in past eras. Of course, sexual violence still does happen too, but that's a different topic.

What is your evidence for the alleged rise in rape and sexual assault? Rape rates are notoriously hard to study due to under-reporting, but in general it would appear that the long term trend has been for rape rates to be going down, if anything. See Statistics Show Drop In U.S. Rape Cases By David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, June 19, 2006.

Rape is likely to have been far MORE under-reported before the 1970's than afterward. In the 1970's, thanks to the feminist movement, rape crisis centers were established, and there was at least some attempt to change police procedures to be less re-traumatizing to rape victims. Furthermore, before the 1970's, rape victims themselves were much more stigmatized than they are now, which made reporting even less likely back then.


Crime rates were indeed unusually low (in the United States at least) in the 1950's due to postwar prosperity (again, in the United States), but there had been plenty of previous big crime waves, such as the one in the 1920's and early 1930's due to Prohibition-era gangs.

As for the massive crime wave that started in the 1960's and then peaked in the 1980's (not the 1990's as I erroneously said earlier), it likely had many causes. One of them may be lead poisoning. (See this article, with an update here.)

Another likely cause of the 1960's crime wave was the economic upheavals in the black community. For nearly a century since the Civil War, most black people worked on southern farms, as sharecroppers. In the late 1950's and then throughout the 1960's, vast numbers of sharecroppers lost their jobs due to farm mechanization. So they had to move to cities, where many of them were unable to find other jobs due to racism, hence had little choice but to get involved in drug gangs, etc. The resulting crime wave would probably have been a LOT worse than it was without the War on Poverty and then the advent of Affirmative Action.


Having grown up in that era, I definitely do not agree that the benefits were "scant." Without the positive social changes of the 1960's and 1970's, I personally would have been far worse off, not better off.


In terms of crime, yes, the 1950's were an era of unusually low crime in the U.S.A. As for overall "morality," though, that's debatable. Depends on which moral values you consider most important, I guess.


In your response, you did not answer the above question. I would still be very interested in your thoughts, if any, as to why divorce rates are now lower in the more socially liberal states than in the more socially conservative states. By the way, in what general kind of a place do you live?


Even in the 1700's and early 1800's, married women were, legally speaking, not much different from slaves. This began to change only in around 1839, when Mississippi passed its Women's Married Property Act, and other states followed suit over the next 30 years or so.

Certainly our society has become less patriarchal since then. Another big leap forward was women's suffrage, and still another big leap forward was 1970's feminism. Currently I would say that our society is only vestigially patriarchal, i.e. it retains some patriarchal customs but is not patriarchal overall. There is, however, definitely a threat from the religious right wing (and any Supreme Court justices appointed under its influence) to take us on a great leap backwards.

As recently as the 1950's, sexual morality was thought of largely in terms of male property rights over women. Female pre-marital virginity was still a big, big deal. Rape victims were stigmatized as damaged goods. Such attitudes continue to linger even today, although they are no longer mainstream.


Feminism and the sexual revolution are distinct but definitely intertwined. A good brief history can be found in the Wikipedia article on "Free love". (By the way, "Free Love" in the sense used by the historical Free Love movement is NOT the same thing as what kraftiekortie apparently meant by "Free Love" earlier in this thread.)


Could you give some examples of what you mean by "junk they don't need"?

As I see it, what was going on here was NOT that the products themselves were useless or unnecessary. (On this point, which has been argued by various cultural critics, see Women and the Myth of Consumerism by Ellen Willis, published back in 1970.) Rather, corporations were resorting to desperate measures to get a leg up on their competition in a mass market. Mass markets are always tougher to sell to than either niche markets or small local markets; and, when selling a new product to a mass market, in the era of mass media and information overload, the toughest challenge is simply to get a potential customer's attention. Hence the advent of sexy ads. Hence also the advent of sexy mass media in which ads could be sold.


I haven't yet read that particular book itself, but I've read various online debates inspired by it. I'll have more comments later on what I understand (admittedly second-hand) to be the issues he raised. I need to get to work on other things now.

Regarding Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism:

I haven't read it yet, but I gather that his main complaint is that Americans have lost a sense of community and have developed a tendency to relate to the world as atomized individuals, without concern for future generations or for the well-being of any community.

I happen to agree with these concerns, and I think they have several causes:

1) The increasingly competitive nature of American society. This is primarily an economic problem, but it results in an endless need for self-improvement and validation.

2) Americans' endless migrations. Too many people have had to move away from the place where they grew up in order to find work. Many have had to move multiple times to different parts of the country. This makes it hard to sink deep roots anywhere. It also destroys the EXTENDED family. In most traditional societies, grandparents had a significant role in caring for children. Not so in most families here.

3) Mass culture. Simply by virtue being mass culture, rather than local or subculture-based, it is impersonal. Most people will never meet their favorite musicians, actors, etc. in real life. Therefore, anyone who does NOT also have a deep emotional investment in being part of some smaller, more human-scale subculture (e.g. a religious group, or a small ethnic enclave, or something like the LGBT community, or perhaps even a group devoted to some academic or professional interest, or to some common hobby) will be lost in an impersonal cultural sea, with nothing to care about in any deep, personally meaningful way, except perhaps for the fate of one's own children if one happens to have any.

4) Unrealistic ideas about romantic love, derived from mass culture. This is a complex topic in itself, which I don't have time to go into now.

5) Belief that a world-destroying nuclear war, or some other world-destroying catastrophe, will inevitably happen within one's lifetime or soon afterward. In that case, why even think about any longterm future, rather than just live for the day?

I would NOT blame the advent of (relative) sexual freedom, except insofar as it has fed into #4 above, but that's not intrinsic to sexual freedom itself.

Of course, I would have to read Lasch's book to find out his understanding of the role of big business in shaping culture. I've already stated, in previous posts, my view of this question.