I've been thinking more about Alfred Kinsey's work....
Alot of people love to point the finger and say that Kinsey's revelations were the beginning of the end, or the start of the sexual revolution, or something to that effect.
But, actually, the "sexual revolution" started much earlier than Kinsey, and was probably bound to happen the more we interacted with the rest of the world.
First, looking at it within the context of the American 20th century, the 1920's could be considered the beginning of the sexual revolution. If we look just at the imagery from that time, we have flappers wearing very short skirts, smoking, cutting their hair....women were doing *far* more to be "liberated" and "free" in their appearance than ever before. Women were also protesting for their right to vote and were, in record numbers, working outside the home in office jobs that had previously been occupied by men. Middle class girls, not just poor farm girls looking for a way off the farm, were seeking employment and moving out of the parental nest before they were married....
Why, then, might have all this started in the 1920's? Perhaps it had to do with young men going off to Europe during WWI and encountering sex in a context that did not exist in America. Sex and sexual mores on the Continent were always diferent from England...
Let's face it...England, the base from which this country evolved, was never Continental Europe. England was always a bit behind the Continent--its own Renaissance occuring several decades after the official Renaissance in Italy--and its ideas about literature, religion and art as well as sex, were quite a bit different from those that existed on the Continent. (Evidence of this can be seen in the poetry of England, which lagged far beind the poetry of Italy, and was immitative of it after certain poetic styles had already faded from favor in Italy.)
So, let's not just blame the Puritans for American sexual repression. They're an easy whipping boy, but they weren't responsible for the entire Thirteen Colonies and can't truly be held responsible for the whole of American thinking about sex. The total of American sexual repression has just as much to do with our cultural ancestors coming from an island nation isolated from the customs, commerce and mores of the Continent as much as it does from Puritan repression.
So, Americans, raised under the strange parentalism of British culture, can be said, in general, to historically hold very immature and restrictive ideas about sex and sexuality.
Perhaps what we consider a "sexual revolution" is, in the larger picture, only English-speaking peoples finally catching up with their Continental brethren.
Wish I had the time and cash to pursue this further....anybody got funding??
Alot of people love to point the finger and say that Kinsey's revelations were the beginning of the end, or the start of the sexual revolution, or something to that effect.
But, actually, the "sexual revolution" started much earlier than Kinsey, and was probably bound to happen the more we interacted with the rest of the world.
First, looking at it within the context of the American 20th century, the 1920's could be considered the beginning of the sexual revolution. If we look just at the imagery from that time, we have flappers wearing very short skirts, smoking, cutting their hair....women were doing *far* more to be "liberated" and "free" in their appearance than ever before. Women were also protesting for their right to vote and were, in record numbers, working outside the home in office jobs that had previously been occupied by men. Middle class girls, not just poor farm girls looking for a way off the farm, were seeking employment and moving out of the parental nest before they were married....
Why, then, might have all this started in the 1920's? Perhaps it had to do with young men going off to Europe during WWI and encountering sex in a context that did not exist in America. Sex and sexual mores on the Continent were always diferent from England...
Let's face it...England, the base from which this country evolved, was never Continental Europe. England was always a bit behind the Continent--its own Renaissance occuring several decades after the official Renaissance in Italy--and its ideas about literature, religion and art as well as sex, were quite a bit different from those that existed on the Continent. (Evidence of this can be seen in the poetry of England, which lagged far beind the poetry of Italy, and was immitative of it after certain poetic styles had already faded from favor in Italy.)
So, let's not just blame the Puritans for American sexual repression. They're an easy whipping boy, but they weren't responsible for the entire Thirteen Colonies and can't truly be held responsible for the whole of American thinking about sex. The total of American sexual repression has just as much to do with our cultural ancestors coming from an island nation isolated from the customs, commerce and mores of the Continent as much as it does from Puritan repression.
So, Americans, raised under the strange parentalism of British culture, can be said, in general, to historically hold very immature and restrictive ideas about sex and sexuality.
Perhaps what we consider a "sexual revolution" is, in the larger picture, only English-speaking peoples finally catching up with their Continental brethren.
Wish I had the time and cash to pursue this further....anybody got funding??
posted by Tish Grier at 10:26 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home