11. BEAT - Kinsey
INTRODUCTION: An Unexpected Challenge.
- In this chapter we have look at the growth and development of voices in the media who were speaking out against the conservative stranglehold that gripped 1950's America.
- We have a look at Lenny Bruce the stand up comedian who shocked Americans with his blunt and crude humor.
- Lenny Bruce was supported by the likes of Hugh Hefner who justified his soft porn magazine Playboy by championing racial issues and homesexuality.
- An unexpected support for the cause came from an academic Alfred Kinsey
- Kinsey was struggling with his own sexuality and highly personal reasons for studying sexuality.
- We have a look at Kinsey's story and eventually how he ended up chatting to Herbert Hunke at the Angle bar in New York.
- The Kinsey report and its immediate effect on the public
- Was the kinsey report a success or not?
There were a few early signs in the conservative havens of America that not all was going as expected, but who could have predicted that a real challenge to the status quo would come from the hallowed halls of academia?
Liberalism and the Media
1.The Groundswell of Liberalism
INTRODUCTION: An Unexpected Challenge.
- In this chapter we have look at the growth and development of voices in the media who were speaking out against the conservative stranglehold that gripped 1950's America.
- We have a look at Lenny Bruce the stand up comedian who shocked Americans with his blunt and crude humor.
- Lenny Bruce was supported by the likes of Hugh Hefner who justified his soft porn magazine Playboy by championing racial issues and homesexuality.
- An unexpected support for the cause came from an academic Alfred Kinsey
- Kinsey was struggling with his own sexuality and highly personal reasons for studying sexuality.
- We have a look at Kinsey's story and eventually how he ended up chatting to Herbert Hunke at the Angle bar in New York.
- The Kinsey report and its immediate effect on the public
- Was the kinsey report a success or not?
 |
There were a few early signs in the conservative havens of America that not all was going as expected, but who could have predicted that a real challenge to the status quo would come from the hallowed halls of academia?Liberalism and the Media |
1.The Groundswell of Liberalism
Liberal thinking or leftist ideology and politics are so polarised these days that they seem to exist in two completely different planets. But in the 1950's it was not as clear cut a division as we understand it today, there was the prevailing point of view which was generally regarded as correct and accepted by most people, who considered themselves decent, and even by those who didn't, if they didn't live in it, they were conscious that they were judged by the system and were found wanting.
Where were the voices of these lost sheep dissenters heard? Perhaps they were only available in pulp fiction magazines and books and in independent radio stations, and nightclubs and on the streets of New York, but not in mainstream media outlets at all.
Were there any books dealing with taboo subjects? D.H. Lawrence wrote a book
Lady Chatterley's Lover, first published privately in 1928 in Italy, and in 1929 in France and Australia. It was not published in the United Kingdom until 1960! He was dealing with not only a scandalous sexual liaison but also crossing over a class divide! Of course there are many pieces of literature written in the early part of the 20th Century attacking prevailing views on class, sexuality religion, but these were European and not well read and accepted in post war America and should they have been they were largely found in various literature collections among the universities or some wealthy elitists dusty shelves.
Subjects like Sex were totally Taboo and no-one discussed anything to do with it in polite company much less heard anything as such in the media. This outlook was radically altered in subsequent decades but in the 1950's not many dared to go against the grain.
There was one public arena where shocking thoughts were aired publicly, a place that began to be used as a means to express the frustration and hangups of everyday people. This was in the nightclub scene where a few stand up comics shocked and thrilled progressive audiences with their risqué and bawdy humour. We still find remnants of this in stand up humor today, but the shock value that was keenly felt in the 1950's, has obviously worn thin long long ago.
American comedian Lenny Bruce (1926 - 1966) performs on stage with exotic dancer Windee
2. Lenny Bruce's "Stream of Consciousness".
A classic example of this was an aspiring New York comedian who has become somewhat of a posthumous legend today.
His name was Lenny Bruce and in order for his comedic routine to stand out amidst the plethora of would be entertainers of the day he used a "stream of consciousness" technique in which he would use a spontaneous form of unrehearsed discourse in which he would let himself flow in a continuous stream of dialogue in which he would eventually get so caught up in that he would not be in control of what he was going to say next so that sometimes he surprised himself with the kind of ideas and phrases that "delighted him, cracked him up — as if he were a spectator at his own performance!"
He described this as using dialogue like a musician used Jazz - a loose structure with plenty of room for improvisation and spontaneity. This was a far cry from the carefully scripted and sanitized performances of Bob Hope and Lucille Ball the big comedic names of the day.
3. Lenny and "Sick Humour"
Lenny Bruce struggled for recognition because of his "sick humour" and found himself being repeatedly under arrest because of obscenity. However, it is his approach to humour and stand up comedy that has lasted and for better or worse, is really the, (perhaps outworn), approach we see most commonly today. He was a troubled soul and apparently died of an overdose of morphine in 1966.
This comedic tradition is very old actually and brings to mind the old days when the court jester was able to mock the king and aristocrats under the protection of his jester licence, but he had to be very careful of overstepping the line. In our modern world this kind of Licence has steadily been abused since this time to the total desensitisation of audiences today. But in the 1950's it was shocking - very shocking and Bruce was arrested more than once for what we would consider very innocuous statements by today's standards.
But this simply illustrates where the journey we began back then has carried us. Are we free now? Does all this freedom of expression the Beat poets and many others such as Bruce were so passionately fighting for finally given us the society they were all dreaming of? On the other hand would it have been preferable to remain the way the conservatives were, ignorant and naive about matters of sexuality and denying what people struggled with in their hearts and minds as if they just didn't exist?
Interestingly during the 50's, there was nothing to link Bruce's stream of consciousness to Jack Kerouac's when a clear parallel is apparent. They probably would have not have seen any connection whatsoever, as this is a hindsite observation. Kerouac was just like Bruce simply writing in prose form what so many were thinking but could not say, which again, was so refreshing to many and so shocking to others.
4. Support for Lenny
One of Bruce's supporters was (predictably) Hugh Hefner who launched PlayBoy magazine in 1953 with Marilyn Monroe gracing the cover from her 1949 nude calender shoot. Hefner was already in dangerous territory but would cleverly ingratiate himself to elitists by promoting racial issues as well as speaking out about acceptance of homosexuality, the groundswell for liberalism was gaining momentum and so the atmosphere was ripe for an academic response from the likes of Kinsey.
Perhaps Hugh Hefner was not the ideal recourse for educating the people on matters of sexuality
As we have already learned, it was Hunke who introduced Kinsey to Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs. Kinsey had met Huncke at the Angle Bar and had been interviewed by him about his colorful sex life, he was then subsequently hired to recruit other colorful subjects for Kinsey to study.
Where were the voices of these lost sheep dissenters heard? Perhaps they were only available in pulp fiction magazines and books and in independent radio stations, and nightclubs and on the streets of New York, but not in mainstream media outlets at all.
Were there any books dealing with taboo subjects? D.H. Lawrence wrote a book
Lady Chatterley's Lover, first published privately in 1928 in Italy, and in 1929 in France and Australia. It was not published in the United Kingdom until 1960! He was dealing with not only a scandalous sexual liaison but also crossing over a class divide! Of course there are many pieces of literature written in the early part of the 20th Century attacking prevailing views on class, sexuality religion, but these were European and not well read and accepted in post war America and should they have been they were largely found in various literature collections among the universities or some wealthy elitists dusty shelves.
Subjects like Sex were totally Taboo and no-one discussed anything to do with it in polite company much less heard anything as such in the media. This outlook was radically altered in subsequent decades but in the 1950's not many dared to go against the grain.
There was one public arena where shocking thoughts were aired publicly, a place that began to be used as a means to express the frustration and hangups of everyday people. This was in the nightclub scene where a few stand up comics shocked and thrilled progressive audiences with their risqué and bawdy humour. We still find remnants of this in stand up humor today, but the shock value that was keenly felt in the 1950's, has obviously worn thin long long ago.
 |
| American comedian Lenny Bruce (1926 - 1966) performs on stage with exotic dancer Windee |
2. Lenny Bruce's "Stream of Consciousness".
A classic example of this was an aspiring New York comedian who has become somewhat of a posthumous legend today.
His name was Lenny Bruce and in order for his comedic routine to stand out amidst the plethora of would be entertainers of the day he used a "stream of consciousness" technique in which he would use a spontaneous form of unrehearsed discourse in which he would let himself flow in a continuous stream of dialogue in which he would eventually get so caught up in that he would not be in control of what he was going to say next so that sometimes he surprised himself with the kind of ideas and phrases that "delighted him, cracked him up — as if he were a spectator at his own performance!"
He described this as using dialogue like a musician used Jazz - a loose structure with plenty of room for improvisation and spontaneity. This was a far cry from the carefully scripted and sanitized performances of Bob Hope and Lucille Ball the big comedic names of the day.
3. Lenny and "Sick Humour"
Lenny Bruce struggled for recognition because of his "sick humour" and found himself being repeatedly under arrest because of obscenity. However, it is his approach to humour and stand up comedy that has lasted and for better or worse, is really the, (perhaps outworn), approach we see most commonly today. He was a troubled soul and apparently died of an overdose of morphine in 1966.
This comedic tradition is very old actually and brings to mind the old days when the court jester was able to mock the king and aristocrats under the protection of his jester licence, but he had to be very careful of overstepping the line. In our modern world this kind of Licence has steadily been abused since this time to the total desensitisation of audiences today. But in the 1950's it was shocking - very shocking and Bruce was arrested more than once for what we would consider very innocuous statements by today's standards.
But this simply illustrates where the journey we began back then has carried us. Are we free now? Does all this freedom of expression the Beat poets and many others such as Bruce were so passionately fighting for finally given us the society they were all dreaming of? On the other hand would it have been preferable to remain the way the conservatives were, ignorant and naive about matters of sexuality and denying what people struggled with in their hearts and minds as if they just didn't exist?
Interestingly during the 50's, there was nothing to link Bruce's stream of consciousness to Jack Kerouac's when a clear parallel is apparent. They probably would have not have seen any connection whatsoever, as this is a hindsite observation. Kerouac was just like Bruce simply writing in prose form what so many were thinking but could not say, which again, was so refreshing to many and so shocking to others.
4. Support for Lenny
One of Bruce's supporters was (predictably) Hugh Hefner who launched PlayBoy magazine in 1953 with Marilyn Monroe gracing the cover from her 1949 nude calender shoot. Hefner was already in dangerous territory but would cleverly ingratiate himself to elitists by promoting racial issues as well as speaking out about acceptance of homosexuality, the groundswell for liberalism was gaining momentum and so the atmosphere was ripe for an academic response from the likes of Kinsey.
 |
| Perhaps Hugh Hefner was not the ideal recourse for educating the people on matters of sexuality |
As we have already learned, it was Hunke who introduced Kinsey to Kerouac, Ginsberg and Burroughs. Kinsey had met Huncke at the Angle Bar and had been interviewed by him about his colorful sex life, he was then subsequently hired to recruit other colorful subjects for Kinsey to study.
The Kinsey Report
1. Alfred Kinsey was an academic, not a street hustler or a rebellious New York wannabe writer.
This gave a respectable and hence far more accessible entry into a hitherto forbidden area. The entry point for Kinsey was the education of a healthy and well informed society. Clearly the repressive attitudes of the day were based on ignorance and prejudice, hardly a positive situation for an enlightened and modern society. Certainly an objective and scientific study was needed and was long overdue.
But Kinsey was not altogether as cold an objective an academic as he would have like the American people to believe. He had also had his own, personal reasons, for such a study.
As we shall learn Kinsey had questions that he desperately needed answers to, and for him, this study of human sexuality was in fact highly personal.
It all began, we are told, when Kinsey started a "marriage course" at Indiana University, where he was professor of entomology and zoology, in order to answer some nagging questions by his students. He was amazed at the level of ignorance fear and superstition that he encountered among the students. During this time, Kinsey’s study into the subject of sex increased and he began collecting sex histories to strengthen his research.
Some disturbing statistics he gathered at the time were. . . 96% of young Americans had never heard the word "masturbation", and when told what it meant, 40% believed it caused insanity, impotence and/or blindness. Marital guides were not particularly helpful when they advised things like oral sex as gateways to hell.
2. But . . . Alfred Kinsey was not all he appeared to be.
At some stage in his formative years he discovered that he had a sexual preference for males rather than females. Like many other homosexuals of his day, he firstly denied it and got married, they even managed to have four children. But he was unable to keep these urges under control and his study of human sexuality provided him with the kind of license he needed to spend time with homosexuals for "research purposes".
There is no question that Kinsey must have gone through a tortuous youth, trying to fit in but being conscious that he was "different". Trying to get to grips with his sexuality in a society of judgement and intolerance, unable to communicate with a father who was apparently distant and estranged, meant carrying a heavy load without anybody to share it with. His parents were very religious conservative his father, a stern and prominent member of the local Church could never countenance any such deviant behavior in his son.
Was his father aware of his son's struggles with homosexuality? Their relationship was clearly not good whether he knew about it or not. This we know because when Kinsey graduated as a Biologist, his father refused to attend his graduation, the reason was given that he wanted his son to follow his footsteps in technology. Adding insult to injury, his father also refused to attend his son's wedding! Did he know something? We are not told but his aloof attitude can't have done much to assuage his tortured son's inner conflict.
The Kinsey's - All American Family, Great example of "appearances are everything"
3. Taboo or not Taboo
Was there a sense of guilt and rejection that Kinsey felt? And if so would he have suffered enormously? He was living a double life, a public life in which he was a family man and a well known academic, and then there was this secret life and longing for all kinds of forbidden and socially abhorrent behavior. Did he act out on it? Secretly going out on some kind of pretext and finding some kind of outlet, whilst at the same time fearing being discovered and exposed? could bring complete ruin on his otherwise highly successful career.
Perhaps this made him terribly conflicted and unhappy at first, but later anger and then defiance and justification. This is a simplification but we see at some stage Kinsey removes all allegiance to his past and his families beliefs. He rejects his father's accusing finger and the angry Judgemental God his father served and essentially devoted his life to justifying his sexual proclivity as "normal". But in order to do so he seems to have built a carefully crafted "cover" for himself to operate his Jekyll and Hyde existence.
4. In time there must have been a tipping point for young Kinsey.
When we follow his career, after he had qualified as a university professor. He was commissioned to write an official text book on Biology to be used in Schools, in this book he propagates the theory of evolution as if it is scientific fact. This might seem a moot point, but it must be remembered that this is still at the time when evolution vs creation was still being hotly debated in academic circles. Kinsey made a decision to stand with the Darwinists and replaces the Christianity of his parents with the popular modernist theory of the day. Evolution theory explains the origin of life as having evolved from random acts of chance, so awkward issues in human sexuality are irrelevant in this model of reality and so he was finally and conveniently freed from any nagging guilt he may have suffered from his youth. Kinsey was now off the hook and free to experiment and play with his sexuality without the great finger of God and his father pointing at him.
The next part of the plan was to arrange with his wife to have an open marriage to which she agreed (willingly? or also to preserve the "outward appearances?) to his homosexual liaisons and was free to have relations with other men if she so wished. Did she so wish? Perhaps she would have preferred just the one relationship with her . . . husband? Kinsey certainly would not have wanted even more guilt and condemnation and so was spurred on the create a world in which he could act out his compulsions undisturbed. So determined to maintain his outward appearance to the public he manipulated events in his life to live out his sexual desires under the respectable academic cloak he constructed.
5. The Launch of the Kinsey Report
On April 8, 1947, Kinsey and his research staff was launched as the Institute for Sex Research (ISR). The new institute was located in IU's Biology Hall (now Swain Hall East). Kinsey embarked upon conducting interviews with volunteers and collating the information into what would eventually be his first volume summarizing what he had learned.
So now we now arrive at full circle with Kinsey sipping cocktails at the Angle Bar in Central Plaza in New York interviewing a local rentboy Herbert Hunke. It was all above board as the professor was busy doing research for his forthcoming publication on the sexual habits of the modern American.
Kinsey's first book about sexuality The 1948 first edition of "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male", the first of the two Kinsey Reports, was naturally loudly condemned by conservatives. The first shot in the ideological war had been fired.
6. This book certainly attracted a lot of attention, which was sharply polarized.
Angry conservatives predicted dire consequences of degeneracy and the degrading of the American people. Others welcomed the opportunity to speak openly of a taboo subject, they felt that a civilised country should be able to explore a complex topic with honesty and without fear and prejudice. The ignorance surrounding the subject was surely counterproductive and this was at least a responsible academic study.
1. Alfred Kinsey was an academic, not a street hustler or a rebellious New York wannabe writer.
This gave a respectable and hence far more accessible entry into a hitherto forbidden area. The entry point for Kinsey was the education of a healthy and well informed society. Clearly the repressive attitudes of the day were based on ignorance and prejudice, hardly a positive situation for an enlightened and modern society. Certainly an objective and scientific study was needed and was long overdue.
But Kinsey was not altogether as cold an objective an academic as he would have like the American people to believe. He had also had his own, personal reasons, for such a study.
As we shall learn Kinsey had questions that he desperately needed answers to, and for him, this study of human sexuality was in fact highly personal.
But Kinsey was not altogether as cold an objective an academic as he would have like the American people to believe. He had also had his own, personal reasons, for such a study.
As we shall learn Kinsey had questions that he desperately needed answers to, and for him, this study of human sexuality was in fact highly personal.
Some disturbing statistics he gathered at the time were. . . 96% of young Americans had never heard the word "masturbation", and when told what it meant, 40% believed it caused insanity, impotence and/or blindness. Marital guides were not particularly helpful when they advised things like oral sex as gateways to hell.
2. But . . . Alfred Kinsey was not all he appeared to be.
At some stage in his formative years he discovered that he had a sexual preference for males rather than females. Like many other homosexuals of his day, he firstly denied it and got married, they even managed to have four children. But he was unable to keep these urges under control and his study of human sexuality provided him with the kind of license he needed to spend time with homosexuals for "research purposes".There is no question that Kinsey must have gone through a tortuous youth, trying to fit in but being conscious that he was "different". Trying to get to grips with his sexuality in a society of judgement and intolerance, unable to communicate with a father who was apparently distant and estranged, meant carrying a heavy load without anybody to share it with. His parents were very religious conservative his father, a stern and prominent member of the local Church could never countenance any such deviant behavior in his son.
Was his father aware of his son's struggles with homosexuality? Their relationship was clearly not good whether he knew about it or not. This we know because when Kinsey graduated as a Biologist, his father refused to attend his graduation, the reason was given that he wanted his son to follow his footsteps in technology. Adding insult to injury, his father also refused to attend his son's wedding! Did he know something? We are not told but his aloof attitude can't have done much to assuage his tortured son's inner conflict.
 |
| The Kinsey's - All American Family, Great example of "appearances are everything" |
3. Taboo or not Taboo
Was there a sense of guilt and rejection that Kinsey felt? And if so would he have suffered enormously? He was living a double life, a public life in which he was a family man and a well known academic, and then there was this secret life and longing for all kinds of forbidden and socially abhorrent behavior. Did he act out on it? Secretly going out on some kind of pretext and finding some kind of outlet, whilst at the same time fearing being discovered and exposed? could bring complete ruin on his otherwise highly successful career.
Perhaps this made him terribly conflicted and unhappy at first, but later anger and then defiance and justification. This is a simplification but we see at some stage Kinsey removes all allegiance to his past and his families beliefs. He rejects his father's accusing finger and the angry Judgemental God his father served and essentially devoted his life to justifying his sexual proclivity as "normal". But in order to do so he seems to have built a carefully crafted "cover" for himself to operate his Jekyll and Hyde existence.
Perhaps this made him terribly conflicted and unhappy at first, but later anger and then defiance and justification. This is a simplification but we see at some stage Kinsey removes all allegiance to his past and his families beliefs. He rejects his father's accusing finger and the angry Judgemental God his father served and essentially devoted his life to justifying his sexual proclivity as "normal". But in order to do so he seems to have built a carefully crafted "cover" for himself to operate his Jekyll and Hyde existence.
4. In time there must have been a tipping point for young Kinsey.
When we follow his career, after he had qualified as a university professor. He was commissioned to write an official text book on Biology to be used in Schools, in this book he propagates the theory of evolution as if it is scientific fact. This might seem a moot point, but it must be remembered that this is still at the time when evolution vs creation was still being hotly debated in academic circles. Kinsey made a decision to stand with the Darwinists and replaces the Christianity of his parents with the popular modernist theory of the day. Evolution theory explains the origin of life as having evolved from random acts of chance, so awkward issues in human sexuality are irrelevant in this model of reality and so he was finally and conveniently freed from any nagging guilt he may have suffered from his youth. Kinsey was now off the hook and free to experiment and play with his sexuality without the great finger of God and his father pointing at him.
The next part of the plan was to arrange with his wife to have an open marriage to which she agreed (willingly? or also to preserve the "outward appearances?) to his homosexual liaisons and was free to have relations with other men if she so wished. Did she so wish? Perhaps she would have preferred just the one relationship with her . . . husband? Kinsey certainly would not have wanted even more guilt and condemnation and so was spurred on the create a world in which he could act out his compulsions undisturbed. So determined to maintain his outward appearance to the public he manipulated events in his life to live out his sexual desires under the respectable academic cloak he constructed.
5. The Launch of the Kinsey Report
On April 8, 1947, Kinsey and his research staff was launched as the Institute for Sex Research (ISR). The new institute was located in IU's Biology Hall (now Swain Hall East). Kinsey embarked upon conducting interviews with volunteers and collating the information into what would eventually be his first volume summarizing what he had learned.
So now we now arrive at full circle with Kinsey sipping cocktails at the Angle Bar in Central Plaza in New York interviewing a local rentboy Herbert Hunke. It was all above board as the professor was busy doing research for his forthcoming publication on the sexual habits of the modern American.
|
| Kinsey's first book about sexuality The 1948 first edition of "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male", the first of the two Kinsey Reports, was naturally loudly condemned by conservatives. The first shot in the ideological war had been fired. |
6. This book certainly attracted a lot of attention, which was sharply polarized.
Angry conservatives predicted dire consequences of degeneracy and the degrading of the American people. Others welcomed the opportunity to speak openly of a taboo subject, they felt that a civilised country should be able to explore a complex topic with honesty and without fear and prejudice. The ignorance surrounding the subject was surely counterproductive and this was at least a responsible academic study.
It is these kinds of publications that stirred the American imagination to a whole new world "out there". All this hushing up of anything to do with sex was wearing thin on the newly educated kids brought up on materialism and not particularly concerned with religious taboos. These were curious young adults wanting to find out what the big secret was and were prepared to disobey their old fashioned parents to find out.
Many parents and the older generation in general felt threatened by what they believed to be moral decay, but the new generation of teenagers looked at their elders and saw a great deal of hypocrisy and double standards. They felt a need for openness and freedom of expression was a far more liberating and healthy approach to living life to the fullest.
There gulf between the two generations began to broaden and for the first time we begin to hear about a new concept in demographics. This is the beginnings of what was going to be dubbed "the generation gap".
Many parents and the older generation in general felt threatened by what they believed to be moral decay, but the new generation of teenagers looked at their elders and saw a great deal of hypocrisy and double standards. They felt a need for openness and freedom of expression was a far more liberating and healthy approach to living life to the fullest.
There gulf between the two generations began to broaden and for the first time we begin to hear about a new concept in demographics. This is the beginnings of what was going to be dubbed "the generation gap".
 |
| Dr. Alfred Kinsey lecturing at UC Berkeley, 1949 (The Guardian) Seems to have been a popular elective for that year. . . |
How could he know if his participants weren't just making up stories about themselves, exaggerating or just lying? Also it was regionally made, do people react the same in totally different regions of the US? Also he failed to add the contributions of blacks or any other racial groups to his program severely limiting his findings.
7. The Benefits
But he had succeeded in blowing the lid off a old world view of human sexuality. This world view developed in Europe during the 18th Century - there is much evidence to say previous centuries were not as Prudish or remotely as close - minded as late 19th C England. What is quite remarkable is the Victorian era is remembered for also having been a time when Prostitution was at an all time historic high, a rather ironic state of affairs for such a conservative era.
It is this hypocritical conservatism that had been exported to the US and seems to have gained a strong foothold in the colonies. There was a new revival of it in the postwar prosperity in the families of the new suburban paradise. It was propagated that this was how it had always been - it was the ideal of the "good old days". But in fact, this was a totally new kind of conservatism that was not healthy or even old - it was simply a new conservatism that was built on a strict morality that had no bases in religious convictions, it was all superficial, a tradition with no substance.
Of course it would not last and as soon as the new baby boomer generation became old enough to reason for themselves, they rejected it.
How could he know if his participants weren't just making up stories about themselves, exaggerating or just lying? Also it was regionally made, do people react the same in totally different regions of the US? Also he failed to add the contributions of blacks or any other racial groups to his program severely limiting his findings.
7. The Benefits
But he had succeeded in blowing the lid off a old world view of human sexuality. This world view developed in Europe during the 18th Century - there is much evidence to say previous centuries were not as Prudish or remotely as close - minded as late 19th C England. What is quite remarkable is the Victorian era is remembered for also having been a time when Prostitution was at an all time historic high, a rather ironic state of affairs for such a conservative era.
It is this hypocritical conservatism that had been exported to the US and seems to have gained a strong foothold in the colonies. There was a new revival of it in the postwar prosperity in the families of the new suburban paradise. It was propagated that this was how it had always been - it was the ideal of the "good old days". But in fact, this was a totally new kind of conservatism that was not healthy or even old - it was simply a new conservatism that was built on a strict morality that had no bases in religious convictions, it was all superficial, a tradition with no substance.
Of course it would not last and as soon as the new baby boomer generation became old enough to reason for themselves, they rejected it.
Of course it would not last and as soon as the new baby boomer generation became old enough to reason for themselves, they rejected it.
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