SEXUAL LIBERATION
Say yes, yes, yes! to five decades of ever more freedom, write Virginia Ironside and Kate Wills
From miniskirts to ‘mommy porn’
SEX! The age of sexual freedom began in 1963 according to Philip Larkin’s poem, Annus Mirabilis: “Sexual intercourse began/ In nineteen sixty-three/ (which was rather late for me) – / Between the end of the / ‘Chatterley’ ban / And the Beatles’ first LP.”
The Pill arrived in the ’60s, and women were liberated from the fear of falling pregnant, ushering in a new era of sexual freedom. And goodness, what we’ve been doing with the 50 years since. 1 The miniskirt, 1964: The miniskirt, which Mary Quant named after her favourite car, saw newfound freedom for legs and leg lovers. Quant said: “It wasn’t me… who invented the miniskirt – the girls in the street did it.” 2 Summer of love, 1967: 100 000 bare-breasted, barefoot flower children gathered in the Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco to “make love not war”. But at a price. From 1964 until 1968, the rates of gonorrhea and syphilis in California rose 165 percent. 3 Midnight Cowboy, 1969: A film about a naive male prostitute (which starred Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman pictured below), became the first (and only) X-rated film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. 4 Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), 1969: Sex was out of the bedroom and into the spotlight as the popularity of Dr David Reuben’s sex manual proved, becoming a bestseller in 52 countries and read by 150 million people. Woody Allen, who based a 1972 movie on the book, called sex “the most fun you can have without laughing”. 5 First gay and lesbian pride march, 1970: The first Lesbian and Gay Pride march happened in New York. The first UK Pride march through London was held on July 1, 1972 with about 2 000 participants. By 2010, the event was attended by a million. 6 Fanny Hill finally published, 1970: Never mind Lady Chatterley’s Lover, John Cleland’s Fanny Hill: Memoirs of A Woman of Pleasure (written 1749) was still considered too scandalous for publication in 1963. In 1970 an unexpurgated version of the most frequently banned book in history was published. 7 The Female Eunuch, 1970: Germaine Greer’s seminal text argued that women were separated from their sexuality by the trappings of femininity. She encouraged women to accept their bodies, taste their own menstrual blood and give up monogamy. 8 The Joy of Sex, 1972: The illustrated guide by Alex Comfort was banned in Ireland, removed from libraries in the US and sold 10 million copies. The illustrations were of the artist Charles Raymond and his memorably “bushy-haired” wife. 9 Playboy reaches 7 million, 1972: Founded in 1953 by Hugh Hefner with a $1 000 (about R8 500) loan from his mother, Playboy peaked at a circulation of more than seven million copies. It was also printed in Braille. 10 Last Tangoin Paris, 1972: A middleaged Marlon Brando having sex with Maria Schneider in a bare Paris apartment was hailed as “the most powerfully erotic movie ever made”. Several countries banned it. 11 Playgirl, 1973: The success of the first ever male centrefold – a nude Burt Reynolds lying on a bearskin rug in US Cosmopolitan – inspired Douglas Lambert to come up with a women’s version of Playboy. 12 Masturbation in Mills and Boon, 1973: It wasn’t until the 1970s that unmarried characters could have sex in Mills & Boon novels, but 1973 marks the first masturbation scene. The first oral sex scene came in 1982 in a book called Antigua Kiss. 13 Deep Throat, 1972: Considered the first mainstream porn movie, it was screened in selected cinemas. Despite (and probably because of) numerous obscenity trials, it became the most popular porn movie of all time, banking a reported $600m. 14 The Chippendales, 1979: Founded in Los Angeles by Steve Banerjee as a Broadway-style show that would attract middle-class women, the Chippendales and their polished pecs, bowties and shirt cuffs are now seen by two million people a year. In 1990, Banerjee hired a hitman to murder ex-Chippendales who were starting up a competitive show. He hanged himself in prison in 1994. 15 Internet porn, 1991: Tim BernersLee’s worldwide web has revolutionised the way we communicate, shop and do business. It’s also the largest assemblage of bottoms in the history of the universe. A recent report estimated tha t 30 percent of all web traffic is for adult sites. 16 Madonna, 1992: With the release of her coffee-table book Sex (arty shots of a leather-clad Madge, pictured, straddling a dog) and her album Erotica, Madonna’s controversial message of female sexual empowerment defined her career. And she’s still flashing at 50. 17 Online dating, 1995: Market leader Match.com launched back in 1995, and now millions of people around the world turn to dating websites hoping to find love at first byte. 18 Viagra, 1996: When volunteers testing a drug for high blood pressure reported a suspicious number of erections, pharmaceuticals company Pfizer realised something was up. Literally. 19 The Vagina Monologues, 1996: Drawing on intimate interviews with more than 200 women, Eve Ensler wrote a series of monologues to “celebrate the vagina”. It has been performed in 140 countries. 20 SexandtheCity, 1998: HBO’s comedy about four single women in New York managed to be both funny and (mostly) realistic about sex, thereby spawning legions of fans and two terrible films. 21 Rampant Rabbit, 1998: Though vibrators have been buzzing since Victorian times, they went truly mainstream after Rabbit featured in an episode of SexandtheCity. 22 Broke back Mountain, 2005: It took eight years for the film starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal to find funding and it was first released only to limited cinemas, but eventually “the gay cowboy movie” lassooed boxoffice gold and became one of the most honoured films in cinema history. 23 Slutwalk, 2011: Three thousand women took their “sluttiness” to the streets – marching in bras and panties – in protest after a Toronto police officer suggested that to remain safe, women should “avoid dressing like sluts”. The movement has divided feminists. 24 First gay superhero, 2012: Although there have been doubts about the sexuality of Batman and Robin for years, the first major comic book hero to come out of the cartoon closet was the Green Lantern. After 72 years, DC Comics said Hal Jordan would be reintroduced as a gay, prompting outrage from a Christian family group. 25 Fifty Shades of Grey, 2012: Writer E L James brought BDSM (that’s bondage, dominance and sadomasochism, by the way) to the masses after her smash hit “mommy porn” sold more than 40 million copies around the world, mainly thanks to downloads by e-readers. Could it be the start of a new sexual revolution? Or is it just the same old submissive woman cliché, reworked and repackaged for the age of the Kindle? – The Independent