The History of Sexuality in America

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Porn: Should it be allowed?

Bethany Cooper

Scientists have recently studied to find that porn changes the brain, affects your behavior, and becomes addictive.[1] Is it so harmless after all? Many believe porn has no side effects at all, but do we truly realize the impact watching porn can have on our lives? Addiction is a lot more serious than we realize and porn can be much more addictive than we think. Porn only escalates as well. Scientists have proven as well that when someone actively watches porn regularly that a viewer gradually becomes desensitized to that level porn. This causes a continuous need for more graphic and severe porn. This also allows a person to see these acts as “normal,” which allows them to view or commit these acts without concern.1

This can definitely be hazardous. I personally believe that nothing good comes out of porn. Porn is unnecessary and negative. What is the point of watching something as a “tease”? This is an unhealthy act which I believe shouldn’t be practiced by anyone. Porn is quite sickening and I think that those kind of sexual acts should only be shared between those people, instead of shown off to the world. Porn is one of the biggest industries in the world. With $10 billion to $14 billion in annual sales,[2] people have forgotten what really matters in these scenarios. Have we forgotten about the ill morals that porn shows? Child pornography and women’s abuse to create pornography is saddening and no dollar could compare to the wrong that is done to create these “works of art.” Another validation of porn use is to get “ideas” for one’s own sexual experiments. If someone wants to know something that bad, why can’t we have a simple discussion on it? Why must we silently let this slide by when we know the negative effects that porn has presented to our society? This shows our lack in priorities that money could ever come before the health of our own children and women. I say we should put a stop to the use of porn on all occasions. Think about all the incidents we could prevent by simply stopping one unhealthy hobby practiced by so many of our fellow citizens. It’s wrong and I truly hope people will start putting these ideas into consideration when creating, promoting, or viewing pornography of any kind. Maybe then we can help make our world safer.

[1] "GET THE FACTS." Get the Facts. http://www.fightthenewdrug.org/get-the-facts/#porn-is-addictive (accessed April 30, 2014).

[2] Ackman, Dan. "How Big Is Porn?." Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/2001/05/25/0524porn.html (accessed April 30, 2014).

Petting Parties by :Syeda Campbell

History of petting parties

History of sex in the U.S is very interesting. According to Professor Crystal Moore, sex has been swinging on a pendulum between conservative and liberal for many decades, but what does that really mean? Well, that means that despite any views it has everybody is talking about SEX. So many things have changed from the conservative late 1800’s to liberal times in the early 1900’s. Sexual liberalism was huge during the 1920-40’s and everybody was jumping on this new way of life. [i]

Sex was new and fresh again to the people in the 1920-40’s. Women roles in society started to gradually change and they started to become more independent. Several Major changes occurred in America, such like increasing immigration forms of sexuality, people from other countries started to expose their sexual liberalism to Americans, and the economy changed because of Pink Collar jobs. Women were now being targeted in the economy. [ii]

National public culture started and changed the minds of the youth. This movement told young people how to date and what actually should consist of dating. Women should dress a certain way, men should take women out on dates, and most importantly to show your male date as a women that you appreciated the date. You would pet him. Petting was extremely popular during this era. Some of it was very innocent, meaning the couple would only make out with each other, but sometimes it could be very sexual with the couple going to “second base”. Cars were a need during this time. A man had real social status if he had a car. With a car a young men could pick up his date and take her around town. This also almost guaranteed petting at the end of the date because there was some kind of privacy for the couple.

Dating was new and totally different from courting. It was done privately and it wasn't done for love. Marriage did come from dating, but it wasn't rushed during this time because young people wanted to hold on to their youth for as long as they could.

The new culture movement of dating started a culture of petting parties. These parties consisted of young people making out and touching each other in a room of other peers. Flappers were introduced in this time as well. [iii]Petting parties became the past time in colleges in the 20’s. Many women reported kissing many men during their college years. Hookups weren't talked about out loud, but that does not mean that it wasn’t happening. Remember that this is the 20-40’s so this was during our grandparent’s time. I may never look at my Grandparents the same just saying. Petting parties were beginning to change to be more erotic.

Sex parties grew over time and were called key parties in the 70’s. A show called “ That 70’S Show” had an episode of parents of the main character going to a swingers party by accident which was called a key party. The show gave it a comedic spin, but this was the culture in the 70’s. Men threw their keys into bowls and women would pick them out, whomever key the women took, was the one she would hook up with that night. Today key parties still exist, but are better known as lock and key parties. [iv]

Over time sex parties grew to be more and more erotic. It started off as a group of young adults kissing each other in a small room, to underground clubs where people have full out orgies. So what does this mean for us? Well if the pendulum keeps swinging form liberal to conservative like Professor Moore say’s then maybe we are going back to conservative very soon. So until then enjoy as much sexual liberation as you can!!!

[i] Moore, Crystal . "Beyond Reproduction." Lecture, Class from UNCC, , May 15, 2014.

[ii] Moore, Crystal . "Beyond Reproduction." Lecture, Class from UNCC, , May 15, 2014.

[iii] parker, Mrs. "Running Wild: College students in the 1920's." . http://www.flapperjane.com/September%2004/running_wild.htm (accessed April 28, 2014).

[iv] Miller, Jen. "I did it for science." Key Parties. http://www.nerve.com/love-sex/i-did-it-for-science/i-did-it-for-science-key-party (accessed April 29, 2014).

The 1969 Woodstock Festival

By: Mary Daugherty

Woodstock was a three-day concert (which eventually turned into four days) that has become an icon for the 1960s free love movement and hippie counter culture. The concert involved a lot of drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Four young men organized Woodstock. One of the young men was the heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, which he planned to invest in order to make more money. The original plan of the young men was to create a recording studio and retreat for musicians in Woodstock, New York, where some big rock musicians already lived. Their original plan was to have a three-day concert in order to raise money for their recording studio. [[1]]

Many things went wrong during Woodstock, one of which being the location. The men were having trouble finding a location that was willing to allow a bunch of hippies who were doing drugs onto their property. Eventually the original location of the concert banned the young men from having their concert there. About a month before the concert Max Yasgur offered up his 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York for the new location of the Woodstock Festival.[2] This last minute change put them behind in their planning of the concert. Because they had less time to set up, not all of the fences were put up in time and the concert was eventually made into a free concert, attracting even more people. The original 50,000-person concert quickly turned into a concert with around 500,000 people in attendance. [3]

In spite of the insane crowds and hour-long waits just to use the bathroom, Woodstock turned out to be a huge success. There were a lot of drugs, sex, and nudity at the concert and it is a great example of the spreading of the Free Love movement. Even though the men who threw the concert ended up in debt and face multiple lawsuits, the Woodstock Festival was eventually turned into a hit movie, which the men profited from.

Woodstock is one of the most memorable events from the late 60s. It was a great example of how people were becoming more open minded with their views on sexuality. People in this time period were no longer interested in settling down and starting families like previous generations had been. Woodstock ties into what we have been learning in class because it is a great icon of the hippie era. This era helped change the views on sexuality in America as people started becoming more liberal. Since the county had just gone through a very conservative era, the liberal views expressed in this time period had a large impact on the history of sexuality overall.

[1] "Woodstock-Preservation Archives." Woodstock Preservation. N.p., 5 Mar. 2002. Web. 29 Apr. 2014. http://www.woodstockpreservation.org/SignificanceStatement.htm

²"Woodstock-Preservation Archives." Woodstock Preservation. N.p., 5 Mar. 2002. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.http://www.woodstockpreservation.org/SignificanceStatement.htm

3 "Woodstock-Preservation Archives." Woodstock Preservation. N.p., 5 Mar. 2002. Web. 29 Apr. 2014http://www.woodstockpreservation.org/SignificanceStatement.htm

Sandstone Retreat

The Sandstone Retreat
By, Ryan Carpenter

The Sandstone retreat, also known as Sandstone Foundation For Community Systems Research was a community created in 1969 that promoted free sexuality. The retreat was made legal by the court as a growth center after a two year court fight costing them $10,000 [1]. The founders of Sandstone Retreat, John and Barbara Williamson believed "in the sexual self being at the core of organized social behavior." This seems to be mostly correct to me considering there the theme that sex sells that is in multitudes of advertisements and how sex is on the minds of most people. Making sex as commonplace and ordinary as everything else would allow people to focus on other aspects of relationships and life in general. The Williamson's decided to create Sandstone Retreat shortly after they were married after coming to the conclusion that two people couldn't provide everything the two needed in a traditional marriage. Joining the retreat cost an initial investment of $240, but after that it only cost $15 a month [2]. The monthly rate seems quite a bit lower than I would have expected and it may have led to the closing of Sandstone Retreat since one of the primary reasons for its closure was debt. Although sex was commonplace and nudity was normal, an individual's participation in it was completely up to the individual. Williamson believed that a relationship should not be based on a "neurotic impulse." However, couples who move into the Resort tend to have their relationship tested as one person becomes more into the community than the other. Seeing as Sandstone is such a dramatic change from the norm, it would be hard to imagine a couple not having any troubles adapting to the change. Sandstone Resort also had its share of complex relationships including two men and a woman or two woman and a man. The filmmaker, Jonathan Dan believed that Sandstone was actually less sexual than any other place because of the absence of "teasing", "exploitation", and "frustration" [3]. Despite it's views on sex, Sandstone was similar to any other community in that all its residents lived, hung out, and interacting normally. The only difference is that to them, nudity and sex wasn't a big deal. I'm not sure if I could adapt to an environment like Sandstone, but I can see the appeal of its ideals and society. John Williamson ended up dying not too long ago in May, 2013 [4].

[1] Ferderber, Skip. "Sandstone: Close-up of a Unique Life-style." Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1972.
[2] Yardley, William. "John Williamson, Co-Founder of the Sandstone Retreat, Dies at 80." The New York Times, May 4, 2013.
[3] Ferderber, Skip. "Sandstone: Close-up of a Unique Life-style." Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1972.
[4] Yardley, William. "John Williamson, Co-Founder of the Sandstone Retreat, Dies at 80." The New York Times, May 4, 2013.

The Free Love Movement

By: Jordan Devan

In the 1960s, America was much of a sexualized society. But while a segment of the middle-class youth pursued sexual pleasure in the name of consumerism, another group confronted it and rejected the materialistic sense of modern capitalism. These young people separated the state from sexual matter. They wanted to be free, and love freely most importantly. [1]Sexual matters were separated from marriage, birth control, and adultery but instead sexual matters were concerned with the individuals involved with each other, no one else.

Since many of the sexual rights discriminated against women, the free love advocates stressed women’s rights more than anything, wanting to stop marriages laws and anti-birth control measures. These young people were also stressing that they wanted something different than their parents. Not even money, religion, or status, but a far greater degree of sexual freedom and self-expression. In the video, “Sex in 69” we watched in class, they interview a lady who lived through this time period. She says, “Going to work every day and coming home to my white picket fence wasn’t going to be enough for me”, “I wanted to be where the music and people were,, I don’t know, I wanted adventure”. [2]People like this women wanted to be free and not worry about the expectations the world had about sexuality, but instead have free love. These people were also known as hippies during this time.

So like mentioned above, the people of the free love movement wanted to change society. They wanted it to be free for all people to explore humanity in itself and doing so with those around them as well. Haight & Ashbury Street brought these people together; looking for something different in life so together; they took care of each other, and developed new ways to think about sex in life. Everyone was in a mindset of experimenting, so everyone was trying all kinds of new lifestyles.

This was definitely a time of no guilt but a time to be proud and express sexuality with no shame. But what had started to happen was that the free love movement was reaching the media and so people form everywhere and any type of person came to Haight Street, where this movement was. Disturbed kids, runaways, drug attics all came, all looking for sex which was not what this movement was about. It was truly about finding something different and being free in life and people with the wrong intentions messed that view up.

[1] McElroy, Wendy. “The Free Love Movement and Radical Individualism.” http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle1996/le961210.html (accessed April 28, 2014)

[2] Moore, Crystal. “Sex in 69.” Video. University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC.

Pubic War

By: Shanna Cronley

The pubic wars started as a rivalry between Playboy and Penthouse magazines. The pubic wars would forever change the future for Playboy. When Playboy first began publishing it included articles called the “Playboy philosophy”.[1] Penthouse changed all that when it showed naked women. In 1984 there were pictures of Miss America naked and enacting lesbian scenes in Penthouse magazine.[2] The pubic war also had to do with the war in Vietnam at the time. The soldiers felt as though they were going to go to this war and they may not return and therefore they wanted to be able to look at these pictures of women.[3] The pubic war was named just that because Penthouse was the first magazine to show women’s pubic hair. Penthouse continued to find different ways to expose women’s bodies and ironically began eliminating pubic hair from the pictures in the magazine.[4] The pubic war completely changed the magazine world and the porn industry. It also changed the way women look at their bodies. This rivalry between Playboy and Penthouse had a large impact on what the two magazines would publish. Because Penthouse was publishing more risqué photos of women Playboy felt the need to do the same in order to keep up. This caused Playboy to be transformed into what it is today. As stated earlier Penthouse went from showing pubic hair to eliminating pubic hair from photos, which led to the use of Photoshop and women wanting their bodies to look like those in the magazines. I believe that the pubic wars even led to the objectification of women that we have today. Women or more like women’s bodies are seen as objects of sex rather than seeing women as people. This can all be traced back to this war when two magazines struggled to get people to buy their magazines by competing to see which magazine could have the most risqué photos. The use of Photoshop and plastic surgery that is often used to get women to look a certain way for these magazines also leads to an unrealistic idea of women for both women and men. This is why many women have body issues and why men often have an image in their mind of a perfect woman that is just unattainable. The pubic wars no doubt had an effect on both of the magazines but I believe it also had a large effect on the culture that we now live in.

[1] Sex in '69: Sexual Revolution in America. DVD. Lawrenceville, NJ: Films Media Group ;, 1990.

[2] Stone, Jay. "Bob Guccione: The surprising man behind the pubic wars." canadacom. http://o.canada.com/entertainment/movies/bob-guccione-the-surprising-man-behind-the-pubic-wars (accessed April 30, 2014).

[3] Sex in '69: Sexual Revolution in America. DVD. Lawrenceville, NJ: Films Media Group ;, 1990.

[4] Quan, Tracy . "Th Pubic Wars." . http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/40444.html (accessed April 30, 2014).

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Playboy By: Dominique Cotton

[i]

Hugh Hefner grew up during the Depression. His home was quite on the conservative side; he mentioned it being very lonely. Nobody hugged and or kissed, how sad. Despite having a boring childhood Hugh Hefner always had a thing for publishing. At the age of 10 Hugh created his first penny newspaper. Later on he created another penny newspaper called the Pepper that did excellent. After he graduated from high school he went into the army. After serving some time he got out of the war and realized he had entered the conservative time. Everything changed from the twenties and he thought of it as a deplorable sign. Everything political, social and sexual had changed the skirts even got longer during this time. Soon, Hugh Hefner enrolled in the University of Illinois where he continued to write. At this time the Kinsey scale report was published and he wrote about how important the book was. In the mid 1500s he returned back to his old high school to host an alumni show with his best friend he thought how his life was over. He thought about how Betty Conklin turned him down and from there he changed the way he dressed and his name from Hugh to Hef. He thought about how he created a comic strip, which he starred in and was the center of attention. He was living in a dream world that later came to life as Playboy. After leaving the reunion and looking back on his life that time motivated him to start Playboy. At that moment Hugh was working for a Children’s magazine when he had ideas for Playboy, how awkward! He did not put these ideas into action until he asked for a $5 raise and was declined. The initial name of Playboy was Stag Party, then a couple weeks before the publication date he received a letter from a lawyer telling him not to use that particular name for his magazine. This was perfect for Hugh because he did not like the name as much as he liked Playboy. The name Playboy came along from a friend that worked at a car dealership called Playboy. Hugh Hefner has great friends! The famous bunny logo was not introduced to the world until the second cover came out. Hugh wanted to put the picture that nobody saw but only heard on the first cover. He traveled all the way to Chicago and spent $500 on naked pictures of Marilyn Monroe. Even though they were in a conservative time the magazines did excellent, selling around 52,000 copies. When the second magazine came out it sold even more and it didn’t have the picture of Marilyn Monroe in it. Even though the magazine was doing great number he was not satisfied with it. Now I bet you are wondering how does somebody make so much money on something so popular not be proud of it? It was not his image, it was a magazine for young men and that was it. Later after that Playboy soon grew into movies, the first film was a version of Macbeth. This was the height of Playboy until Ronald Regan became President and he ordered a Meese Commission; which is when he declared anything sexual with porn to be contained. In spite of the downfalls Playboy is still the best selling men magazine. [ii] I think Playboy paved the way for all other male magazines. There were probably male magazines before his but I think he set the bar and other male magazines had to reach that level of sophistication.

[i] Jim Edwards, “Here’s How Playboy Pitched Itself To Advertisers In The 1960s,” Business Insider, March 19, 2012, URL.

[ii] Carlye Adler, Hugh Hefner, “Hugh Hefner Playboy Enterprises in 1953 I didn’t really fully appreciate what I had created. It was the first successful magazine for young, single men,” CNN Money, September 1, 2003, URL.