Sexual Liberation or Sexual License?: The American Revolt Against Victorianism - American Ways

Until roughly 1900, Americans agreed on stringent standards of sexual propriety that were rigorously enforced by a "conspiracy of silence" about sex. But the twentieth century brought the beginnings of mass culture, and with it dance halls, movies, advertising, bohemian rebels, and commercial operators who began to expand the boundaries of sexual display. The century-long struggle over these boundaries is the subject of Kevin White's rich account of American attitudes toward sex. Considering the record with the practiced eye of a social historian, he chronicles the transformation in American life from Anthony Comstock to the "hootchie cootchie girls," from Margaret Sanger through Alfred Kinsey, the Beats, and the Playboy bunnies to gay liberation, Jerry Falwell, and Bill Clinton. Mr. White shows how the Progressive movement fought a rearguard action before the rise of the flapper in the 1920s swept Victorian traditions aside. In depression and war, Americans seemed to return to values of home and hearth, but soon the Kinsey Report and the rise of rock and youth culture turned a trickle into a tidal wave, sweeping aside the old sexual certainties in the 1960s. Since the mid-seventies, Mr. White observes, battle lines have been drawn around AIDS, date rape, pornography, and sexual escapades at the highest levels of government. In a lively and engaging narrative analysis, Sexual Liberation or Sexual License? explores this great and continuing cultural conflict in the full context of Americans ambiguous dialogue with their Victorian legacy.