Where are we going and what kind of people are we becoming?
Herewith, a roadmap to the defining trends in sexuality, family, and
relationships for the coming millenium as charted by the former chair of
Harvard's psychiatry department. From the still-rollicking sexual
revolution tothe painful battle for sexual equality to the reorginization
of the family, America is in for some rather interesting times
ahead.
Has the sexual revolution been sidetracked by AIDS, and the return
to traditional values we keep hearing about? In a word, no. The forces
that originally fuelled the revolution are still in place and, if
anything, are intensifying: mobility, democritization, urbanization,
women in the workplace, birth control, abortion and other reproductive
interventions, and media proliferation of sexual images, ideas, and
variation.
Sexuality has moved for many citizens from church- and
state-regulated behavior to a medical and self-regulated behavior.
Population pressures and other economic factors continue to diminish the
size of the American family. Marriage is in sharp decline, cohabitation
is growing, traditional family values are on the endangerd list, and the
single-person household is the wave of the future.
AIDS has generated a great deal of heat in the media but appears to
have done little, so far, to turn down the heat in the bedroom. It is
true that in some surveys people claimed to have made drastic changes in
behavior--but most telling are the statistics relating to marriage,
divorce, cohabitation, teen sex, out-of-wedlock births, sexually
transmitted diseases (STDs), contraception, and adultery. These are far
more revealing of what we do than what we say we do. And those tell a
tale of what has been called a "postmarital society, in continued pursuit
of sexual individuality and freedom.
Arguably there are, due to AIDS, fewer visible sexual "excesses"
today than there were in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, but those
excesses (such as sex clubs, bathhouses, backrooms, swinging singles,
group sex, public sex acts, etc.) were never truly reflective of norms
and were, in any case, greatly inflated in the media. Meanwhile, quietly
and without fanfare, the public, even in the face of the AIDS threat, has
continued to expand its interest in sex and in increased, rather than
decreased, sexual expression.
Numerous studies reveal that women are more sexual now than at any
time in the century. Whereas sex counselors used to deal with men's
complaints about their wives' lack of "receptivity," it is now more often
the women complaining about the men. And women, in this "postfeminist"
era, are doing things they never used to believe were "proper." Fellatio,
for example, was seldom practiced (or admitted to) when Kinsey conducted
his famous sex research several decades ago. Since that time, according
to studies at UCLA and elsewhere, this activity has gained acceptance
among women, with some researchers reporting that nearly all young women
now practice fellatio.
Women's images of themselves have also changed dramatically in the
past two decades, due, in large part, to their movement into the
workplace and roles previously filled exclusively by men. As Lilian
Rubin, psychologist at the University of California Institute for the
Study of Social Change and author of Intimate Strangers, puts it, "Women
feel empowered sexually in a way they never did in the past."
Meanwhile, the singles scene, far from fading away (the media just
lost its fixation on this subject), continues to grow. James Bennet,
writing in The New Republic, characterizes this growing population of
no-reproducers thusly: "Single adults in America display a remarkable
tendency to multiply without being fruitful "
Their libidos are the target of million-dollar advertising budgets
and entrepreneurial pursuits that seek to put those sex drives on line in
the information age. From video dating to computer coupling to erotic
taxing, it's now "love at first byte," as one commentator put it. One
thing is certain: the computer is doing as much today to promote the
sexual revolution as the automobile did at the dawn of that
revolution.
Political ideologies, buttressed by economic adversities, can
temporarily retard the sexual revolution, as can sexually transmitted
diseases. But ultimately the forces propelling this revolution are
unstoppable. And ironically, AIDS itself is probably doing more to
promote than impede this movement. It has forced the nation to confront a
number of sexual issues with greater frankness than ever before. While
some conservatives and many religious groups have argued for abstinence
as the only moral response to AIDS, others have lobbied for wider
dissemination of sexual information, beginning in grade schools. A number
of school districts are now making condoms available to students--a
development that would have been unthinkable before the outbreak of
AIDS.
Despite all these gains (or losses, depending upon your outlook)
the revolution is far from over. The openness that it has fostered is
healthy, but Americans are still ignorant about many aspects of human
sexuality. Sexual research is needed to help us deal with teen sexuality
and pregnancies, AIDS, and a number of emotional issues related to
sexuality. Suffice it to say for now that there is still plenty of room
for the sexual revolution to proceed--and its greatest benefits have yet
to be realized.
THE REVOLUTION AND RELATIONSHIPS
Tags:
AIDS,
drastic changes,
economic factors,
gender,
marriage divorce,
relationship,
sex,
sex out of wedlock,
sexual equality,
sexual images,
sexual revolution,
traditional values,
wedlock births,
women in the workplace
