The sexual revolution of the 1950s and 1960s was based on the ideas of three men: Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, [1] and Hugh Hefner.
Freud claimed that sexual desire could not be controlled or channeled without causing harm to one's psyche. In his model of mental illness, repression would lead to neurosis, because of the dictates of the unconscious mind.
Kinsey falsely claimed that 10% of American men were homosexual. He used faulty statistical sampling methods to baffle the unsophisticated.
Hefner's "playboy philosophy" was merely a retread of Hedonism, an entirely self-centered pleasure-based life (see also Utilitarianism).
The sexual revolution gained great traction in the 1960's with the invention of the birth control pill, and in the 1970's with the legalization of abortion, as these helped separate sexual activity from the consequence of pregnancy.
Problems with sexually transmitted diseases, notably herpes and the AIDS epidemic, served to dampen these activities, by creating an obvious drawback to promiscuity.
References
- ↑ The re-whitewashing of pedophile Alfred Kinsey, Selwyn Duke December 2, 2004.