Sexual Revolution

by Jeffrey Escoffier (Editor), Jeffrey Escoffier (Editor), Erica Jong (Foreword by)

What does "sexual revolution" mean? When, how, and why did it begin? What, if anything, did it change? And what hope do we have that its ideals of equality and pleasure can be realized? From Susan Sontag's "Pornographic Imagination" to Al Goldstein's notorious review of Deep Throat, Sexual Revolution explores the cultural, economic, political, and moral consequences of new ways of sexual thinking and behaving — reclaiming the female orgasm and challenging the double standard; celebrating open marriage and homosexuality; and defying taboo and censorship. With Anne Koedt's classic "The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" and Norman Mailer's "The Homosexual Villain;" Helen Gurley Brown to Lenny Bruce — to name a few — this book features the voices of those who registered and provoked popular consciousness and transformed how we think about sex. Today, Dr. Phil talks about oral sex among grade-schoolers and porn star Jenna Jameson gets a six-figure advance for her memoirs. Something has changed, but Sexual Revolution reminds us that our sexuality remains a bitterly contested battleground. This collection includes selections by Erica Jong, Lawrence Lipton, Masters and Johnson, Betty Dodson, Gayle Rubin, Timothy Leary, Henry Miller, Huey Newton, Sigmund Freud, Simone de Beauvoir, and many others.

Genres: Sexuality, Anthologies, Nonfiction

400 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2003

About the author

Jeffrey Escoffier wrote on glbtq history, politics, culture, sexuality, music, and dance. One of the founders of OUT/LOOK: National Lesbian and Gay Quarterly, he published widely. Among his books are American Homo: Community and Perversity and a biography of John Maynard Keynes in the Chelsea House series on the Lives of Notable Gay Men and Lesbians. He co-edited (with Matthew Lore) Mark Morris' L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato: A Celebration and also edited is Sexual Revolution, an anthology of writing on sex from the 1960s and 1970s. In 2009, he published Bigger Than Life: The History of Gay Porn Cinema from Beefcake to Hardcore. He was also on the board of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at The City University of New York.

Reviews

[Fifi · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4.5

I bought this book off of ebay not having any idea how big it was, or even what it was necessarily about. I'm currently doing a dissertation on the sexual revolution so I bought it purely for the title alone as it sounded relevant.

And I am so glad I did! This book is a collection of primary sources about different social issues that arouse as a result of the sexual revolution ranging from homosexuality, polayamorous relationships and pornography.

This book included some brilliant essays, newspaper articles, and interviews from as early as 1947 to as late as 1999. While some of the sources were not wholly relevant to my dissertation, for instance the majority of sources on homosexuality, I read every single chapter in this book because it was just so fascinating. While I did skim the ones that were not relevant to me, I still highlighted parts I found interesting or significant.

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is that it is not a book that I would ever reread or read for pleasure as it just full of essays etc. However, I am very glad I found this book and I thank Jeffrey Escoiffier for compiling this collection as it was very detailed, wide ranging and comprehensive.

To quote two of the articles in this book, "Cocksucking is an Act of Revolution" (Shivley) so we should all "suck to be free!" (Anonymous)

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[Rosalía · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of articles and essays about sexual opinions and sexual mores from Lawrence Lipton in 1965 and Masters and Johnson in 1966 through pornography of the eighties shows an extreme transformation in the American psyche. We still have a time to go in understanding women, but it's a good start.