Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Literature in English, North America Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Literature in English, North America
Come Together: Desire, Literature, And The Law Of The Sexual Revolution, Eir-Anne E. Edgar
Come Together: Desire, Literature, And The Law Of The Sexual Revolution, Eir-Anne E. Edgar
Theses and Dissertations--English
While some scholars have viewed the Sexual Revolution as a “war” with winners and losers, this project finds that all Americans were subject to the fantasy of liberation. This fantasy takes different forms during the era, including relaxed sexual strictures against pre-marital sex, the availability of birth control, and an increased focus on sexual pleasure. However, the seemingly liberatory quickly becomes conservative, coming into focus through the analysis of court cases and legal mandates that protected the declining structures of marriage and heteronormativity. Beginning with widespread fears about interracial mixing in the early 1950’s, escalated by the end of segregation …