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Paulger DISSERTATION Anglo-American Quality Press Narratives and Discourses of Sexual Revolution, 1958-1979 By Ross K. Paulger Registration No: 110221391 Supervisor: Dr Adrian Bingham Word Count: 66090 A dissertation submitted in part-fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in History University of Sheffield March 2017 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 1 Revolution as Concept ......................................................................... 2 Sexual Revolution(s) ........................................................................... 5 The Choice of Newspapers ................................................................ 16 Methodological Approaches .............................................................. 21 Types of Sources to be Analysed ...................................................... 28 Chapter Structure ............................................................................... 32 Chapter 1: FEMINISM AND WOMEN’S LIBERATION ......................... 35 Literature Review Concepts of Feminism(s) ........................................................ 35 History of Feminism(s) ........................................................... 39 Historiography of Feminism and Media ................................. 45 The Second Wave and Sexual Revolution .............................. 51 Primary Source Analysis .................................................................... 62 Analysis of British Primary Sources Britain – 1960 ................................................................. 62 Britain – 1966 ................................................................. 64 Britain – 1967 ................................................................. 67 Britain – 1968 ................................................................. 72 Britain – 1970 ................................................................. 75 Britain – 1975 ................................................................. 83 Britain – 1976 ................................................................. 91 Britain – 1979 ................................................................. 94 Summary of British Coverage of Feminism ............................ 97 Analysis of United States Primary Sources .............................. 98 United States – 1960 ...................................................... 98 United States – 1962 .................................................... 102 United States – 1966 .................................................... 109 United States – 1967 .................................................... 113 United States – 1968 .................................................... 115 United States – 1970 .................................................... 121 United States – 1975 .................................................... 128 Summary of United States Coverage of Feminism ................ 134 Chapter Conclusions ......................................................................... 136 Chapter 2: OBSCENITY PORNOGRAPHY, AND PERMISSIVENESS .... 142 Literature Review The Birth of the Permissive Society ........................................... 142 Permissiveness, the Permissive Society, and Obscenity ............ 146 Conceptualising Pornography .................................................... 150 Primary Source Analysis ...................................................................... 154 United States – 1960 .................................................................. 154 Great Britain – 1960 ................................................................... 163 United States – 1964 .................................................................. 174 Great Britain – 1964 ................................................................... 179 Great Britain – 1967 ................................................................... 181 United States – 1970 .................................................................. 185 Great Britain – 1971 ................................................................... 190 United States – 1971 .................................................................. 202 Chapter Conclusion .............................................................................. 205 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................... 208 Bibliography ................................................................................................... 218 Appendix I Appendix II INTRODUCTION The 'sexual revolution' is something of a mystery in modern Western culture. It is often referenced as something that transformed our society's understanding of sexual norms and mores. Any contemporary challenge to existing views on sexual practices or social mores references ‘sexual revolution’, either referring to the ‘Swinging 60s’ or calling for another ‘sexual revolution’. Any change in how people conceptualise sexual norms and mores in the present is ultimately defined by this event.1 The enduring knowledge and popular memory that a ‘sexual revolution’ occurred in the 1960s or 1970s is at odds with the ability of many people to articulate exactly what this sexual revolution was beyond a feeling or vague reference to a broad historical period. How then were we able to arrive at the conclusion that there was a 'sexual revolution'? The answer is undoubtedly complex, but certainly mass media played a role. This dissertation looks at quality newspapers in the United States and Great Britain to explore this question more fully. In addition, this dissertation seeks to answer the following questions: What were the limits to the discussion of themes related to sexual revolution in the quality press during this period? What constituted the limits of acceptability, which the quality press would not exceed regarding discussing sexual norms and mores? What does this tell us about the quality press during this period? How was the discussion presented over the period (i.e. positively, negatively, constructively), as well as in what format? Where applicable, how did the quality press present public response to these issues? What do these contribute to the widely-held understandings about sexual revolution? 1 A simple internet search reveals any number of results referencing a post-sexual revolution society, see Jen Doll, Harvard Sex Week and the Next Wave of the Sexual Revolution, The Atlantic Wire, 2012.[cited February 25, 2013] http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/04/harvard-sex-week-and-next-wave-sexual- revolution/51232/. 1 The sexual revolution was a transatlantic phenomenon and it cannot be said that it occurred in one country and was then exported verbatim to the other. This dissertation intends to examine the cross-cultural flow of the period as played out in the pages of quality newspapers, particularly because of the special relationship between the United States and Great Britain, where a comparative approach has been neglected. The broad content-based analysis and discourse analysis employed in the pursuit of its findings has been lacking in previous studies due to the lack of digital archives and the tools available therein to make this sort of analysis possible. Revolution as Concept Before making any sort of review of historiography on a ‘sexual revolution’ it is important to discuss the idea of revolution itself and its place within a framework applicable to a society. Though Hannah Arendt’s work on the concept of revolution was inherently class- based and ultimately political, when coupled with an understanding that personal interactions are inherently political themselves, it becomes a primer for studying the underlying forces and concepts at work in a society. Such an examination provides a framework with which to examine an idea of a ‘sexual’ revolution, as opposed to an insurrection or mere evolution. First and foremost is the concept of revolution as a dialectic of freedom and liberation. Often the two words, indeed the two concepts, are interchangeably employed; this is a mistake. From an Aristotelian viewpoint, liberation is an absence of restraint where freedom is the political condition in which the acceptability of the state of liberation is decided upon by a group. As Hannah Arendt observed, ‘…revolution as we know it in the modern age has always been concerned with both liberation and freedom… it is frequently very difficult to say where the mere desire for liberation, to be free from oppression ends, and the desire for freedom as 2 the political way of life begins.'2 Therefore a revolution is not necessarily a reassertion of lost liberties (as in ancient, medieval, or early modern periods), but rather can be a consequence (in the modern age) of a discussion or deliberation as to the limits of the restraint of oppression expressed through some sort of conflict. Carrying this idea forward to examine the social ramifications of revolution, Theda Skocpol argued persuasively that, 'What is unique to social revolution is that basic changes in social structure and in political structure occur together in a mutually reinforcing fashion.'3 Further, 'Successful revolutions, in turn, depend not only upon the emergence of multiple sovereignty. They also probably depend upon "the formation of coalitions between members of the polity and the contenders advancing exclusive alternative claims to control over the government."'4 Skocpol argued that this was the case in France,
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