Sex and the Student Body: Knowledge, Equality, and the Sexual Revolution, 1960 to 1973

SEX AND THE STUDENT BODY: KNOWLEDGE, EQUALITY, AND THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION, 1960 TO 1973 Kelly Morrow A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History Chapel Hill 2012 Approved by: Jacquelyn Dowd Hall Crystal Feimster Peter Filene James Leloudis Nancy MacLean John Sweet © 2012 Kelly Morrow ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT KELLY MORROW: Sex and the Student Body: Knowledge, Equality, and the Sexual Revolution, 1960 to 1973 (Under the direction of Jacquelyn Dowd Hall) “Sex and the Student Body” seeks to revise popular and scholarly understandings of the sexual revolution by viewing it through the prism of New Left activism on college campuses from 1960 to 1973. This upheaval in manners and mores is often remembered as a sexual free-for-all based on individual gratification. Research in university archives, campus papers, and oral history interviews, however, reveals that at the center of the sexual revolution on college campuses were “sexual liberation activists” who offered students a new framework for understanding their sexual and emotional relationships grounded in the principle of equality. Far from advocating sexual license, these activists responded to a changing sexual culture by linking liberation to knowledge and responsibility. Through sexual health clinics, courses, handbooks, and counseling services, a coalition of faculty and students worked together to build institutions and create a more democratic university. Inspired by the liberation movements of the 1960s, men and women joined forces to advocate for equality and reproductive justice, and they attempted to change the gender consciousness of men as well as women in order to promote sexual relationships based on mutual honesty, trust, and pleasure. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Although this dissertation has a single author, many different individuals have contributed to the researching and writing of it. First, I would like to thank my committee for all of the insights, comments, and encouragement they gave me along this journey. I am so lucky to have had such eminent scholars help me with this project. In particular, my advisor Jacquelyn Hall has patiently read countless drafts, always pushing my writing and ideas to the next level. I would never have finished this dissertation without her belief and confidence in me as a scholar. I would also like to thank the institutions and foundations that have supported this work. The University of North Carolina Graduate School, History Department, and the Center for the Study of American South provided funding, which allowed me to pursue research across the country. The Spencer Foundation not only provided funding for the writing of the dissertation but also introduced me to an interdisciplinary group of scholars whose feedback and support helped me to hone my ideas and place my work in a larger context. As every historian knows, archivists make our work possible, and this dissertation is no exception. Laura Micham at Duke University, David M. Hays at the University of Colorado, David Farrell at the University of California, Danielle Kovacs at the University of Massachusetts, and Mary Caldera at Yale University have been particularly helpful and have went out of their way to help me with my project. I would also like to thank all of the people who opened up their lives and memories to me in oral history interviews. Philip and Lorna iv Sarrel and Takey Crist have been particularly patient with me as they spent hours clarifying events and pointing me in new directions. I can only hope this work does some sort of justice to their courageous stories. I could have never completed this project without the encouragement and love of my family and friends. My parents have always supported my decisions and knowing that I can always count on them has allowed me to take risks and follow my passions. My siblings, Bobby, Jimmy, and Christy, have given me endless hours of laughter and always keep me grounded. Tom, Patrice, and Duncan Morrow provided me with a place to stay, delicious meals, and wonderful conversation while I was doing research in California. Julie Sivertson opened her home to me while I visited the archives in Boulder, Colorado, and our times in Europe provided me with much needed relaxation and adventure while in graduate school. Linda Minella is one of my oldest friends and knowing that I always count on her means more than I can say. Kit Sandstrom has always listened patiently to me ramble on about my project and graduate school, and her sense of humor never fails to lift my spirits. My fellow graduate students in the history department, especially Robin Payne, David Palmer, Ben Reed, Josh Davis, and Catherine Conner, were always there when I needed someone to commiserate with, read a draft, or join me at the bar. Our time in Burlington in 2008 will always be some of my fondest memories. Finally, I would like to thank my partner, Patrick Tobin. He read every draft of every chapter with unfading enthusiasm. We spent endless hours talking about this dissertation, and his thoughts about my project pushed me in new and exciting directions. More than being my editor and sounding board, he has been my biggest supporter, always encouraging me to continue when I just wanted to give up and believing in me more than I believed in myself at v times. He comforted me through all the tears and did the all cooking, cleaning, and laundry without a complaint when those deadlines were fast approaching. He has made my work better, and he makes me a better person. He is the love of my life and I dedicate this dissertation to him. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………….viii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………....1 Background and Historiography………………………………………………...6 Sources…………………………………………………………………………15 Organization……………………………………………………………………17 II. “STAY YOUR SWEET, SENSIBLE SELF”: SEXUAL CULTURES ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES IN THE EARLY 1960S……………….…...…..21 III. “CORE WAS TO BE OUR MODEL”: CAMPUS SEXUAL FREEDOM FORUMS…..……………………………………………………..62 IV. WE WILL “COPE WITH PROBLEMS HERE”: SEXUAL HEALTH CLINICS AT YALE UNIVERSITY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL……….………………………….100 V. “WE CAN TALK OF SEXUAL ACTIVITIES IN THE PRESENT TENSE”: CREATING HUMAN SEXUALITY COURSES AND HANDBOOKS………………………….........................................................154 VI. “GETTING COMFORTABLE WITH THE WHOLE SUBJECT”: PEER EDUCATION AND COUNSELING………………………………....207 VII. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………….250 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………….…………………………………….………..256 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Human Sexuality Information and Counseling Service: Total Cases in the 1971-1972 School Year……………………………………..238 viii CHAPTER 1 Introduction In October 1970, students in Morrison Dormitory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) announced that they were sponsoring “Sexual Revolution Month.”1 In response, hundreds of male and female students trekked across campus, crowding Morrison’s lobby to view displays of detailed anatomical models, horrifying illegal abortion tools, and samples of contraceptive devices. They also found a small library that included a new handbook created for UNC students listing local places where they could obtain contraceptives and safe abortions at a time when these products and services were illegal in many area of the United States. Students watched films and participated in discussions about birth control, abortion, homosexuality, venereal disease, and childbirth, and many came to hear “the most controversial speaker on campus,” physician Takey Crist, who ran a birth control clinic at the university and had “a long reputation at UNC for being blunt with the facts of sex.”2 The events at Morrison Dormitory were not isolated; they were part of a wave of campus activism sweeping the country that helped to shape the meaning and direction of the sexual revolution in the 1960s and early 1970s. 1 Robert Wilson to Takey Crist, August 1970, Box 6, Folder: Coed and Politics, Accession 2004, Takey Crist Papers, Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (hereafter cited as TCP). 2 Jerry Klein, “‘Sex Month’ Entertains,” Daily Tar Heel, 10 October 1970, 1. To students at Morrison Dormitory, the sexual revolution involved sex education, mutual responsibility, and frank conversations, a far cry from how most Americans remember this historical upheaval in manner and mores. Since the 1960s, the sexual revolution has played a central role in political battles and the culture wars. The New Right largely shaped its meaning and used it in their ascendancy to power as leaders such as Jerry Falwall argued that it had caused “sexual promiscuity [to] become the lifestyle of America.”3 In the twenty-first century, conservative pundits such as Jeffrey Kuhner are still defining the sexual revolution as “the creation of a new social order based on moral relativism, hedonism and individual gratification.”4 It was the sexual revolution, conservatives argue, that instigated the breakdown of the American family, causing an exponential increase in divorce, teenage pregnancy, pornography, pedophilia, and sexually transmitted diseases. They invoke this definition to discredit the progressive social movement of the 1960s and 1970s and use it as a weapon in their current fights against reproductive justice, sex education, and gay

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