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SEX AND SEXUALITY

The Pursuit of Sexual Pleasure

By the 1940s many Americans had adopted liberal attitudes toward heterosexual activity. They affirmed heterosexual pleasure as a good in itself, defined sexual satisfaction as a basic component of personal happiness and successful marriage, and accepted youthful sexual experimentation as preparation for adulthood. This new liberalism was solidified by the growing availability in the 1930s and 1940s of reliable contraceptives that separated sex from reproduction, allowing uninhibited pursuit of sexual pleasure. Sexual content appeared in movies and magazines with greater frequency as an emerging youth culture celebrated heterosexual expression, and husbands and wives came to view continuing erotic pleasure as a major component of marriage.

Sex and War

The war also contributed to liberalized attitudes toward sex. Lonely soldiers away from home engaged in sexual experimentation, and concerns over the spread of venereal disease in the military resulted in frank discussions of sex. Pictures of "pinup" girls appeared in servicemen's barracks, and flight crews were allowed to decorate the fronts of their planes with sexually explicit pictures of women, Like the pinups, this "nose art" was thought to boost morale.

Contraception

By the 1940s Margaret Sanger, who had led the birth-control movement since the 1910s, had succeeded in making effective contraception available to large numbers of American women. As a result of Sanger's tireless activism, there were more than eight hundred birth-control clinics across the country by 1942. These clinics were necessary because the diaphragm, then the most effective method of contraception, had to be fitted to each woman individually by trained medical personnel. A survey of contraceptive usage in the 1940s compared white married women born in the late nineteenth century with those born in the second decade of the twentieth century. In the older group two-fifths reported extensive use of condoms by their husbands, and 31 percent said they used diaphragms. By contrast 61 percent of the respondents in the younger group said they used diaphragms frequently. Contraceptive use outside the white middle class spread more slowly, but by the 1940s the rates for African American women went up markedly. This increased contraceptive use among black women reflected racial prejudice as much as changing attitudes toward sex among blacks. White fears of black population growth led to the availability of birth-control devices and education in southern public-health clinics.

Postwar Repression

Although the war contributed to a general liberalization of attitudes toward sex within marriage, the postwar baby boom years were characterized by an ethos of strict moral condemnation of sex outside marriage. The strict sexual mores of American culture after 1945 were often linked to the Cold War security concerns. A range of high-level officials and influential thinkers linked communism with sexual depravity. As Republican Party chairman Guy Gabrielson explained, "sexual perverts…have infiltrated our Government in recent years,…[and are] perhaps as dangerous as the actual Communists." According to this logic, sexual excess or degeneracy made individuals easy prey for Communist tactics. It was feared that Communist agents would use evidence of homosexuality or extramarital affairs to blackmail government officials into handing over top-secret information. For Americans in the late 1940s "normal" heterosexual behavior leading to marriage represented "maturity" and "responsibility." Those who "deviated" from this course were viewed as irresponsible, immature, and weak.

Homosexuality

The relatively relaxed sexual attitudes of the war years tolerated the establishment of same-sex communities and the increasing visibility of gay men and lesbians, but the postwar years brought on a wave of publicly sanctioned homophobia. The label pervert was loosely applied to individuals who engaged in behavior ranging from same-sex relationships between consenting adults to violent criminals who raped and murdered. Persecution of homosexual men and women became intense. Gay-baiting was as fierce as Red-baiting, and it created stigmas, encouraged harassment, and destroyed careers.

Sexual Paranoia

The persecution of homosexuals that began in the late 1940s and continued in the early 1950s was the most blatant form of sexual paranoia that linked so-called perversion to national weakness. Public fear also turned to "sexual psychop hs" who, like homosexuals and Communists, were supposedly lurking everywhere. Women who did not fulfill the prescribed roles of wife and mother were also threatening: untraditional mothers might disrupt the masculine development of their sons; prostitutes and promiscuous women tempted men with their seductiveness. Sexual energy channeled exclusively into marriage was thought crucial to national security. Faithful husbands and fathers wore the label "family man" as a symbol of virility and patriotism.