SEX

Changes in Attitudes

Sexual attitudes during the 1950s were in a state of transition. On one hand, as Albert Ellis writes in The American Sexual Tragedy (1954), a woman was obliged "to make herself infinitely sexually desirable—but finally approachable only in legal marriage." But men were encouraged to adopt the swinging bachelor's lifestyle represented by Playboy magazine, which debuted in 1953. The magazine's notorious pictorials of naked women, Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner explained, were symbols "of disobedience, a triumph of sexuality, an end of Puritanism." Hefner's announcement of the death of puritanism might have been a bit premature—the sexual revolution was still a decade away—but sexual values were clearly changing. And perhaps, as such scientific studies as the one conducted by Alfred Kinsey and associates seem to suggest, Americans were never particularly puritanical.

Kinsey Reports

The two Kinsey reports on human sexuality are the results of interviews with more than sixteen thousand men and women conducted during the 1940s by the staff of the Institute for Sex Research, Indiana University, under the direction of the head of the institute, zoologist Kinsey. The sex researchers criss-crossed the country, hampered at first by a meager budget and wartime shortages; but with generous grants from the Rockefeller Foundation the institute was eventually able to accumulate a wealth of data. The first report of the institute's findings, a huge, scholarly tome called Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, was published in 1948. To the surprise of everyone—including Kinsey—the book was an instant best-seller. Soon Kinsey was nationally known as the "sex doctor." The institute's findings, which showed that premarital and extra-marital sex and homosexuality were much more common than people wanted to believe, outraged church leaders and other establishment figures. To them the results of the sex research struck at the heart of the nation's morality.

Criticism of Kinsey

Undeterred by the critics, who Kinsey felt were arguing from emotion rather than science, the institute continued to evaluate its data. Kinsey knew that a second book on female sexuality would almost certainly cause more furor than its predecessor: now the researchers were indicting the sanctity of American womanhood. As expected, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) was met with heavy sales and vehement criticism. Evangelist Billy Graham claimed that it was "impossible to estimate the damage this book will do" to American morals. Again critics attacked Kinsey for the institute's unwillingness to make a moral judgment on its findings. This time the Rockefeller Foundation seemed to agree and withdrew funding for further research. Kinsey, already a chronic workaholic, did not handle the added stress well. Hospitalized several times over the next three years, he died in August 1956.

Sexual Preoccupation

As if to prove the worst fears of Kinsey's critics, society did seem to be more preoccupied with sex. Novels that offered explicit (for the time) depictions of sexual themes were no longer hidden away but instead made the best-seller lists. One of the most popular authors of the decade, Mickey Spillane, laced his Mike Hammer novels with heavy doses of sex and violence; critics sneered, but millions of readers responded enthusiastically. Only slightly more genteel was Grace Metalious's Peyton Place (1956), one of the decade's runaway best-sellers, which depicts the sexual intrigue (including such taboos as incest and abortion) behind a small-town facade. Sex became the chief selling device for paperbacks (such as Spillane's novels) whose cover illustrations promised seamy sex—frequently more than the novel actually delivered.

Sex in Hollywood

Motion pictures were also beginning to take a greater degree of sexual license. For the movie industry it was a matter of necessity. The enormous success of television had cut drastically into Hollywood's earnings: attendance at movie houses had dropped in some cities by as much as 40 percent. One response was to put things in movies that television could not show. Since the 1920s the contents of movies had been regulated by a production code the industry itself had created. In 1956 the Motion Picture Association of America announced revisions to the code, allowing for screen treatments of such adult subjects as prostitution, abortion, and miscegenation.

THE KINSEY REPORT

In 1953 Sexual Behavior in the Human Female by Alfred Kinsey, the first major study of American women's sexual practices, was published. Although the Kinsey report, as it was known, was a serious scientific study, it created a sensation uncommon to the scientific community.

The scientific method involved interviews with 5,940 female volunteers. Kinsey found that half of the women were no longer virgins when they married. Among married women, about one fourth had committed adultery by age forty. About half the adulterous wives had only one partner outside the marriage, and a third had committed adultery only once or a few times. Women were generally found to have a much lower sex drive than men. While an earlier report found that men were frequently preoccupied with sexual thoughts, women were found to daydream seldom about sex.

Shattering to males were the findings related to sexual maturity. Males tended to reach a peak of sexual ability in the late teens and decline precipitously from then on. Females, however, did not reach a sexual peak until their late twenties. The decline with age after this point was much more gradual in females than in males.

Some of Kinsey's theories based on his findings were as shocking to the public as the findings themselves. Kinsey suggested that teaching girls to remain virgins until marriage might be counterproductive. Since half failed to achieve this status, the result was often prolonged guilt. Perhaps it would be better to teach young women to have a limited sexual experience before a marital commitment, Kinsey suggested. Such ideas were not accepted in America in the 1950s.

Kinsey's major conclusions from the report were lost in the controversy over the topic and some of the lesser recommendations. Kinsey pointed out a potential problem in communication. Basically, males and females see the world differently. If they are to communicate in harmony, each gender must understand how the other thinks. Without a willingness to do this, the result is conflict in male-female relationships.

Rock 'n' Roll

A further assault on American modesty came from the younger generation, who was listening to and creating a new type of music—rock 'n' roll. Even if parents did not recognize the subject of songs such as "Shake, Rattle and Roll," "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man," and "Tutti Frutti," they worried that wild dancing and "jungle rhythms" would cause their children to give in to their baser instincts. Something always seemed raunchy about rock 'n' roll, even when no one was saying anything dirty. When Elvis Presley gave his hip-swinging performances on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1956, it was clear that sexual energy was what propelled the music along. Rock 'n' roll, with its celebration of teen hormones, probably contributed more than any other factor to widening the generation gap and launching the sexual revolution.

CREDIT CARDS

The credit card was not only a business and economic breakthrough, it was also a technical revolution. The original cards did not include holograms and were made of paper. However, they were instrumental in moving credit flow from the business sector to the private consumer sector. The technological breakthrough was not in developing a new material or manufacturing technique. Rather, it was the application of a simple concept on a wide scale. How a little piece of paper became a technological and social milestone involves an interesting story of embarrassment.

Long before automated teller machines, cash was obtained at the bank during banking hours. Credit accounts were established on faith. One business sent material to another business, and the receiver sent a check after receiving the goods. This is credit, based on the faith that the receiver will pay for the goods and not sneak off with them in the middle of the night. The concept is rather old. Until 1950, though, it had only minor applications to the average consumer. A bank would lend someone money to buy a home, a car, or a washing machine. It had faith that the person would repay the loan. That faith, however, was improved by the knowledge that the bank could come and repossess the home, car, or washer if the consumer did not repay the money owed.

Then Frank X. McNamara had a bad day in 1950. This attorney was dining in a Manhattan restaurant when he suddenly realized he was short of cash. His embarrassment led to his revolutionary idea. He formed the Diner's Club. At twenty-seven fancy New York restaurants, the Diner's Club members could show their club cards instead of paying cash. In essence, the Diner's Club paid the bill by lending the money to the club member. Thus the restaurant got paid even if the bank was closed, and the Diner's Club would guarantee payment. In effect, the Diner's Club was giving its members unsecured loans simply for the asking. Obviously people had to meet strict income and credit criteria to join. Still, it opened a world of credit to the consumer which had not been available before and was convenient as well.

The idea caught on quickly. The club was billing __BODY__ million the year after it was founded. When American Express started issuing credit cards in 1958, they signed up over 250,000 members in a three-month period. Banks began issuing credit cards, but they were only used on a limited, local basis. Capitalizing on McNamara's idea, Bank of America issued BankAmericards. These could be used nationally, and later internationally, at a wide variety of places. BankAmericard later became Visa, and other banks in Chicago and California developed cards that became today's MasterCard. So now that automated tellers give access to cash twenty-four hours every day, many can use credit cards to avoid carrying cash and all because of Frank McNamara's being embarrassed in 1950.

Sources:

Albert Ellis, The American Sexual Tragedy (New York: Twayne, 1954);

Institute for Sex Research, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953).