We know, because Philip Larkin gave us his guesstimate, that the sexual revolution began in 1963. Less clear is when it will peak. But looking around it is hard to resist the thought that the moment has already passed, that a poet will one day put the climax of the permissive society somewhere around the turn of the millennium, when parents were relaxed baby-boomers and the young were yet to espouse the strict gender politics now found on university campuses.
Statistics show a large minority of chaste young people. Britain’s pornography laws have been tightened. Less measurably, there is a tauter atmosphere around sex than I remember from the ribald 1990s, or even the noughties: more dancing around sensitivities, more pressure to get your terms right.
It is normal for society to take the edge off a revolution after riding it for so long. And anyone who wants a louche life can still have one, subject to their own attractiveness. The real story is where the pressure for moderation comes from. By logic, it should be the church and political conservatives. Instead, the rampant right in western democracies is indifferent to sex, sometimes creditably, sometimes to its shame. Donald Trump was not elected for his primness towards women.
No, the guardians of the New Prurience tend to be young and avowedly progressive — people who might own Brand’s book, people whose mid-20th century equivalents lobbied for free love. With two generations of evidence to go by, they see inequity in the fruits of the revolution.
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