Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll with Jane Thompson

Audio Disclaimer from Anne Marie: I am still learning how to record and edit with two live microphones and unfortunately in the transfer and editing process, I deleted the original file with the better audio quality. The episode you’ll hear is a result of this mistake (only my microphone became the driving audio of the playback track). I apologize for the unevenness in the quality, but sincerely hope you stick around for the content! It was an incredible conversation and I’m glad I can still share it in some capacity.

Episode Summary: This week, Anne Marie Gunn welcomes her former high school history teacher, Jane Thompson, as a guest to talk about the American Sexual Revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s. The conversation begins with how World War II, Margaret Sanger/the (white) women’s suffrage movement and movement towards family limitations, and the 1950’s all led to an American Sexual Revolution. Jane and Anne Marie discuss the influence of culture on politics and vice versa (ie. through language about gender and sex changing over time). Their conversation highlights key figures in the Sexual Revolution including researcher Alfred Kinsey and author Betty Friedan (The Feminine Mystique). Other topics covered include: the Civil Rights Act of 1965, Roe v. Wade (1972) and its overturn (2022), Vietnam War protests, free love/drug culture of the hippie movement, Title IX and its impact on higher education, women’s sports & equal pay, and girls’ agency over their bodies, the Equal Rights Amendment not being signed, the LGBTQ+ movement, the AIDs crisis, the disability rights movement, the 80’s mirroring the 50’s, and the development of technology and the internet impacting American music and sex. Finally, Jane and Anne Marie discuss how the paradox of American individualism and idealism of unification impacts societal progress.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

All right. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Sex is Yours podcast. My name is Ann-Marie Gunn, and I'm your host. And today I'm very excited to have a guest finally on the podcast. Woohoo! So yeah, I'm here with Jane Thompson. She was a teacher at my high school for 35 years, and she was my history teacher for a specific elective that I got to take my senior year of school of high school. Um, so I actually want Jane to do her like spiel. Like when you would tell juniors in high school you want to take this class your your senior year, what was kind of your go-to pitch?

SPEAKER_01 0:38

The go-to pitch for this particular class, when you took it, it was called decades. Started out that way with the idea that it was going to be focusing on specific decades throughout the 20th century. Eventually it morphed into the 1960s because that is for the most part going to cover post-World War II, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. And it just the selling feature, the secondary title, let's put it that way, which we couldn't put on the class list, uh, was either called Decades or Modern American Social History, otherwise known as Sex. Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Exactly. Thank you. That was the hook. That was the hook. And that got me to sign up. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I was like, You got me. What does this class have to teach me about history and culture?

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Everything in the second half of the 20th century.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Yes, it did. And I think it was for me a very impactful class throughout my college education as well. I went on to study peace studies at Marquette and just the amount of cultural knowledge that I felt I had going into college with that taking that class senior year of high school, it was really awesome to be able to because it is eye-opening for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Because in most of your history courses, you don't history teachers only get to dive in or put their toe in on the social part of the history. Because in order to understand the social part, you've got to understand the political part that comes with it in terms of which came first. Society push, or was it pushed down from above? And so that that becomes the the content, but you have to understand the politics and the diplomacy as well as understand what the pushback was.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yeah, and also what everyday people were doing during that time period. That was the most, I think, impactful way that that was taught. We were talking about fashion, we were talking about music. You played plenty of music from those time periods and provided the historical context for those lyrics and those bands and why those were the ones that were popular.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

And and we've talked about this before. By the time you become junior, senior in high school, brain development, at this point, this is the educational part of it, brain development, you are now beginning to understand the layers and complexity of history. And all of a sudden you go from a linear point of I need to memorize names, dates, facts, to the, oh, I didn't get this was going on at the same time. And then you start to think, well, why was all of this going on? Then you begin to put, because of brain development, frontal lobe, you begin to realize that people are complex. History is deeply complex.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Yes, yeah, and there's so much going on at once.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

And so much going on at once.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Right. Yeah, totally. There was like a chronological history class that was, you know, very traditional, and this class definitely allowed that layering to happen.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

You have to understand the chronology.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Right. You do. So that the context is helpful.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Of which also creates misinformation. Correct. Or a misunderstanding.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yes, yeah. And with that being said, today we are talking about the sexual revolution, of course, because that's what's relevant to my podcast. But with that, we're going to try to talk a little bit more about like the context of when this was happening, why it was happening, and what other things were going on at the same time. And before we talk about the sexual revolution, of course, we have to talk about World War II. If you want to back up further than that, you definitely can. But I think that World War II is really a catalyst.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

That's that is that's the start point because that's the start point of truly where America moves into as leadership within the world. So if you're talking global sexual revolution, but with that, it's the understanding that the World War II generation men and women were born in the twenties. So when I say born in the twenties, they didn't experience the roaring twenties, the real sexual revolution from France to the United States, and the opening up of the Great Gatsby type of flappers and flappers and that whole real opening up um of sexual freedom for women. Yeah. And then the depression hits, um, World War II, it and so that sparks a huge change. Now, post-World War II or from World War II on, women are now in the workforce creating their own economic independence. But after the war, as we all know, Rosie the River goes for the most part, not a hundred percent. So we've got to be careful with that. Not a hundred percent going back home, right? They've experienced freedom. Yes, they've experienced end quasi-independence to a certain degree. They have the right to vote politically from 1990. Interesting, and here I'm gonna jump to today, and I'm sure I'm I'm gonna dig it. We've got to do it. That there is a group of far writers today. Some people may be secretaries of defense who are being influenced by men who want to reverse the 19th Amendment. Yeah. Well, bring it on, gentlemen. Let's see how far that goes.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Right. Yeah, and I I do think I want to uh point out too that 1919 was specifically for white women, too. You know, it wasn't until 1965 that that women of color were able to vote as well, so that's an important point for context.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yes, and that also gets us to this whole concept of what I've always called the pathology of change and and how we change and evolve as a society, and socially, it is a slow, slow process.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Yeah, with that chicken and egg thing of like what comes first, like people changing or politics changing, and and where is that relationship?

SPEAKER_01 6:54

And it's hard to not look forward and say we need to move faster, right? But we also need to look backward, particularly because we can say, how far have we gone?

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Right. And think about where are we in relation to what has already happened in the past, you know, and so that I is uh another reason why I wanted to bring you on the podcast as well, just to to provide some historical context for where we are today, but also I mean, I think people know what like that a sexual revolution maybe happened in the 60s, but I don't think I even I didn't even know about it obviously before that uh when I took the class, I was 17. So that's fair enough. But maybe adults now.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yes, we still should be there, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Of course, of course. But yeah, I think for me it was it was really impactful to learn that there was movement for birth control, for freedom of sexual partners, and and having this like shift in kind of morality of sex as well, of like you know, waiting till marriage only, that's a very like 50s concept as well. Yeah, I guess I'm kind of jumping into the the cultural stuff, but if we wanna if we want to talk more about political stuff as well, I mean this like there were movements happening all at once of like movements against the Vietnam War, movements for civil rights. Yeah, so just I I think contextualizing how did the sexual revolution fit into those movements or how was it separate?

SPEAKER_01 8:20

I don't think I really don't think it was ever separate. I really don't. Only because if you go back to, and again, when I go back to the 1920s and the women's suffrage movement, you also have a sexual movement there with Margaret Sanger advocating for birth control. And at that point it was in classified family limitations. Um now what we didn't have was a birth control pill. The pill simply is going to accelerate because it becomes much, much more easy um and economically viable for women to take a birth control pill rather than the IUDs or any other home brew, which were kind of scary, um, ways to prevent getting pregnant.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Right. And of course, condoms are on the male partner to to have or to wear.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

So it's always been the hold into the female to control her own body. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

Yeah, I remember we we uh looked at like different um what were those called? Etiquette books for like the 1950s of like what a woman was supposed to do in a relationship and sex ed videos from that time. Without a doubt.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Um, and then you had well the the the coronet film clips that basically provided here's the etiquette, here's what you're supposed to do, here's how a wife is supposed to be, um, here's what you do on your first date.

SPEAKER_06 9:52

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Oh, it you you look at it now and it's laughable in an innocent sort of way. So the 1950s were quite uh a return to an innocence, I think largely because of World War II, because of the war experience and and coming back home and trying to desperately what we also did after World War I, return to quote normalcy. Um but we also had at the history of the time period post-World War II, we were returning to normalcy with a whole lot of economic wealth. Wealth like nobody's business, right? Particularly in the white communities. So here's where we separate black and white communities in the 50s specifically, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

And in the 50s, I mean you have this push for innocence from adults, but it's also the first time that like advertising had recognized teenagers as a as a like political or as a targeted demographic.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Entire demographic.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

And advertising for women, pushing them back into the house, right? Appliances coming out, and like uh my roommate and I actually have a stainless steel advertisement in our bathroom that's like women's liberation, and it's like about appliances serving women in the kitchen, and it's like I don't know actually what year it's from, but yes, we're serving, always, always, always making the dinner, we're making it easier for you ladies to be exactly, yes, yeah, and the advertising pushing towards that, but also at the same time, I mean, teenagers, young people still were I mean, I remember we learned about the automobile industry booming in the 50s, Detroit, Ford, right? Ford. I'm like, what time period was that? Yes. So that allowing for teenagers to have more freedom to experience teenagehood outside of the house.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yeah, yeah. So the the old Victorian codes of dating and courting, all those went out the window.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Right. And even though there were those etiquette videos at the time of adults trying to bring teenagers in, they were listening to Elvis. They were listening to rock and roll. You have to say Elvis the Pelvis. Elvis the Pelvis. Exactly. That was a sexual without a doubt. Sexual moment in history for a doubt. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Um, and you know, and he wasn't the only one. No, of course not.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

The face of it.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

The face of it all, because Mick Jagger certainly was going to bring upon his homosexuality um in the 60s later when the British invasion comes in.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Is there anything else in the 50s that you feel like is important context for for like the like launch of the sexual revolution? I mean, those are things that I remember from class that we talked about that kind of made sense. I know in the 50s too, there was a push more kind of back to the church on a gl you know, on a cultural scale in American culture.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Um, of religious attendance going all the way up to like 1962, 63. Um, and again, it was all about creating that family atmosphere. Right. And that's what the 50s was all about. You know, couples getting married, the marriage rate dropped to the average wedding age for women was 18, 19 years old. Yeah. Of which, you know, you would look at the girls in class and they're like, hell no.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Right. Right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Now, yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

But we also have been exposed to independence, where we're like, we're we this is not pushing everything off. Um you know, at least a decade. At least a decade. And and what what you see then with the early age of marriage, marriage without any true statistic on this, marriage gave permission for sex.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Yes, exactly. Like the purity culture of Christianity promotes that you wait until marriage, that's what the Bible says. So if you want to have sex, then you have to get married. And that those teenagers wanted to have sex. So they got married right out of high school.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Because the the the the biology basically says we can't control ourselves.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

You know, and that that's the physiological part of the hormones of teenagehood. Yeah. Yes, I I think everybody, everybody needs to experience being in a junior high and a high school for one week just once. Just walk in and just see how these little cherubs who sit in the desk see how they are when they're in the hallway. Right. Because it is from high school from junior high to high school, you're at the beginning puberty to really have what amounts to be the middle to the end of puberty. And it you just you just have to shake your head and think, oh, you you They're figuring it out. They're figuring it out. Yes. They're figuring it out. They don't know what's happening to them.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Right. No idea. Which is why health class is very important, so that they can get an understanding of what the heck is going on in my body. Sure. Why is all this coming at me?

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Yeah, and then ignoring, from a porto point of view, ignoring the problem.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

That does not help. Yeah, you have to have some sort of conversation.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

There has to be some semblance of guidance.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

I agree with that. Yes. I think it's it's very helpful to have adults in your life that give some context for hey, you're going through crazy stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

A response, a responsible adult.

SPEAKER_02 15:45

Right. Well, in addition, I also know like later, um, I just want to finish up kind of talking about other movements as well. Um, before I forget, I know talked about some other movements that were happening at the time of 60s and 70s. Later, uh, movement for LGBTQ rights and disability rights really stepped into the forefront as well. All of these are connected. I really do think so.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

And then as we get to the politics of it, you now have a because of this the large civil rights movement. Yes. Civil rights has got to be understood. It's not just for black Americans, civil rights for humans. Right. And that's for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Because it benefits everybody.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yes, and so that's where when we get to the civil rights law, yes, you know, and they threw in just on a whim, and it wasn't on a whim, when when it was for civil rights for black Americans and gender equality. And they put that gender equality in thinking that that was going to force it to be voted down.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Wow. So it was on purpose to to get it thrown out.

unknown 16:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Because it was clear black Americans were getting the support after what was going on. Especially globally. Yeah, and and what was going on in in the American South in the 1950s. It was like this is wrong.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Of course, and it was on TV, like the the invention of the television at that time. It was everyone was able to see the brutality that was happening, especially after fighting in World War II, saying that we're experiencing freedom and democracy and everyone has rights in this country.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yes, yes, and the treatment of World War II black veterans coming returning to their country after civil rights law is was put in at the very last minute they put that clause in for gender as well, with the idea the far right at that point, which at that point the far right would have been the far right Democratic Party, not the Republican Party. It's funny how this flipped, yeah. Um but yeah, that was to make sure that it did not pass because we want women at home. So all of these movements, just kind of circle back around. Yes, all of these movements all underlie the civil rights movement.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Because that's the biggest one, and if we're going to ask for these questions now, why don't we ask for all other members of the human race in this particular avenue at this particular time?

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Yes, yeah, exactly. I think it it opened up the idea of freedom and liberation for everyone. Yes. Yes, yeah. And there was such an intersection of class in those conversations as well. I mean, like the Black Panther Party was was serving food and providing health care and pointing out these these systematic gaps in in who was able to have access to those things.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

And and the systematic inequity of of all. Exactly. But the question is how fast does society move?

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Right. So we can talk a little bit about like culturally um the things that were also happening outside of politics. So in science, for example, you had Kinsey um doing research on sex and Alfred Kinsey. Alfred Kinsey. Yeah. So you want to do you want to talk a little bit about him? I feel like we did like focus on him a little bit in your class. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

You can't not on Alfred Kinsey. Um biology professor at Indiana, my university. Okay, amazing. Um and he was asked to teach a course on marriage. So again, this is going to go back in the 1940s and 50s when the population of females at a big tin school, any school started going to be markedly smaller simply because we've not cast Title IX. But Title IX erroneously thought that it's for women's sports, it's for women in higher education. That's how it started. Um, because at that particular point, colleges would only admit, depending on the college, five percent women compared to men.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

So you would get women with a doctoral degree or an advanced degree, but usually it's going to be in what I guess I would call it softer studies. Um harder for women to get a degree in medicine, although you have them, but it's it was it was a harder path. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

There are just barriers in place. Yeah, root veto. Right. Oh my gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Um but so to get back to Kinsey, he was asked to to give a class on marriage in the 40s or 50s. Yeah, in the fifties um at that particular point, and he's like, Well, I study biology because I understand wasps and bees and all of all this on you know, all the the animals. And then he when he came to his research, he began to realize that there were no studies on sexual behavior of Homo sapiens. Right, right. And so that's when he started as a scientist going through let's let's let's go out and get some demographic studies.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Yeah, which he had a hard time doing in the 50s.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Yeah, but that that was to Kenzie's benefit. He had this exhaustive interview process. I mean, it was like two and a half hours. Wow. Um, and questions were asked of males and females. Um and what Kenzie's great gift, I mean, he had a whole research team and individuals that that would would would bring in all of this data. Kenzie's great gift was his rapport building. He made people feel so comfortable talking about things that you didn't speak to your best friend about.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

And yet people would open up to it. Now, some of the research that comes out of it may not fall to strict scientific research, but it does. Provide a window to the soul of those in their fifties and or those in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, um, that we'd never ever known.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Yeah, they weren't asking those questions.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

You didn't mention these the old Victorian codes. Right. And it wasn't just with sex, it's also with medicine. Um, you didn't mention the word cancer.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

You know, and so it's so yeah, and think about that implication today, not just sexual behavior, but also, well, what did Aunt Mary die of? I don't know, she just died. Died and so a lot of physicians today are beginning to realize building a family history kind of stops.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Yeah, wow, at certain generations, because you just it wasn't talked about. Unmentionables.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

It's just interesting to see how how close of type it we were as a society.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

I think that that also has to do with purity culture a little bit of it certainly does. Wanting to make sure that we're separate from our bodies and we're more focused on our minds and our spirit, and like anything to do with the body is dirty or gross or not to be talked about.

unknown 23:13

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yeah, that that that is that goes back to a Calvinistic Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Yeah, a Calvinistic beginning of this country. And that's what you mean by change takes so long. Because this is generations of people having to realize, oh, this is how we've been approaching this, and maybe something else would be beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

And then when we and then it's the scary loop of, well, if we change, is it going to make it better or worse? Right. What we know, we know works.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Yes, in some way. It's the unknown. It's the unknown. Yes, and there's always that backlash.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

So then it's always chipping away and chipping away. And then do you do it legislatively or do you allow it to just organically occur?

SPEAKER_02 24:04

Right, socially.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

If it occurs organically, yeah, then it's a change that will sustain itself.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

If it's legislative, that's where you get the resentment and the pushback. Yeah. By both sides.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Right. But then it's challenging.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

It challenges, but it keeps it in the discussion.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Yes. So it keeps it in open social play.

SPEAKER_05 24:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

Yeah. Anything else about Kinsey, like specifically anything that you want to share? I mean, I know Kinsey scale is very famous because that was like the first time like the spectrum of sexuality became a topic of discussion.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

And then what we what we found out with Kinsey is the that people were doing in their homes what was biologically natural, right, but not spoken about outside. Yeah. And so all of a sudden, now the conversation begins with this book that comes out that just floors everybody away about, you know, and and I mean we all know the statistics that come out of Kenzie, the jaw-dropping ones, without a doubt, but also the ones that then said, Well, I'm I'm okay. Yeah. This isn't perversion. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

This isn't. Because other people other people are doing it too, and it's normal. And it is more natural to have sex than to not have sex. Right, right, because we're animals.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Because we are animals.

SPEAKER_02 25:33

At the end of the day. And that and so that that gives Kinsey that validity. Right. As a biological. Biological scientist, yes. Yes. I think that's such an important context that I I think I knew at some point, but kind of like escapes. When you like think of him as this like sex researcher, you can forget that he started with animals. He started, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

He started out with a very, very scientific mind and scientific research, and we do research scientifically to ascertain what scientists always try to do, which is find the truth.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Yeah, yeah. And I guess along those lines too, like the per push for birth control at that time. I mean, when so when exactly when was the pill be becoming popular or accessible, I guess, for women? Accessible by the 1960s.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Um by the 1950s, I I believe the late 50s, I'd have to go back and look at my notes. That's okay. Uh the late 50s, the birth control pill becomes a viable pharmacology.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Yeah. So research began. Research began in the 50s.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

And it could be put into pill form. Um the effectiveness of it was and and and the pill was created, literally, to go back to what Margaret Sanger had said in the 1920s, for family limitation.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

Like we don't need eight kids. We don't need we can't afford it. We can't afford it. Because that was you said 1920s. So that was the Great Depression. Yes. So was that the motivation behind her thinking that?

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Or maybe you don't know that motivation was personal for Margaret Sanger. She was the product of a mom who had 14 children and literally died because of 14 children. Wow. And she resented her father.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

For for all of that. And said we have got women that we are not breeders.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

And and then that this also then stems into domestic abuse, um, variety of things. I mean, this that whole catalyst there with the sexual revolution, and literally the pill itself gives us control over men.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Yeah. Control over your own body. Control over your own body. And then that allows for you to have more control in sexual interactions with men.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah. Yes. And and the fact that the female doesn't have to have, she can have sex without having the fear of getting pregnant. Of getting pregnant. Yeah. And therefore perpetuating a cycle of poverty with 12 kids.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Or just even if when you're young too, like having a child, I mean, no matter what age you are, it's life-changing. But when you're young and you're having those hormonal experiences, and then can't be controlled. Exactly. And then I mean, at what point do you the ability to like control the the risk, I guess, is the biggest part of that.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Yeah, yeah, I'd say it's the that's that's the the statement there. It's it's the risk to control. No, and then the other side of this is saying the religious side is saying this isn't God's plan. This isn't God's plan. So then you bring in that sociological challenge. How many I mean the statistics I and I don't know the statistics of the amount of women who are Catholic who were on the birth control pill, and the pill is not sanctioned by the Catholic Church. Or at least it was not in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Yeah, I went to I went to a Jesuit university and we were not allowed to have like there was not free birth control given at health clinics. Like it was it was not something that the university was able to yes, um, which is just an interesting dynam. I mean, they have one of the higher STI rates um in the country, and I think that that is a direct correlation from them not having condoms on campus.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

So yeah, and and again, we talked about this at the very beginning. It is unfortunately beholden to the female to control this.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Yeah, well, socially. Socially, yeah. That that is pushed, that the woman and the you know is responsible for whatever happens, and it's a double standard of men being given permission to kind of do what they want with their bodies without any consequence.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

One of the statistics that came out of the Kinsey report was how many men had sex before marriage and how many women, uh-huh, and markedly higher for men to have sex before marriage. It's like well, who were they having sex with? Right for women.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

But then that's that's the demographics of the studies.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

So, you know, in terms of who Kinsey was interviewing, there were some gay men in this as well, yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

And even I'm sure I mean it's not too surprising that that was a finding, and I also wonder if there were women that didn't tell that they were having sex because of the social pressure to be a virgin before while you were married.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

That's the reason why that's just becomes maybe not as scientifically viable as when you're doing qualitative data. Quantitative data on human emotions.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Yes, exactly. Quantitative data on human emotions, exactly. That is difficult as forthcoming. Right, right, right. As they say, or just the opposite.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Maybe they are bragging about the men.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

Yeah, yeah. Perhaps. Perhaps women could be bragging as well.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

But they found out the women were also just, you know, and that a lot of the women i it they're somewhere in between. They're not this Madonna, so this is what came out of the Kinsey report, that either women were held up as Madonna, as Madonna, not Madonna, Madonna. Right, you know, or whores.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Right. And it's like they're somewhere in between.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

So Kinsey was the one that that's coined those two terms, or those two terms, but that's basically what what what what came out of the book. And so I I I can't say he coined the term, but that's what society had held women to that standard. And that I think is still true.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Yeah, and then finding out that not everybody falls in those extremes.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Into those two extremes.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Right. Yeah, exactly. Because it's I mean, that is such a black and white perspective on female sexuality. And also it's just it I think it is really interesting that I mean I say this with someone with a sex podcast, but I do think the US has a particular fascination with sex that is like because culturally sexually repressed. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Yes, and that's yeah, that's exactly what Hugh Hefner had said.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Playboy.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Yeah, the Playboy. But interestingly enough, you know, this wasn't just the 1950s. If you go back and you read in school, I think everybody gets to read The Great Gadsby. And you know, in the 1920s, you have the flapper.

SPEAKER_06 32:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Well, the flapper was a flapper because she was a girl who teased but didn't put out. The vamp, which is a term in the 20s, that I think you also read, I think somewhere in the in um the Great Gatsby, a vamp in the 20s was a girl who did put out. Okay. So it's there in the 20s. Again, through the 1930s and 40s, and then kind of re-emerged those two dichotomies, if you will, yeah, that women must be seen as is either the good girl, pure, or yeah, or a sly or a sly.

unknown 33:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Or what what's the term willing to go all the way?

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah. And I think meatloaf wrote a whole song about.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Yeah, no, it and I think that double standard still is something that we're like, I think my generation like was starting to kind of break that down a little bit. Like, we're um, there's the term slut shaming, like, don't slut shame. If if someone is choosing to have sex with multiple people, like that's their body, they can do what they want. Like that the the language is really important. Of I mean, you brought up those two terms from the 20s, and then now, like, we actually have a term for a man that sleeps with a lot of women is a fuckboy. Like, there's just like certain terms that come through when society changes, also human nature, to label, to label, of course, and labels are not always helpful, but sometimes I think that they are able to point at things that we haven't had language for before. Oh, yeah. And and it it points to different dynamics that have not been spoken about, or um, yeah, I think that double standard is something that like just has existed for a long time and until you like it's it's a bring it to light. It has existed since the dawn of time in most Western cultures. That's a really good point, too. That you know, like you gotta keep perspective of this isn't a global human, like forever human thing. There are matriarchal cultures, there have been matriarchal cultures where um women's sexuality would not be this like pawn in in politics and culture.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Oh why because I think there are a lot of women throughout history who have been able to use their sexuality to get what they want.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Definitely, but that is a specific type of power that exists only when power sick. Yes, and power sake. It's like you can only use that as power if you're denied other types of power. Like it's it like puts you in this position of like, well, this is my option, and so you have the femme fatale, the vixen or the femme fatale.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

And you see that throughout all of history. Um literature and everything else, and so that's just again, it's putting women in categories, yes, and of it as an either or.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Yeah, yeah. And I think what's so powerful about the sexual revolution is it really started with conversations among women themselves, right? I mean, just maybe behind closed doors, but like still gathering in each other's houses and saying, Are you experiencing this? What's going on here? Right. Because it's like, well, in this book it says this, and it's not about you, it's about the book. And it's about the book.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

And and it literally opened up a national dialogue.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Wow. It really did. Yeah. Between women and men. Oh, totally, yeah.

unknown 36:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Because you've got to have both.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Yes. Yeah, you do. You you can't have sex change culturally if only one gender is willing to change.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Some gender isn't gonna change, not gonna work.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Yeah, and I also wanted to touch touch on the feminine mystique. I know that was another very important what was her name?

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Betty Fradan. Betty Fragan. She was uh, well, highly educated. Um at that point, she's eventually going to become the president of Now, which is National Organization of Women. Um, but she writes this book, The Feminine Mystique. And it says a lot. There, there's there's no doubt it says a lot. But the bottom line of the book is she's asking women of your life, and we're talking particularly middle class white women, is this all there is? Is this all there is in terms of being a homemaker, and not shaming homemakers, but saying, is there more than I can do? And particularly when you've already had children and they've left the house, and you're now, you know, to a certain degree, you're an empty nester at the age of 40. Right, because they were married so young. Yes. And so, and we now know that 40, you are not done at all. In fact, for many people, you're just beginning a second phase in your life.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yeah, and so that that that was the groundbreaking book there in terms of of perhaps we can do other things besides just be a mother. And what so what was and I I I hesitate how I said that.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

I shouldn't say just be a mother because Oh, being a mother is yeah, there is no better profession.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

So I gotta I've got a more or more important profession because Yeah, you're raising the next generation.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Um so that I've got to be careful with how I say that. But um but the fact that you can now have choices.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Exactly. I think that is the important word. You can have choice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

You can have choices. Um and so when she writes the book, we're right on the edge of the civil rights movement. We go back into the civil rights law and add in the word gender, and it's gonna explode at that particular point.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

Yeah, so then I guess after 1965, I mean it wasn't till what year was it, Roe v. Wade? Was it 1972?

SPEAKER_01 39:22

72.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

Yeah. So between those like seven years, I mean, quite a time period in America for between 65 and 72. Right, right. Yes, yes. So Vietnam War, of course, without a doubt.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

The the hippie movement out west, the the the the the free love free love uh mountain San Francisco. Um we also have you know throw on top of all of this the drug culture, of which really wasn't just the 60s. Um we were a highly overly prescribed medicated society from the 30s, 40s, 50s. I mean, physicians were telling you to go ahead and smoke cigarettes. Yeah, to calm your anxiety.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Tranquilizers were given to women who this is gonna, I'm gonna backdoor here to Betty for Dan's book, who were in anxiety with four or five children at home, asking themselves, is this all there is? I've got more to give. We're gonna prescribe tranquilizers. Um, I believe the Rolling Stones wrote a song about it, Mother's Little Helper was the Tranquilizers for Women.

SPEAKER_03 40:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Um, and LSD was legal at that point.

unknown 40:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Used his research and then found out too much of it is a problem. Um, and so that's where we get to the LSD generation um of the hippie movement in San Francisco. Yes. I think love and everything else, and so society has become a little bit too. We've opened the door. We didn't just open the door, we blew the doors off.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Yes, and like that repression from the 50s, and then it's just the distrust of the government, go you know, sending young soldiers to Vietnam when there was you know 58 was the turn point there, 6768. Yeah, and so there was just this it's such a culmination of so many things at once, and the fallout of that is not all good, of course, because it's you know, you blow the door open, and especially with with drugs, I mean there was well, because the because the drug culture at that point, what what the social movements, the social movements of the time period, because of the unrelenting drug use of the time period, delegitimized any movement. Right. Which is so interesting because like you said, I mean it was already drug use was already a thing in terms of doctors prescribing and but it was legal. But it was legal, and it was from a like scientific point of view. And then as soon as it becomes a part of the subculture of people that are moving to have more rights to have these this social liberation, like once it becomes associated with that, then you see middle class normal America being like, no, we're not gonna be doing drugs, like you know, which is so interesting because it's like before that it was a part or I guess there it's the the drugs themselves too, you know. Talking about LSD has this association with hippies and the free love movement, and yeah, just the like chaotic energy of all of that.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

That is a great way to phrase it.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Whereas the prescription drugs being kind of this like I'm picturing like suburbian like moms.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

That is the picture it was for.

SPEAKER_02 43:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Um yeah, uh whether it was the prescribed drugs or whether for for mom at home, or whether it was for the businessman who was expected to have two or three martinis at lunch.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

Yeah, I'm thinking of the show Mad Men right now. That show's fantastic. Yeah, it does really show what like white Americans in, I guess middle upper class. Yeah, middle upper middle class. Yeah. That what what that lifestyle and the expectations and yeah, I mean, very um interesting.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

The want ads for want women or want female, want men in the in in terms of you know, getting a job and how it's advertised for help wanted female, and they put a bra size out there. It's like really. Yeah. It's uh Couldn't get away with that today. No. So in some ways we've changed quite a bit. Right. But it's how bad it was.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Well, and and I remember I took sociology in high school as well, Mr. Keating, and um I loved that class. And he showed us a documentary called Misrepresentation. And that was really that I would say made me a feminist. Like it was like the beginning of me being like, oh wow, like we really are like I I guess I saw the point of feminism once I understood and like visually that documentary talks about the objectification of women in media and holding that up against women not having as much representation in politics and other careers and and just you know showing the like lack of economic progress against the um yeah objectification of women in media and lack of ownership in media as well. You know, men own these big media conglomerates.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Well, so here's where you need to have a conversation with Candace Park or Neighbor plus Central Zone.

SPEAKER_03 45:10

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Um WNBA spent most, I mean, clearly, she face of the WNBA for a long time, um, but was capped at a salary of a very low amount. And so all of these women go to Europe to play for 10, 12 times the amount that they make here. And one of my friends had said when Caitlin Clark comes around, blows the doors off of, of which thank you, Caitlin Clark, for doing that.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Um, but that is coupled with the media attention and willingness to show these games on television.

SPEAKER_06 45:56

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

We've had cables since the 1980s. We've had 400 channels to surf for nothing, but your TV executives wouldn't show women's sports. That's correct. There would be a way for them to get ahead if they didn't get because they didn't have the data.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

They didn't have the data to back up asking for more money.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 46:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Correct. Um, and they would push for more airtime, and they were always told there's no market. No one no one cares about that. There's no market. Well, guess what? There's a market. There is. There is a market.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

And so, but and so again, we take a look at how long it takes to show. Exactly. We are seeing such a rise in.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Parker played a slow game because everybody said, Oh, the women's game is too slow. Well, now you have a lot more men that watch the women's game because there's a true art to that game that now the NBA doesn't have because the NBA's game of basketball has changed so radically that there's no defense. I mean, you can't tell me you're scoring 130 points in a game. You know, all you're doing is running and putting the ball down and exactly. There's no strategy there.

SPEAKER_02 47:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

And so the true art of the love of the game of basketball, you have offense and defense. But this is going back to Candace Parker and her push for women's equity in sport. Yeah. And and in terms of pay.

unknown 47:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

Not just the equity. Definitely in terms of the pay.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

I think that's still way behind the eight ball on that one. Right. Well, yeah, we don't have equal pay. And now being forwarded by male ownership saying, You're right, ladies. You do need more money. Yeah. So you can't get more money unless you have the other half, the gender who may own the companies that are willing to sponsor. So you've got to have both to be able to move forward. And that I the the the I the willingness to take a gamble. And that's a business risk. And then that's the business side of athletic.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

And I think that's a really good example, too, of like feminism is not just about like individuals, or it's not just about one person like being able to have a choice between getting pregnant or not. Like, it's not this like individual like choice of this is how I want to live my life, and you can do what you want. Like, there are these structural things of we don't have equal pay guaranteed, we don't have um the representation in the boardrooms where decisions are being made. And so your point of like men need to to be the ones to be willing to change the status quo of what those decisions look like.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

So that's yeah, to change societal status quo takes everybody. So you have all of these outliers in history that are there constantly pushing to move forward.

SPEAKER_03 49:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

And the parties in power, and it's just it's the power game. Pushed down because anybody in power, whatever it is, political, social, economic, doesn't make any difference, they're not gonna give up their power.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

No, they want to keep it.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Yeah, they want to keep their power. Um, you know, and that's just how society moves forward. That's how we evolve into a much more holistic society.

SPEAKER_03 49:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Um we've gone down really we have, haven't we?

SPEAKER_02 49:29

No, that's okay. I'm gonna bring us back. I'm gonna bring us back. We're gonna talk. I mean, I think sports isn't, you know, on here, but I think it is a part is of course a part of of gender equality.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

And well, because that goes through what Title IX.

SPEAKER_02 49:43

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, and and when was Title IX actually put? 72. Okay, thank you. Um, yeah, I think it's important to So this is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

I don't consider myself that old, but I was one of the first beneficiaries of Title IX. Didn't give it a thought. Yeah. That sports wouldn't be available to me or things wouldn't be available to me.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Yeah, my nana actually she uh started a girls' soccer team at my at my mom's school and she coached it because she was like, These girls are gonna get to play, and like I don't know. I mean it must have been after Title IX, but it was, you know, it takes a long time for for that schools to get this integrated. Exactly. So it's not as if they didn't want to do it, it's just it's the money and it's the getting the people in the right places to integrate. And to have this people to coach and people to to step up and and make it make a team, and and then other schools have to have teams to play against, and it takes a while.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Well, if you guys in class said I was a four-sport athlete, you all thought my you know it's like, no, I'm not this great athlete.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

They needed bodies. Yeah. They didn't have the bodies. The sports didn't happen. Yeah. Wow. It's things like that that you don't think about all the time of like how much progress we have made, right? Like that's such a good example of sports were such an important part of my high school experience and just being able to the sense of goal setting, independence, you can handle failure, you can handle you see your body as strong, yes, as something that has capability outside of what society is telling you about your body, like it gives you this like agency over control over your body.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

So since you were a swimmer, remember me giving you this in class. 1972, one of Central's first sports was women's swimming. And by law, in 73, when it first was instituted, um, by law, the women's swimming team could only have two meets a season.

SPEAKER_03 51:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 51:45

You guys have two practices a day.

SPEAKER_02 51:47

Yeah, yeah, we did. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

So it was the fear, and my grandfather said the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

You're gonna hurt yourself, something's seen it like women as fragile. Women is fragile, and girls as fragile.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Girls as fragile, and my my mom looked at her dad, so this is her dad who was telling me that I was gonna get hurt. And she looked at her dad, it's like, you're the one who had me out there mowing the lawn in the 1930s. Mower, she's not fragile, she's gonna get out there and put over.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

There you go. That's exactly right. Yeah, come on. Yeah, how how quickly you forget.

SPEAKER_01 52:27

At least my mom is in European. Um but it was but it's a sense of how you see your body.

SPEAKER_02 52:32

Exactly. Yeah, and and swimming and water polo, I mean, were very impactful for me in that way. I mean, we were just like uh so exposed as well. So it's just like you have to you have to be okay with bodies looking differently, with like body and but then it's like it doesn't come down to that at the end of the day. It's can you play the game? Can you can you pass me the ball when you need to pass me the ball? And like you get over all of that. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

And and that's a mindset that men have had from the beginning. Yeah, so that's where women struggle with themselves in terms of their growth as they become much more independent and self-reliant, and no longer second guessing, do I belong?

SPEAKER_02 53:16

Mm-hmm. Yeah, oh the belonging is huge, yeah. Yeah, on a team and and having that camaraderie and yeah, and I think that then like when you extrapolate that kind of experience to adulthood and you're like seeing the ways that like as a city or as a workplace or like they're those are teams. Like as a country, it's a very large team, but it's it's like okay, who has been sidelined, who has been on the bench for for decades and decades and hasn't been able to play part of the game?

SPEAKER_01 53:50

We are one of the only Western cultures that has yet to elect a female president.

SPEAKER_03 53:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

Now, does that mean that who has been put forth in candy is viable yet? I I don't know. And it's I want to put somebody in, it's speaking selfishly, I don't want somebody to be put into the president seat saying, yes, here's the first female, and I don't want them to bomb. I'm not the most I I want the most qualified and the most well like like anybody, you're you're you're the the first of the first that has the most pressure.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

The most pressure, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Because it either fails or succeeds based upon what happens with the first. And that's what's so unfortunate about the hierarchy that we have in place, because then once anyone of a minority identity like that hasn't been in that that that position of power before, they're all of a sudden the representation of their entire gender, of their entire race, of you know, and it just adds a side note to that is women have become so used to working behind the scenes and getting things done behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

Yeah, that maybe they stay behind the scenes because here's where I can get things done.

SPEAKER_02 55:14

Right. And they don't need the credit, they don't need the stop spotlight, like they can just yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

We we we know how to organize, we know how to work, we know how to work with others. And so, yeah, yeah. So I it's it'll be interesting to see what happens.

SPEAKER_02 55:26

Yeah, definitely. Well, I do want to talk about um music. Oh, true, yes, please, yeah. Let's let's talk about that. Yeah, so I think I mean Roe v. Wheat, I think is such an impactful, of course, court decision. And since it's been overturned, we've seen obviously the fallout of that, different states having different um access to abortion care and people having to drive across state lines, um, abortion pills in the mail. Yeah, yeah. So it's been a complete reversal.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

Um and I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm really not sure how where this is going.

SPEAKER_03 56:10

Yeah, me neither.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

I know. And that's what I yeah, I I I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

Yeah, and and I don't expect you to. I think that this is just it's important uh historical context of that happened in 1972 in the context of the sexual revolution, in the context of women's lib, in the context of all these movements.

SPEAKER_01 56:31

That's that's that's because once one element gets pulled back, then it's easier for other layers to well, we'll just take this away and this away. And and and again, we go into the like the Title IX or of the civil rights law. Um and it was that that almost got struck down, and I don't know, and so now I'm gonna go to the politics of it. Um so when they were pushing for um oh not title nine, I'm sorry, ERA, the ERA amendment, and that didn't get put forth, not put forth but voted down, yeah. Um, state by state. Um and so now you have the rise of women Phyllis Schlafley saying she's the great conservative lawyer, who I find interesting. She never stayed home and never made dinner. I mean, yet she's going to go out and tell women that you need to stay at home. Somebody's got to raise the kids, that we can't have equal rights amendment. Um and she goes on a late-night talk show and she says, you know what this is gonna mean, women, you could get drafted. So Vietnam is still in play. And all of a sudden there began to become a little bit of a recoil, yeah, as well as, and this is gonna add into another onion layer of civil rights mov of the movement of humanity. Part of the push for the Equal Rights Amendment was equal rights for LBGT, humanity. And even the women's movement said if we do that, that's too radical, right? That group got pushed to the back, like women did with voting for um post-civil war. Um and that was the and that was you know, Betty Ferdan was was effectively saying at that point, this is too radical.

SPEAKER_02 58:39

Exactly. Yeah, so it's it's just so they were forced.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

I don't want to say back in the closet, but they were they were for I I know. I'm in my head thinking, should I say it just because of and I I couldn't, I couldn't, because I mean if my audience of friends they would know my sarcasm. But but that's where yeah, yeah. So that's where that that movement was stilted, right? To be quite honest.

SPEAKER_02 59:05

Well, and then it it took so much longer for that to rise back up again and it's and that's with the AIDS crisis. The AIDS crisis, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that that is also really important context of like where we are today because the 70s and 80s, I mean, you see LGBTQ people, even though they were sidelined by the feminist movement, they some very radical LBGTQ communities would say that they were scapegoated.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

Yeah, but uh and again, so that's that's splitting the hairs in terms of but but society I can absolutely guarantee would not have in the 1960s. That was way too much movement, way too much fast. Um and that's where uh the the civil rights movement kind of imploded on itself or or the hippie movement, the 60s movement, all of those movements became so disjointed at that particular point, um, that was going, you know, in the end of the civil or the end of the Vietnam War um was going to cause a again go back to a conservative 1920s, notice the cycles were going. Yes. Yes, notice the cycles were in. Yeah, um after Vietnam. And they returned to normalcy in the 80s. And that's when you have Reagan.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:25

And that's when you have people going back to church. Yes, calm and quiet, yes. Yeah, and the 80s, I mean, the 80s have this kind of um like neutrality in in some in like larger culture. I feel like the 80s are talked about with very like a neutral lens, almost, especially when you compare it to the 60s and 70s. But but of course it's not neutral.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

But from a historian's point of view, it's still to nuke.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:53

Uh-huh. Okay. Is that what it is?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

Yeah, from a history point of view, there are still from sociologists and political science will look at it all day long. Yeah. History people, you have to wait for these individuals to die, literally to die. Yes, before you can actually make sense of it. We can really take a look at here's what happened, here's kind of a different take on it, here's a third take on it. Yeah. And eventually we kind of settle somewhere in the middle. Yeah. And therefore, we have more than just the binary right and left. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, and so that's that's that's history's perspective is much more slower to take a look.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:34

Yeah, because you do ultimately want to have that nuance. You want to be able to look at it at holistic one. Right, right, right, right, right, right. No, exactly. I mean, it it's very fair that you know, so much of the adults today have lived through the 80s, so that so it is more difficult to look at it through a historical lens when you have a personal history. But I do think your point about the patterns being similar. Without a doubt. Without a doubt.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

And so, you know, when we had gone through COVID, I thought all my my friends were like, oh my god, this is the the other world is gonna end. I'm like, it isn't. We've been there, it's happened before. And we just weren't a part of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

Um yeah, we don't remember it, it's not part of our not know of the globalness of it, the the first great pandemic, you know, and the black plague and all this other good stuff. But what has really accelerated society today is the internet.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:36

And and there's a jury's album on whether that's good or bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:40

Oh, totally. It's uh definitely too soon to tell, but right now it feels bad, is what I would say.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:46

We've got to gotta get a handle on how information is is and I don't want to say we've got to get a handle on how information is disseminated because I certainly do. Yeah, no, I really don't want censorship. No, I think we had that in television in the 50s and 60s. Yeah, I think you couldn't say pregnant on television.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

Yeah, there are certain words that couldn't be said. Now pregnant was one of them, going back to the sexual issues. Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:14

Yeah, couldn't even and again, can't talk about anything that has to do with bodies.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

No, no, no, no. That's dirty.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:21

That's just yeah taboo.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:24

And because you didn't see two people on a television sitcom in bed until the Brady's in the 1970s.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:29

Mm-hmm. Yeah, media is such an important point of like I'm glad you brought up the censorship of that time period too, because it's like you have to look at it from that lens of like what was even allowed to be shown. Like even if you can look at TV and movies from different time periods, like it's such an interesting journey of there were like porn movies like in like the 20s, right? Like, it and but it was like before the government realized that like it could be used in that way, or like I don't know. So yeah, there's and then like that stuff kind of goes into the the underground. It goes into the underground, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:13

You know, and like rock and roll music was on FM radio because FM radio was was nobody listened to FM radio. It was all talk radio because all cars came with AM radios.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

Oh, cars didn't even have FM?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:31

No, not yet. Uh though those will come later, but the frequency was so small with um FM radio that AM radio, broader frequency, um, had more appeal.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

Um, and so with with that they they could control you know the channels regarding AM radio, and so anything that was considered risque would go to the FM radio. Yeah. And then eventually rock and roll went to FM. Teenagers listen to rock and roll. Yeah. Suddenly now FM becomes it eclipses AM radio.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:13

Because the people wanted it. Yeah, well, and I I did write down some some artists from that time period. I think just talking about a little music, I know you like to like to touch on that. I think it's it is important to talk about what people were listening to, what kinds of things people were wearing, like um, you know, just to picture the time of sexual revolution, you had like folk music was was very big during this time, a lot of political um music, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:43

Um, and go go to their guru, which is Pete Seeger. Yes. Yes, Pete Seager. And so if you if you watch the Dylan movie, Bob Dylan movie, Pete Seeger is in there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:55

He's the one in the hospital in that movie, is that right? He's the one that he like visits. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:02

Yes. And and you don't hear a lot of Pete Seeger because he was blacklisted in the 1950s.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:08

He was part of For being too political in his lyrics, or do you know why?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:12

I uh well no, because if you listen to his lyrics, you're like going, you're you're you're you're blacklisting this man who was i if he weighed 130 pounds, he was lucky. You know, this little artsy guy. Um and his lyrics were not all that in your face. But that's how the blacklisting worked. So they knew that Seeger could touch the soul. So we're gonna blacklist him along with other Hollywood activists.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:48

Um and and I'm not gonna say Pete was okay with it, but the folk music festival out in Newport.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:56

I mean, the kids are gonna go where the music is.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:59

Totally.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:00

Yeah. Like radio can only hold so much power.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:03

Hold so much power. And eventually he was only broadcast later after being out of blacklisted, um, on PBS, of which nobody listened to PBS for the time period. So, but he was he was a great influence to Joan Baez, uh Bob Dylan. Uh eventually the mom is in a poppers who both music at the time period, and then they sold out, as Pete Seeger said, Bob Dylan did by going electric. Yeah, went rock and roll. Yeah, went rock and roll.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:34

So who can blame him? So yeah. No, no, no, no. I I appreciate that context. I do I do remember you talking about Pete Seeger, and um yeah, it's always good to know kind of who influenced who.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:47

When Barack Obama was first inaugurated, you know, who was there was Pete Seeger.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:54

And his inauguration, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:55

Wow, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:56

So that's no, that's it's a whole trouble.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

No, I love that because it's like those little things that that oh here's a knot, here's a here's a knot to this, here's a a a tip your hat to these people.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:08

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I think naming the people of the time and recognizing that connection to the to the present. Yeah, it's great. Um you have people like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, I mean, just incredible black soul artists and um yeah, yeah, the whole development of Motown.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think Barry Gordy was the large producer for Motel. Okay. Of Aretha Franklin, and all is eventually going to be Michael Jackson. Wow. And the Jackson 5, yeah, Jackson family.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:42

Yeah, you can just see the trickle down of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:45

But then that also divides the music.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:49

Yeah, genre. Genre, yeah, divides.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:52

Yes, divides. Um, yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:58

I think there's a lot of crossover in genres.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

There's a lot of acceptable crossover because you have country music has more black artists than ever.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:06

Yes, yeah. And I mean, of course, there's pushback on that too. Um, but yeah, I think music is a really cool way to look at culture of of how things have changed, how the use of the internet as a way to find music and discover artists, and um is just not having to go through the politics. Exactly. Or radio or media conglomerates, like you we have more ability to have individual music taste. But I do think that there's a negative to that as well, because when radio was the way that America listened to music on a regular basis, and when there were you know records and even CDs, like there was this kind of camaraderie of like this album is coming out this time, like we're gonna bond over that, and then radio, like the top hits of that year, like everyone knows those songs. We don't have that as much anymore. We don't have camaraderie and collective music consciousness.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:14

And we've had this discussion in my class, true protest music has is and I'm not saying it's not there. No, it's definitely there. Thinner.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:24

It is, yeah. Because it doesn't reach all. Exactly. I do think that that is the one of the negative things of the internet is that although it allows this individuality, this choice, this ability to reach so many different kinds of people, so many different kinds of cultures at the same time, it's a form of media, or we have forms of media within the internet that are owned by people that you know, there are algorithms in place, there is not as much choice as you would think. So while dissemination should not necessarily change, censorship should not necessarily be a thing, media literacy does need to be a thing. There needs to be conversations about what you are consuming, who allowed for that to come across your screen, what is the purpose of this being created? Is it to inform, is it to engage you, is it to enrage you? Exactly. There are emotions at play that um want people have a real vested interest in keeping your attention as long as possible for them to make money. Um and so the more that we realize that, the more control we'll have over ourselves of how much do I actually want to be showing up on these platforms. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:46

Yes, and the to me, this is the darker side of it. It also the internet is allowing individuals who are listening to it to still be anonymous. Yes, yeah, everyone's hiding behind their screens. Everybody's hiding behind their screens. So therefore, are we forcing individuals by their own choice to stay to stay in their basement and not get out and not say this is wrong. And here is another group of individuals, really humans, collectively on a street corner saying this is wrong. Right. Rather than the hundreds of individuals that can't be verified because of bots and everything else, yeah, saying pushing out information. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:39

Well, and that's what I was gonna tie it back to too, is that the internet and specifically social media affecting the nervous systems of young people today. I mean, I think that in combination with Roe v. Wade getting overturned, I think is part of the reason why we see such a rise in purity culture like impacting Gen Z in a way of Gen Z is not having a lot of sex at this time. Um, and I think in general. Okay. Um, and I think that that is for a couple people. Yeah. Well, I think I have no Gen Zers around. So fair enough. Yeah, I know. Yeah, so that I think is um partly because of the internet like impacting dating. So we are on dating apps and we are not meeting people in person as much. Um, I mean, there's so many reasons why. I mean it's a whole but anthropologists are gonna look at this and go, Oh, for sure. Yeah, like why were these young people in their 20s not having sex as much as previous generations? And I do think the internet is part of that. I I do think like distrust of the other gender, I mean straight sex specifically, like they're um with Roe v. Wade being overturned. I mean, if you're living in a state where if you get pregnant, like you're and you can't have access to an abortion, like you're looking at sex with a lens that's different than it was in previous generations. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:07

Yes, well, like the 1950s.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:09

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:10

Yeah, like the 1950s.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:11

Yeah, so that's what I I I think that purity culture of like circle back, we're kind of getting back to that now.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:18

And um you know, and the pendulum swings. Yeah, yeah, and it always has. That we will eventually move I mean the last well, the the last four or five not years, the pendulum to the far right is also going to implode and come back. And it just it's and and so that's the pathology of change. We will move forward from where we were 20 years ago. Yes. But we might move backwards but it's but it's it's the going back and forth and back and forth, and eventually the moving forward because we were no longer afraid of what we were being told to be afraid of.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:07

Exactly, yeah, and that's why like information is so important, and that's why the internet isn't all bad, is that we have this ability to understand anything we want to. We have the world at our fingertips, but a caveat to that is to know your sources and where are you reading your information and what is their like political leaning, or is this a news source, or is this an educational source, you know, or is it a manipulated source?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:33

Yeah, the a I mean AI now is throwing a whole new monkey wrench right into all of this.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:38

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, like reading scientific articles is not everyone's favorite or accessible way to learn information, but it's like that is somewhere you can find legitimate, you know, data to back up experiences, and so yeah, it's it's a very interesting time to see this pendulum and and be in the midst of it, of course. Um, as Ben Franklin said, everything in moderation. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:07

Yeah, and let's go back to one of the founders. Everything in moderation.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:13

Yeah, yeah, and I mean, we talked talked a little bit about media as well. Um, and I do think TV and movies is an interesting pendulum to watch too. Of like, we now have more representation of of women and people of color and LGBTQ and like those stories being told. But similar to the internet, we have so many media streaming services now instead of cable that we're not, it spins it out again. It's you're individually choosing the shows you watch, and it's not everyone tuning in every week to watch the same film. We don't have the shared experience. So our individualistic culture on one hand is very uh freeing because it allows you to choose what you fill your time with, choose who you're listening to, choose the kinds of things that you pay attention to, but on the other end of that, it can kind of erode at some empathy of people that are experiencing America in a different way.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:16

Sure. Yeah. Sure it does. Yeah. Um and if you think about it, and I don't mean this in a negative way, it's gonna sound negative, but it's just an observational point, is at what point in our country, as big as we are, were we ever truly united?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:39

Never.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:40

Yeah. I can only think of two times. Really. Um Pearl. Yeah, no, not even then. Oh, we were greatly we had one third of the American public that had no idea there was a revolution going on. That's how far I mean, so that's what the vast physical size of the United States is. Geographically. Geographically. Yes. Um Pearl Harbor and 9-11. Yeah. Yeah. And those were but 9-11 was brief in terms of unification. And Pearl Harbor, uh, you know, in a scope of the at the time, was still brief because we interned the Japanese.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:20

Exactly. I was gonna say, like the fallout of both of those things were scapegoating these racial demographics that you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:27

So we hold unification uh in a very idealistic sense. Yes, we do. We want we want collective unification and support and uh and and power to the people. Power to the people, but we also want our individual freedom. Yeah. That is the paradox of the US. It is it is quite the paradox because we've been more individualistic than we have been unified. Yes. And we we become unified when there's a great crisis. Yeah. That's when we unify. Yeah. And it's gotta be a great crisis, not just a little one.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:04

Yeah. And it takes a lot for it to be a big crisis because we are such a big country.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:10

Because we are so big.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:11

Yeah. So it's like uh one state can get on the same page about a state issue, but then ultimately that experience is not uh happening four states away. Right. So even to get on the same page.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:25

So then that that gets to let's take a look about how how difficult it is since we are uh six years removed from the pandemic. The the microcosm of the two years of the pandemic, uh the first six weeks, we were all in it together.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:43

After that, don't tell me to put a mask on. I mean, that all that within eighteen months. Yeah. All that within don't tell me to get back to that. I mean, all of that within 18 months. Yeah. Well and so you went from collectivism, collec the collective, I shouldn't say collectivism, that's not a Soviet sense. Um the collective experience to individualism in a blink of an eye. Yeah. Very American. It is. It is. Yeah, but it's that individualism which has allowed us to move forward.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:17

Yeah, of course, because there are individuals that come forward and point things out. Yes, and point things out and say, hey, yes, why are we doing it this way when we have this information that could maybe change things? And then the collective wakes up and is like, oh it's just it's just an awkward way to go about things.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:35

It is, it is. Yeah, and so so generational changes again, change occurs glacially.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:42

And I think there's always this point to we need leadership in America. That's always the the sure thing of people talk about you know movements that they want to happen or things they want to happen, and you're like, well, you need a leader, you need someone people to follow.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:59

I mean, we go to you know, women getting the right to vote, and they they always inevitably go back to go Susan B. Anthony. I'm like, she was dead by the time we got the right to vote. It was like, come on, people. So yeah. We have a tendency in our minds to skip. We do. We do that that that what we talked about earlier is that you have the first people that really push the issue, whatever it is, they know they're never gonna see it. But the issue is always there, whatever the issue is. Yeah. LBGT, Roe v Roe v. Wade, whatever whatever the issue is. Then the leadership to get it to change, that's another set of leadership because what happens in those two groups, then you have the politics within groups that don't agree with how a movement should go. Right. Oh, yeah. So that's its own bifurcation.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:48

Of course. I mean, Malcolm X and MLK were gone completely different ends of the spectrum when it comes to use of violence.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:54

And and and Alice Paul and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two different ways to go about getting women the right to vote.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:00

But then it's like you do need that tension as well to hold each other accountable to other perspectives as well. I mean, it's not that because MLK and Malcolm X did respect each other too at the end of the day. So it's like they're which is so interesting because I think sometimes when I learned about them in school, it it seemed like they were on opposing sides of things. It's just so easy to see them as opposed to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:30

And just it and again, it's just we jump to that, we jump to conflict before there's even evidence for yeah, and that's the teenage brain unable to see nuance.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:43

Nuance.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:45

Nuance. And complexity, because also when you're a teenager, you kind of feel like you're one type of person. You're like, well, I'm doing this activity, and I have these friends, and I'm this is my life, and like you just like don't have but then you are obviously you're complex as a as a teenager. There's a lot going on. Yeah, a lot going on, but so much so that you're in your own little world the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:09

You are, and it's and it's the outside pressures to be a certain way. Oh, totally. That once you get into college or the your next movement, whatever, uh you're kind of freed of the chains, shall I say, yeah, of the image that created you up until because every kid, no matter what, yeah, you're every kid is an imitator. Yeah. You're always imitating whoever it is in your friend group. I want to be like them. Um because mom and dad are mom and dad. Mm-hmm. They've they've built you up to a certain point. Yeah. And then now they let you go, have your own friends and your own, and you skirt around friend group to friend group to friend group to event to event to event, and eventually, you know, you get to about your twenties or so or thirties, and eventually you settle down and say, This is me, take it or leave it. Exactly. You stop caring so much about what others are. That is a simple growing up process. Yeah. Some people take longer than others. So becoming more relaxed with yourself and accepting of yourself as you are.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:18

And then once you're able to do that, like it is way easier to explain. It finally gets easier as well. Because you're like, well, you have to do what you have to do, like your position is different than mine, your experiences are different than mine. Of course, you're not gonna act the same way I am.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:34

And um and it's okay. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:38

Yeah, and that's just self-awareness. Right. My God, now we're in philosophy. Everything, everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:43

Well, that is what sex can do. Yes, it is. Yeah, yes, without a doubt. Yes. Well, yeah, though that really does, I think, cover everything that I wanted to talk about. I mean, just providing some more historical context. I mean, for me, it was it was personal too to reach out to you of you were the first person to be on through.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:04

I mean, it was the first time I learned about the sexual revolution, and I was so lucky that I learned about that in a school context of you know, someone that did it from a historical perspective and yeah, I think and not sensationalizing. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:17

I mean, because you could even the the hook for the class, yeah, even though the class sensationalizes you gotta smell it, you gotta get the kids in the dinner and it's gonna say you gotta smell it.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:26

It worked, it worked, it worked, and it is yeah, it is one of the classes that I've brought up the most, like in my college and adult years of um just the marrying of history and culture and how those impact each other, how those push each other along. Um and for this podcast, I mean, I want to approach it with that lens as well. It's it's I mean I'm just thrilled that you're doing this.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:57

I really am it's it's I'm so proud of you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:01

Thank you. Well, yeah, I mean, that is it for me. So I just want to thank you. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:06

This was so fun for me. So fun. I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:08

Yes, amazing. Well, thank you again for hosting me too in your kitchen for our conversation. Anytime anytime. Yeah. Well, to our listeners, thank you for for taking some time to learn up with me. Learn about the sexual revolution from the one and only Jane Thompson. And um, all right, have a good rest of the day wherever you are.