America’s Sexual Transformation: How the Sexual Revolution’s Legacy Is Shaping Our Society, Our Youth, and Our Future

192 Pages·2011·2.19 MB·English

by  Gary F. Kelly

America’s Sexual Transformation
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AMERICA’S SEXUAL
TRANSFORMATION
How the Sexual Revolution’s Legacy
Is Shaping Our Society, Our Youth,
and Our Future
Gary F. Kelly
Sex, Love, and Psychology
Judy Kuriansky, Series Editor
Copyright 2012 by Gary F. Kelly
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior
permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kelly, Gary F.
America’s sexual transformation : how the sexual revolution’s legacy is shaping our society,
our youth, and our future / Gary F. Kelly.
p. cm. — (Sex, love, and psychology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-313-39645-8 (hardcopy : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-313-39646-5 (ebook)
1. Sex—United States. 2. Sex customs—United States. 3. United States—Social life and
customs—21st century. I. Title.
HQ18.U5K45 2012
306.70973'09045—dc23 2011026313
ISBN: 978-0-313-39645-8
EISBN: 978-0-313-39646-5
16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5
Th is book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook.
Visit www.abc-clio.com for details.
Praeger
An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC
ABC-CLIO, LLC
130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911
Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911
Th is book is printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in the United States of America
Th is book is dedicated with gratitude and aff ection to my
students and my companions in the counseling and
therapy relationship, who have always taught me
so much about life, sexuality, and myself.
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CONTENTS
Series Foreword ix
by Dr. Judy Kuriansky
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
1. Risky Business: Sexual Revolution to Sexual Transformation 1
2. Th e Grandes Dames of Sex: Th e Women Who Made It Happen 23
3. Th e Woman Who Came Too Soon and the Man
Who Couldn’t Come at All 41
4 . One for the Books: What My Sex Books Have Taught Me 63
5 . Coming of Age: Beyond Comprehensive Sexuality Education 79
6 . Saved, Shaved, and Pretty Well Behaved: Whither the Millennial
Generation? 101
7 . Is Nurture Taking a Backseat to Nature? A New Guide to
Understanding Sexual Individuality 125

Notes 147
Index 161
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SERIES FOREWORD
I have been using Gary Kelly’s textbook, S exuality Today , in my classes about
the psychology of intimacy at Columbia University Teachers College for
many years. I had been impressed with how presentable and readable his text
was, making the topic of sexuality particularly vital to a young generation of
professionals. It is also of interest that the text has been recently published
in Chinese—given that I have done trainings in China about sexuality for
decades, I know how valuable it will be to be accessible to that country where
sexuality is a burgeoning fi eld.
I also knew that Kelly is a veteran in the fi eld of sexuality who had a most
unique front row seat in the development of the fi eld, with perspectives that
have not been told in the context of his more academic work.
Given all that, I was particularly thrilled when I approached Gary to write
a book integrating his academic perspective with more personal views and
opinions.
Th is resulting book delivers. A merica’s Sexual Transformation: How the Sex-
ual Revolution’s Legacy Is Shaping Our Society, Our Youth, and Our Future is a
fascinating tour through the lens of a sexuality expert who combines his roles
as an academic, award-wining teacher (for many years), and editor (of two
important journals in the fi eld), who has a decades-long experience in the
fi eld of sexuality and also had fi rst hand experience working with the grand
names (and actually grand dames, as he tells us in one of his chapters) in
sexuality—a claim not all can make. Th ese include heroic and groundbreaking
founders of organizations still thriving as crucial in the fi eld today, like Mary