by Todd Daigneault

Created on: July 22, 2008   Last Updated: July 23, 2008

Sex and morality has been a huge part of society for many generations. But as society has grown, old morals such as single, unmarried woman having sex before marriage, women being sexually aggressive and the such have fallen like gigantic trees being felled in the forest. Victorian-era type standards are long since gone...society has evolved and moved on. Old morals in our society usually fall because there always is an effort to change things by the generations in the respective eras. Generations before start the process, and the cudgel is passed onto a new generation who start having a bit more liberality in sexual attitudes and morals, so on and so on until there is total sexual liberation and morality.

During the 1960's and '70's, came the birth control pill and women's liberation, which helped evolve sexuality from a forbidden term to something that could be enjoyed by women-without the connotations of being some kind of 'slut'. With the threat of pregnancy removed through the pill, women could explore their sexuality far more than their mothers or grandmothers could even dream of. The sexual revolution of that era freed men and women alike of that generation into a whole new world.

With a relaxation in movie censorship in that time period, movies could finally show scenes that had overt nudity and sexuality, something that was just briefly touched on in the pre-Hayes censorship code era. Now movies and TV were joining the mainstream of a much changed world, showing a realistic world of sex that not only portrayed the glories of freer sexuality, but some of its darker side such as teen-age pregnancies, unwed mothers and the such that was part and parcel of the era and the generation watching it. Such concepts are now very easily mainstream and nothing near so taboo to talk about, as evidenced by the recent news stories of the group of teen-age girls who took a group pact to become pregnant and help take care of each other's babies.

As new phenomenon of sexuality's darker side became apparent in the 1990's and beyond of date-rape, incest, children having sex (and sometimes impregnating or getting pregnant by adults) started to be portrayed on TV and movies. These venues reflected the reality of what was going on in the world-and was no longer being hidden or talked about in covert corners. Although sex and morality had evolved, some more negative aspects of sexuality were still considered abhorrent and repugnant even by a more evolved and enlightened society.

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