Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T08:07:41.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Sexuality in Post-war Liberal Democracies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2024

Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Mathew Kuefler
Affiliation:
San Diego State University
Get access

Summary

The decades since the Second World War have seen dramatic shifts in the approved varieties of sexual experience in liberal democracies. Sexuality, once regarded as an intensely private matter, is now on display everywhere, on large and small screens. Effective contraception has made what was once primarily a procreative act into a form of recreation, available to both heterosexual and same-sex couples. From being regarded as a privilege of marriage in the 1950s, today access to sex might be regarded as a right. An extreme form of this belief might be seen in the “Incel” movement. Cohesive community ideals about sexuality within marriage disintegrated in the post-war world responding to growing demands to respect a diversity of individual desires. Democracies which hold to faith traditions promote a more traditional view of sex as contained within marriage. The promotion of a responsible sex life has become part of the commitment of many secular liberal democracies to ensure the health and welfare of citizens, particularly in light of AIDS and HPV. Countries have put laws in place to protect citizens from sexual abuse. The global nature of the digital realm, however, makes sexually exploitative visual material difficult to police.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Berge, Pierre L. van den, ‘Miscegenation in South Africa’. Cahiers d’études africaines 4 (1960): 6884.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bongiorno, Frank. The Sex Lives of Australians: A History. Melbourne: Black, 2012.Google Scholar
Brown, Callum. The Battle for Christian Britain: Sex, Humanists and Secularisation, 1945–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, Mina. ‘The Politics of an Apology: Japan and Resolving the “Comfort Women” Issue’. Harvard International Review 31, no. 3 (2009): 34–7.Google Scholar
Coulmont, Baptiste, and Hubbard, Phil. ‘Consuming Sex: Socio-legal Shifts in the Space and Place of Sex Shops’. Journal of Law and Society 37, no. 1 (2010): 189209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, Kerry F. Wartime Sexual Violence: From Silence to Condemnation of a Weapon of War. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engin, Ceylan, Hürman, Hazal, and Harvey, Kimber. ‘Marriage and Family in Turkey: Trends and Attitudes’. In International Handbook on the Demography of Marriage and the Family, International Handbooks of Population, Vol. 7, ed. Farris, D. N. and Bourque, A. J. J., 105–19. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2020.Google Scholar
Featherstone, Lisa. Let’s Talk about Sex: Histories of Sexuality from Federation to the Pill. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2011.Google Scholar
Guy, Laurie. Worlds in Collision: The Gay Debate in New Zealand, 1960–1986. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Bruce, Ware, Jacob, and Shapiro, Ezra. ‘Assessing the Threat of Incel Violence’. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 43, no. 7 (2020): 565–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivezaj, George. ‘Child Pornography on the Internet: An Examination of the International Communities Proposed Solutions for a Global Problem’. Michigan State University–DCL Journal of International Law 8, no. 3 (1999): 819–48.Google Scholar
Loe, Meika. The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America. New York: New York University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Lu, Timothy Siliang, Holmes, Andrea, Noone, Chris, and Flaherty, Gerard Thomas. ‘Sun, Sea and Sex: A Review of the Sex Tourism Literature’. Tropical Diseases, Travel Medicine and Vaccines 6 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1186/s40794-020-00124-0.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marks, Shula. ‘An Epidemic Waiting to Happen? The Spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa in Social and Historical Perspective’. African Studies 61, no. 1 (2010): 1326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Peter. ‘Irish Censorship in Context’. Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 95, no. 379 (2006): 261–8.Google Scholar
Naughton, John. ‘The Growth of Internet Porn Tells Us More About Ourselves Than Technology’. Guardian, 30 December 2018, https://tinyurl.com/mwu2s6f3.Google Scholar
Phan, Anh, Seigfried-Spellar, Kathryn, and Raymond Choo, Kim-Kwang. ‘Threaten Me Softly: A Review of Potential Dating App Risks’. Computers in Human Behavior Reports 3 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2021.100055.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Randall, Melanie, Koshan, Jennifer, and Nyaundi, Patricia. The Right to Say No: Marital Rape and Law Reform in Canada, Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. Oxford: Hart, 2017.Google Scholar
Reay, Barry, Attwood, Nina, and Gooder, Claire. Sex Addiction: A Critical History. Cambridge: Polity, 2015.Google Scholar
Renu, Geeta Chopra.Child Sexual Abuse in India and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act 2012: A Research Review’. Integrated Journal of Social Sciences 6, no. 2 (2019): 4956.Google Scholar
Rhode, Deborah L.Adultery: An Agenda for Legal Reform’. Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties 11, no. 2 (2015): 179205.Google Scholar
Roode, Thea van, Sharples, Katrina, Dickson, Nigel, and Paul, Charlotte. ‘Life-Course Relationship between Socioeconomic Circumstances and Timing of First Birth in a Birth Cohort’. PLOS One 12, no. 1 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0170170.Google ScholarPubMed
Stevens, Liesbet, and Hooghe, Marc. ‘The Swing of the Pendulum: The Detraditionalization of the Regulation of Sexuality and Intimacy in Belgium (1973–2003)’. International Journal of the Sociology of Law 31, no. 2 (2003): 131–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vito, Christopher. ‘Masculinity, Aggrieved Entitlement, and Violence: Considering the Isla Vista Mass Shooting’. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies 13, no. 2 (2017): 86102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waggoner, Lawrence W.Marriage Is on the Decline and Cohabitation Is on the Rise: At What Point, If Ever, Should Unmarried Partners Acquire Marital Rights?Family Law Quarterly 50, no. 2 (2016): 215–46.Google Scholar
Waites, Matthew. The Age of Consent: Young People, Sexuality and Citizenship. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, Jessica. To Have and To Hold: Marriage, the Baby Boom and Social Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Werbner, Pnina, and Werbner, Richard. ‘Adultery Defined: Changing Decisions of Equity in Customary Law as “Living Law” in Botswana’. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 43, no. 1 (2020): 136–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×