Sixty Seconds on the Sixties

The 1960s can kiss my white, non-working, know-it-all ass. I realize that history repeats itself, so it’s important to be conscious of it, but seriously, when are we going to worry about today? Why is it that everyone is so fucking preoccupied with the past, but barely floating through the present? I was born in 1981. Telling you that fact ahead of time may cheapen the things I am about to say, but I don’t actually give a shit about your opinion, so fuck it. The things I know about the Sixties are not experienced based, they’ve come from books, movies, and the general knowledge of others. What’s important to me is not “free love”, but rather excess, excess, excess. And excess costs a lot; you can put a price on that for sure. Pass the champagne please.

The Sixties, as it has become known, takes credit for everything. It’s your obnoxious friend that asks for your help to complete a project and takes credit for everything when it turns out great. Let’s think about this for a second, the Civil Rights Movement started in the 1950s, but the most dramatic, poignant events occurred in the early 1960s. The same thing goes for gay rights and the feminist movement. It started in the late 1960s, but nothing notable happened until the Seventies. The Sixties is the shitty friend decade in time.

I don’t hate the Sixties. Don’t misconstrue my message. I just want to point out a few key things that people tend to overlook, as they are busy romanticizing the decade. I am the voice of reason. Here at Sex-Kitten, we talk about sex. DUH. So I might as well get to my main point. Sex and the Sixties, was it really the “free love generation” or just friendly fucking? I think using the word “love” in accordance with a time period famous for its counter-culture, and experimental nature cheapens the meaning of the word. Love isn’t a group of people whom came together, via mind expanding drugs, with the intention of expressing themselves outside of the constraints of modern thinking. And it isn’t learning how to turn off the part of your brain that makes you worry about the outcome of what may have been some very poor choices on your part. It also isn’t having gratuitous sex with many partners and deeply enjoying it on a “spiritual level”. I like to think that love is more than that. That maybe, it’s this ever extending part of oneself that has the ability to grow and change. It’s selflessness. Love is more than the ten tumultuous years that made up the decade we know as the Sixties.

It really makes more sense to refer to the rise of change that went on regarding sex in the 1960s as “The Sexual Revolution”. In 1960, the birth control pill became available to women across the United States. It gave them the power to control their reproductive system and moreover, the power to have sex without the consequence of pregnancy. For the first time in history, science has provided women with the ability to control the outcome of their sexual choices. It makes it easy to be easy. In short, the sexual revolution is the excuse people needed to throw the overbearing sexual morality of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s out the window. A lot of arguments can be made to the validity of this turning point. Some people will say this breaking point lead us to where we are today, but where is that exactly? It seems as though we have worked incredibly hard to bring all these aspects of sex and sexuality into our everyday lives, so that we could start to ignore them all over again. What I really wonder is, as our country recedes deeper into open arms of conservative idealism, will another sexual revolution be waiting for us right around the corner. If so, sign me up, that way, instead of ranting about the overly idealized aspects of the Sixties, I’ll let you know how it was.