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We should now return our attention to the issues of the sexual revolution. As mentioned earlier, the development of the contraceptive pill was a significant contributory factor in the changing moral position, particularly among women; but even before the arrival of the pill, increasing use of contraception and new attitudes to sexuality were combining with anxiety about rising illegitimacy figures, to provoke comment from some elements of society on the existence of premarital sex and the denial of contraception to unmarried women. We can also place premarital sexual relationships within the context of other sexual activity that was occurring outside marriage in the late 1950’s.The 1957 report, published by the Wolfed Committee on homosexual offences and prostitution, recommended that behaviour that took place in private between consenting adults should be decriminalised but that legal penalties for public displays of sexual behaviour should be strengthened. Essentially, although it was never actually illegal,that was the already existing position as regards women and premarital intercourse. Premarital sexual intercourse was carried out in private between consenting adults. 

The sanctions imposed by the society of the late 50’s were severe enough to ensure that it had to be covert and concealed, but it was certainly never illegal. If the women became pregnant as a result of her sexual activity, the judgemental of society was heavy; she would have been, essentially, a social outcast. Having the child was also the only outcome of pregnancy as abortion was illegal at the time. Having an illegitimate child was highly stigmatised and something that was avoided at all costs, it was treated almost like having a criminal record. A combination of the almost50,000 illegitimate children born a year at the very beginning of the60’s, and the introduction of the birth control pill that removed the most obvious side effects of promiscuity; a new openness was forced upon an unwilling populace, and by the end of the 1960’s this had resulted in general public acceptance of the hitherto private and hidden sexual activity.

The Wolfed report, mentioned above, placed a great emphasis upon self control and self restraint; important values in the 50’s and earlier. With supreme irony, any publicity given to the report, and any public discussion of sexual behaviour that it may have generated were seen as examples of a lack of restraint by many people. Such‘mainstream’ thinking was, however, of decreasing effect; by the end of the 50’s, increasing numbers of people were discussing such matters and felt no stigmatism for doing so. A number of historians have discussed the debates of the time and they need not concern us too greatly here: but what these historians’ accounts lack is any sense of how the discussion changed throughout the 60’s. 

As the decade wore on, it became increasingly permissible to discuss sex and sexual behaviour in public. An excellent example of this is given by an examination of the British Medical Associations annual magazine, Family Doctor produced supplement entitled: Getting Married. The 1959 edition of this publication contained two articles that caused great offence at the time:本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。