9 - The morning after

Summary

Alf I've got to say this, that in my days when I was a youth, well, as a youth, I think there's more respect towards women than there are today … I mean … we were sort of limited in those days; they've got so much freedom today … I blame it all down to … when they discovered the Pill. When they discovered that everything went up the wall … It was freedom, actually … they got actual freedom today, the women … They were afraid in the old days … young girl was afraid to get into trouble … [but] today it is the emancipation of, emancipation of women … which I don't know whether a good thing or bad thing 'cos some of these girls – the way I see it – is some of them are not very … they're naïve I think, the way they spread theirselves. Why don't they keep keep us at arm's length? I mean, don't start giving into 'em like that.

The shadow of the sexual revolution hangs over all histories of sexuality during the twentieth century. A study of the attitudes towards, and experiences of, sex in Britain between the 1920s and 1960s will inevitably draw upon assumptions about the nature of changes associated with the 1960s and after. Indeed, as the title of this book illustrates, the period under investigation here is popularly thought of as the period ‘before’ the sexual revolution.