Abstract
The premise of this volume is that the sexual revolution of the late 1960s/early 1970s was primarily a media revolution. There is certainly abundant evidence through which to demonstrate the mediated form of much that was occurring at that time in and around this upheaval in sexual behaviour and sexual morality. There had been a gradual development towards this from the mid-century onwards, but what differentiated the late 1960s/early 1970s was the huge expansion in display, with the media central to this switch from private to public in sexual matters. The purpose of this edited collection is to examine what this involved. It covers mainstream film and television, the intersection of art and mediated sex, marginal media, hardcore and responses to sexualised media from various critics and institutions. Some essays deal with media that now seem almost forgotten. The one dealing with erotic phonograph records, for example, is something of a revelation: a whole genre of ‘blue discs’ that has until now been swept under the historical carpet, superseded of course by what became available on video, DVD and the Internet. The period covered is for the most part just 5 years – 1968–1973 – and the material drawn on relates mainly to North America. That historical and geographical delimitation neither creates a diminishment of data nor detracts from the value of the volume as a whole. It is an important contribution to late 20th century history and will be of interest to scholars in media and cultural studies as well to historians.