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Bettie Page Passed Away.

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TheFuriousWombat:

--- Quote from: Ballard on 12 Dec 2008, 19:22 ---The fact that sex is no longer taboo can be attributed to her amongst others.

--- End quote ---

When did this happen? Last I checked a nipple can garner an R rating while mass slaughter can garner a PG-13. In this country, sex is very much checked and/or off limits in a lot of ridiculous ways.

Ballard:
And yet it is widely available to the public, if under various conditions (which you deem unnecessary). It is also entire acceptable to discuss amongst your friends or in a public place or standing on your own personal internet soapbox.

This is far more than one could've said 70 years ago.

KvP:
I agree with Wombat. Are we more liberated than we were in the 50's? Certainly, though probably not much more liberated than we were before the Hays Code went into effect (it's easy to think of pre-1960's women as being buttoned up and proper and Victorian, but you have to remember that after WWI and the success of the Suffrage Movement women became much more open about their sexuality, especially in the roaring 20's. They might have been conservative 70 years ago, but not 80 years ago). But the public dialogue in America regarding sexuality still comes from a place of shame and apprehension. I'd argue that the extreme lewdness you see in some facets of pop culture is actually symptomatic of repression, rather than evidence of its absence.

Is it acceptable to talk about amongst friends? Yes, but it always has been, more or less. The measure of our societal attitudes toward sex has to exist in the public domain rather than the private one. We can talk about sex in public but it's usually frowned upon, if informally. More importantly, public nudity, and public displays of affection or desire, are still strongly reviled. I remember being 15 and being totally floored when I went to Paris and the newspaper kiosks were selling lad mags with bare tits on the cover. Right there out in the open, stapled to the outside walls of the kiosk, shapely, naked breasts. You would not get away with that in America. It's considered risque to just put words of a sexual nature on the cover of a magazine here.

Caleb:
A former neighbor of mine went to France and she was totally shocked that they had stamps with classic nude paintings on them.

Lines:
I think we're more liberated than the 50s. Husband and wife don't normally sleep in separate twin beds in the same room anymore, it's okay for a woman to feel sexual without being considered a slut, and come on, sex shops are not nearly as taboo as they used to be. Sex isn't something to be ashamed of anymore. I doubt they had TV commercials of lingere in the 50s either. Somethings may still be hard to talk about, but not nearly what it was back then.

RIP Betty.

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