The Permissive Society 1951/79 - Society in Transition 1918 - 1979

1959

Liberal laws

1961

Obscene Publications Act - This Act allowed ‘serious works of art’ to use ‘obscene’ words and imagery - the Act recognised a greater public openness to sexual imagery, but only at an elite level - it was only in 1977 that the law was extended to include films

1965

Suicide Act - decriminalized the act of suicide in England and Wales so that those who failed in the attempt to kill themselves would no longer be prosecuted

1967

Murder (abolition of the Death Penalty) Act - Abolished the death penalty - the last person to be hanged in Britain was Ruth Ellis in 1955. Passed because a majority of MPs had eventually been convinced by a long campaign carried out by politicians - the majority of the British public remained in favour of capital punishment

1967

Sexual offences Act - decriminalised homosexual acts in private between two men over the age of 21. Support for the law grew not because homosexuality was being accepted, but because many saw being gay as an illness, which undermined the view that it should be a punishable crime.

1967

Abortion Act - legalised abortions and provided them through the NHS. The Act was introduced by David Steel. During the debate Steel focused on the high number of deaths and injuries that resulted from dangerous ‘back street’ abortions (roughly 40 death in 1966) rather than the moral issue of abortion.

1968

Family Planning Act - Made the pill available on the NHS

1969

Why the laws weren’t necessarily evidence of a more liberal society:

o   Demand for these laws came not from the people but from MP’s - Roy Jenkins supported many liberal reforms

o   Often these laws were the result of long campaigns that had existed far before the ‘swinging 60s’ - pressure for reform of the laws on homosexuality went back as far as 1890

o   Often these laws went against the views of the British public - the majority of people remained in favour of capital punishment after the 1965 Murder Act, and support for it even grew during the mid 1960s, due to public horror at the crimes of the Moors Murderers (Hindley and Brady). In 1945, just over 60% had favoured the death penalty, but this had risen to 70% by 1970

o   These laws were often passed due to the impractical consequences of current legislation, rather than due to moral issues - e.g. Abortion Act passed to limit number of deaths/injuries due to backstreet abortions

A more sexual society?

Did Britain experience more liberal attitudes toward sex, marriage and divorce between 1951-79?

Evidence For

Evidence Against

·       WW2 undermined traditional values by seperating husbands and wives, promoting sex outside marriage and encouraging divorce - divorces peaked in 1947 ·       A number of post-war books helped promote more liberal attitudes towards sexuality ·       Alfred Kinglsy’s book Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female undermined the moral condemnation of sex before marriage ·       1959 Obscene Publications Act and 1968 Theatres Act allowed more ‘obscene’ sexual content to be published in Britain ·       Dr Alex Comforts 1972 book The Joy of Sex was sexually explicit and illustrated, it dealt with sex as a pleasure in its own right, and was a bestseller ·       In 1974 the softcore porn film Emmanuelle became the first adult film to be shown in British theatres - it was the fourth most popular film in 1974 ·       People became far more tolerant of sex before marriage - by 1990 less than 1% of first sexual intercourse took place after marriage

·       Mass Observation reports suggest women who had wartimes affairs saw them as a product of difficult circumstances, and happily returned to their husbands after the war had ended - the divorce rate fell after 1947 ·       Two major studies - The Sexual Behaviour of Young People (1965) and Sex and Marriage in England Today (1971) - suggest the notions of a ‘sexual revolution’ in Britain are hugely exaggerated ·       The Sexual Behaviour of Young People found that only 18% of girls and 10% of boys in his sample of teenagers had had sex with more than 3 people, and that only 17% of girls and 33% of boys had had sex before the age of 19 ·       Sex and Marriage in England Today found that 96% of women and 95% of men were marriage before 45, and that the average age of marriage for women fell below 23 in 1970, down from 25 in 1946

Overall - Sex certainly became a less taboo subject, and sexual content became far more acceptable to read, view and discuss, attitudes to sex changed somewhat, with sex before marriage becoming more normalised, however there was not significant change in peoples sexual behaviour and promiscuity remained far from normal.

Changing attitudes to homosexuality

Was homosexuality more accepted?

Evidence for

Evidence against

o   The high-profile trial of Lord Montagu and journalist Peter WIldeblood (both convicted) led to growing public perception that the state should not be able to regulate what two consenting adults do in private - the Sunday Times wrote in 1954 ‘the law… is not in accord with a large mass of public opinion’ o   The 1967 Sexual Offences Act legalised sexual relations in private between men aged 21+ o   A British branch of the Gay Liberation Front was set up in 1971 o   In the 70s a number of men made ‘camp’ behaviour acceptable on TV - e.g. Larry Grayson, who had catchphrases like ‘What a gay day’, and ‘Seems like a nice boy’ o   In 1975 ITV screened The Naked Civil Servant, a film about the flamboyant gay writer Quentin Crisp o   In the 1970s leading popstars Elton John and David Bowie admitted to being bisexual o   1976 Tom Robinson released the single ‘Glad to be Gay’ which reached no. 18 on the charts

o   In the mid-50s over a thousand men were imprisoned on the basis of their sexuality o   A poll in 1963 revealed that 93% of the public thought that homosexuality was an illness o   Even after the 1967 Act, it remained illegal to ‘solicit’ homesexual acts (i.e. to seek them in a public place) o   The number of men arrested for ‘public indecency’ trebled between 1967 and 1972 o   ‘Camp’ tv stars like Larry Grayson and John Inman publically denied being gay - Grayson told the Daily Mirror he just pretended to be gay

Overall - By the 70s there are some cultural signs homosexuality was more accepted, particularly in the media, however it was not until the early 2000s that most British people felt it was not wrong to be gay

Opposition to the permissive society

Margaret Thatcher

·       Became increasingly outspoken about her disdain for the permissive society and her fears for standards of public decency

·       1970 Finchley Press interview - ‘I should like to see a reversal of the permissive society’

·       Complained in 1977 ‘basic Christian values… are under attack’

Mary Whitehouse

·       Took a stance against the damage done to British moral by the media

·       Criticised Hugh Carleton-Green, Director General of the BBC from 1960-69, blaming him for the growth of liberal, permissive values on television

·       Her Clean-Up TV petition in 1964 gained 500 000 signatures

·       Launched National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association (NVALA) in 1965

·       1977 launched a legal battle against magazine Gay News for publishing a ‘blasphemous’ poem - she won her case, the magazine owner was fined and given a suspended sentence

·       1977 book - ‘Whatever Happened to Sex’ said ‘being gay was like having acne’

·       Campaigned against pornography - may have influenced the government’s 1981 decision to force sex shops to have black-out windows

The Nationwide Festival of Light

·       Hyde Park 1971

·       Staged to promote Christian morality

·       Rally was supported by famous figures like Cliff Richard

·       The Event inspired over 70 other regional rallies

·       Events attracted crowds of over 100 000 people