Sex in the Heartland

• Publisher:   Harvard University Press
• Number Of Pages:   304
• Publication Date:   2002-10-31
• ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0674009746
• ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780674009745

Sex in the Heartland is the story of the sexual revolution in a small university town in the quintessential heartland state of Kansas. Bypassing the oft-told tales of radicals and revolutionaries on either coast, Beth Bailey argues that the revolution was forged in towns and cities alike, as "ordinary" people struggled over the boundaries of public and private sexual behavior in postwar America.

Bailey fundamentally challenges contemporary perceptions of the revolution as simply a triumph of free love and gay lib. Rather, she explores the long-term and mainstream changes in American society, beginning in the economic and social dislocations of World War II and the explosion of mass media and communication, which aided and abetted the sexual upheaval of the 1960s. Focusing on Lawrence, Kansas, we discover the intricacies and depth of a transformation that was nurtured at the grass roots.

Americans used the concept of revolution to make sense of social and sexual changes as they lived through them. Everything from the birth control pill and counterculture to Civil Rights, was conflated into "the revolution," an accessible but deceptive simplification, too easy to both glorify and vilify. Bailey untangles the radically different origins, intentions, and outcomes of these events to help us understand their roles and meanings for sex in contemporary America. She argues that the sexual revolution challenged and partially overturned a system of sexual controls based on oppression, inequality, and exploitation, and created new models of sex and gender relations that have shaped our society in powerful and positive ways.

To begin, I need to note that if given the option I would have rated this book 3.5 stars. But since I wasn't given that option I felt this book was closer to a four star piece of work than a three star book. Bailey's main point in this book is that the sexual revolution was about more than "free love", and in fact had its roots in seemingly unrelated trends, such as the advent of mass media, interstate highways, and the growth of federal government power. Bailey does a great job in illustrating how such trends led to an environment in which the sexual revolution was possible. Her articulation of how administrators (at KU and in the army, for example) shifted from morals to practical outcomes was also very convincing. On the other hand, I do feel compelled to dock Bailey 1 (or 1.5) stars because her presentation was one-sided and often inaccurate in its portrayal of the "traditionalists". The bulk of her writing is dedicated to articulating and exploring the meaning of the various factions of the revolution. I certainly think doing this is important, especially for a book on this topic. However, Bailey fails to get into the ideology/philosophy/theology behind the "traditional" views, which causes her portrayals of those views to be simplistic and monolithic. She is too willing to accept the verdict that all of "traditional" society was oppressive to women, minorities, homosexuals, or even different world-views. I think Bailey could learn a lot from the likes of W. Bradford Wilcox or Timothy Keller, who demonstrate that most people of the "traditionalist" camp in mainstream society actually are perverting the meaning of Scripture. One example, especially pertinent to this book, would be the issue of "female subordination", as Bailey puts it. Timothy Keller, in particular, would absolutely refute that the Bible supports the subordination or oppression of women, and in fact he places a high level of emphasis on the meaning of love when the Bible commands men to "love their wives" in Ephesians. To be clear, Keller is one of the "traditional" fundamentalist conservative Christians that Bailey groups in with the rest, and I find his view of male/female relations more liberating than the views that come out of the sexual revolution. In any event, this was a valuable read that helped me put the sexual revolution in its proper historical context. For this reason I would recommend this book to those wanted to getting a better understanding of the sexual revolution, its foundations, and its principal actors.

For those looking for a very informational book about the sexual revolution from the 1940's to the 1970's, this would be a book for you to read. This book was about how the youth at this time was blogged by war, lonely because they were away from their families at college, and stressed from school work. So naturally much of the youth turned towards sex.
Beth Bailey provides the audience with a lot of factual information regarding the change in youth. Bailey did an excellent job proving that the sexual revolution of the youth wasn't just in the west or east coast. It occured in the midwest as well as small towns such as Lawrence, Kansas. As a resident of Kansas right now and a youth I found this book very interesting because my parents went through the sexual revoltuon and I had no idea. They went through the same struggles kids today go through with sex in our country. I found this book an easy read and recommend it to not just people who lived through the sexual revoltion but everyone.

This is an excellent book recommended to me by my history proffesor here at the University of Kansas. My main reason for writing this reveiw is to denounce the view of susan jordan "susan in hollywood." I cannot believe she says those things about boys from kansas. I myself am from western kansas and for someone to say that is very distrubing and really makes you wonder how she imagined such a thing being commonplace. some people should just stay in hollywood

This is a very accessible, well-written book which at the same time provides a complex analysis of American's changing attitudes and assumptions regarding sexual practices. While focusing on Lawrence, Kansas, (very useful for understanding how individuals and institutions reacted within a specific context), it says much about the country as a whole. It is refreshingly forthright without being unnecessarily salacious. And it manages to inform without taking all the fun out of the topic-quite a balancing act!

Having attended KU during the sexual revolution I really looked forward to reading this book. It is interesting to read about events you actually got to attend and to read about persons you knew at college. The writer has done a masterful job of research and certainly the book was entertaining, yet it does not capture what was going on. Young people want to have sex, and they will have sex as long as it is reasonably possible. The reason there seemed to be a sexual revolution in Lawrence at the end of the 1960s was because there were now so many more college students there. This fact, more than anything else, was the moving force behind the "revolution." As I remember college, it was a time of poverty, too much work, being away from home the first time, and loneliness and isolation. Perhaps in the fantasy world of the mass media all college students were having sex, but in the real world most of us were just trying to survive. There is sexual behavior going on everywhere, and there will be sexual behavior as long as we are human beings. But in Kansas many boys lose their virginity in whore houses in Junction City Kansas. Others utilize barnyard animals. (Sheep are best.) The fact that this dirty business is kept quiet does not mean that it does not occur. The presense of many homosexuals at KU could indicate the occurrance of a sexual revolution. It could also just as well indicate that the state itself is so repressive they flock to Lawrence for a chance to be free. I don't think the author understood this and I do not think that the book is all that intellectually significant. The kids who came up to Lawrence in 1968 and began having sex there would have been having sex had they come up in 1938. Similarly those who couldn't get laid in the 1960s would have done without at any time. Additionally the gay fringe and the counterculture were simply not representative of the student body and to compare or even discuss the two groups is to compare oranges with frogs.

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