Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution

Sexuality has been reframed by postmodernism, but this clear discussion of literature, politics, and popular culture provides a useful historical view. The sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s is remembered as a time of great freedom for women, but did the sexual revolution have the same goals as the Women’s Liberation Movement? Was it truly liberation for women or just another insidious form of oppression? This provocative book argues that sexual freedom sometimes directly opposed actual freedom for women. Tracing sexual mores and attitudes from the 1950s through the 1990s, it explores the nature of both straight and gay relationships and offers original and compelling commentary on The Joy of Sex, Lolita, Naked Lunch, and other representations in the literature on sexuality. Newly updated, this edition provides an important critique and insight into these controversial issues.