Nothing new under the sun

Do you remember the first time you thought about your parents having sex?

Ew.

For kids, the thought of Mom and Dad locked in clothes-less, amorous embrace brings a nearly convulsive shudder and the feeling that a shower is needed to wash off the gucky stuff. In fact, when I was a teenager, the thought of anyone older than, say, forty, ever having sex, or even ever once being naked and "doing it" was almost incomprehensible. I felt an odd supposition that sex must have been invented about twenty years ago, and all life on this planet had heretofore been delivered in the jowls of Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis; the Saddle-billed Stork.

It is thus that every generation thinks they have a monopoly on the latest fornication techniques and carnal mores. Surely, back in the day, sex between Ozzie and Harriet was a strictly missionary affair; every woman a virgin prior to marriage, every man a nervous, fumbling fornicator, whose only intercourse came in the pursuit of conception. Oh, maybe there were exceptions, ala Don Juan and Casanova, but the lack of casual sex is precisely why these men became infamous – because their kind was so rarely seen.

If you were to walk the streets and ask people at random, "When did America's sexual revolution occur", (although I don't suggest you do, at least not in Kansas), the answer would surely and invariably be "the sixties". After all, that's when conventional wisdom says that it happened. Between the advent of birth control pills, the changing of the country's values, and the British rock invasion, Free Love became the law of the land.

Women who slept with dozens of men a year weren't seen as sluttish; they were just "expressing themselves" or "spreading their love around". Men who slept with anything that moved weren't viewed as pigs; they were just "living for the times" or "making love, not war" perhaps.

So clearly, the sexual revolution as we know it supervened about forty years ago ... right?

In reality, the sexual revolution transpired much earlier than that. Maybe there have been several revolutions throughout history. Not having lived for the last 1,425 years – and not having accurate historical data on this subject – I really couldn't say for certain. But I do know that life during the 1920's was shockingly similar to today in many ways, but none so striking as the amount of sex people were having during that decade.

That's right; people were drinking like sailors on shore leave (despite prohibition), snorting coke like supermodels in Studio 55 and banging each other like porn stars short on rent money. Who knew?

No wonder they're called "The Roaring Twenties".

Eerily similar to the sixties, several sociological factors simultaneously came into play during this time. There were young, single men returning from WWI to a hero's welcome, with an equal bevy of young, single women to greet them. Mass produced motion pictures were the technological advance of the day, creating entertainment for the masses and a new category of celebrity; the movie star. Fashion, especially women's, transformed radically from Victorian conservative to flirty flapper. Socially, the changed mirrored those of the sixties; a women's movement resulted in new rights, race relations were at issue with "the Monkey Trial". And a new musical form known as jazz was sweeping the nation.

And of course, a sexual innovation fueled the wonton copulation of the masses. While condoms had been in existence in various forms for hundreds of years, it wasn't until the 1920's when the latex condom became available to the average Joe on the street.

Then comes the alcohol. Ironically, booze was illegal through then entire decade, yet few eras are more characterized by people getting wasted off their asses. My guess is that prohibition fueled another classic American trait, rebellion. Oh, you're going to make drinking alcohol against the law, are you, asshole? Really? Well guess what. We'll drink more than we ever did before!

Drinking went underground and begat the rise of the speakeasy, which only increased the feeling of being naughty. Patrons were secured away in hidden, cozy barrooms, drinking bathtub gin or mafia whiskey, carousing in the wee hours of the night, away from the prying eyes of Johnny Law. Cocaine had been in use for years, and people were just beginning to snort it, giving an immediate, intense effect. Mix those three factors together with various members of the opposite sex, and guess what? You've got Animal House, in the time of Warren Harding.

Sheiks and Shebas – the hunks and hotties of yesteryear – were doing the premarital Devil's business like never before. Of course, people did all this stuff before, but what separates the twenties from previous decades was the amount - and type - of person engaging in these activities. Instead of "those people" doing "those things", middle class America was markedly and enthusiastically romping around without shame or concern from the judging public at large. It was acceptable.

So much for government-issued morality.

If you doubt that America could have really been like that, consider the art from this time. Lady Chatterly's Lover was the book du jour, with it's tales of sexuality that would be right at home in the 21st century. Burlesque shows were rampant. The first pornography was being filmed. Sex was everywhere.

There are countless other similarities between the twenties and today, which just goes to show that the more things chance the more they really do stay the same. People were enthralled at their new toys like the florescent alarm clock, the Ford Model T and the hair dryer. Today, just replace those items with the iPod, the Lexus and the cell phone, and you've got the exact same dynamic. People were concerned with racial tension 90 years ago, and today, Crash wins best picture.

And of course, people liked to get a little nookie back then, and they like to get laid today. Has it ever really been any different?

Nope. There's nothing new under the sun.

Evan Redmon is a freelance writer and editor. He has lived in Washington, DC for most of his life, with seven years of college down the drain in Madison, WI and four and a half years of doing nothing in particular in Boulder, CO. He has visited 39 of the 50 states in the Union (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) and can be reached at evanredmon@yahoo.com.