Birth control in the 70-80 year loop
History repeats itself.
History for several thousand years held that sex equals babies. This was simple bioligioncal fact. For the kink comunity, as well as for any alternitive sexual practice, this is unacceptabal. Before new meanings of sex can be promoted, old meanings of sex must be destroyed. Sex has to be free from any conciquences. It is the absoulte fundemental core of any sexual advocacy group.
You may think this change is always one way. Bioligical laws overthrown in the same way the law of gravity was overthrown. Gliders to airplains to jets to rockets. Each one an improvement over the last and each one breaking away further from the law of gravity. This is history repeating itself in a steady upward climb.
The history of sexual activism dosent repeat this way. History repeats itself in a loop. Every 70-80 years there is a upheavel. 9/11, the great depresion, Civial war, revolutionary war, Glorious revolution, Armada crisis, War of the roses. And it always happens that right before this upheavel, sexuality in the public eye reaches its peek. The attempt to break free from the natural law of ’sex equals babies’ has been part of these sexual peeks for hundreds of years.
I was amazed when I discovred that abortion clinics were at one time franchized in america. Come on down to Crazy Bobs abortion warehouse! Five convient locations, one near you! This blew my mind. I had always assumed that abortion has poped into existance out of nothing the instant roe vs wade passed. The notion that abortions were once handed out at big box stores absoutly floored me.
But thats the way it was. Just before the Civial War, sexuality was at the forfront of public debate. And with the attention paid to sex, came abortion clinics. Though they wernt in the form of what modern abortion clinics were. They mostly sold medication that would induce a miscarage. Some sources I have seen claim that as many as 1 in 5 pregences in this era were terminated.
The most famous ‘chain’ of clinics was that of Madame Restell in New York, Boston and Philly that in adation to selling ‘morning after pills’ also specilized in all manner of birth control.With its popularity also came a rise in the voices of oposition. Press slandred her and she was arested mutiple times.
But then the Civil war hit. Sexuality droped off the radar for several decades through the gilded age. But a sexual revolution of the gay 90s created a generation raised on alternitive thinking. They became the flapper girls of the roaring 20s.
Just before the great depresion, sexuality was at the forfront of public debate once again. Again came the chain stores selling birth control. In 1921, Margaret Sanger started the American Birth Control League. The orgnization that would later morph into Planned Parenthood. Throught the 1920s, as the sufferage movement changed womens rolls in society, Sanger crusaded the cause of birth control. With the rise of sexual issues, the oposition to those issues rose as well. Critics of Sanger were numorious and vocal. She was arested mutiple times.
But then the great depresion hit. Sexuality droped off the radar for several decades through the Ozzie and Harriet years. But a sexual revolution of the 60s created a generation raised on alternitive thinking. They became the sexed-up Madonna wannabe of the 80s and 90s.
So where are we headed? Already the slogal ‘legal but rare’ is gaining popularity. Over the next 20 or so years abortion will become less and less of an issue untill it is hardly talked about at all.
History repeats itself.