The Thousands

Sheesh it was struggle to get some in the fifties! No-one was having sex except married couples on their anniversary. This was the downer period before the sixties arrived on a tie-dye magic carpet with the pill and bushy pubic hair. Or so says Encyclopaedia Britannica. If you want the real story check out Obie Benz and Joshua Waletzky‘s classic documentary, The Sexual Revolution, also known as Heavy Petting. It is a devious concoction of unbelievably unhelpful sex-ed videos from the fifties and interviews with iconic artists and performers.**Sandra Bernhard, David Byrne and William S. Burroughs lived these repressed times and recount their embarrassments and more or less complete reliance on masturbation. Who can blame them when advice of the era included such gems as, "Controlled, the sex impulse, like the horse, may be a source of power and service." And you thought your adolescence was tortured.